Music theory is white. According to the Society for Music Theory’s “Annual Report on Membership Demographics” for 2018, 84.2% of the society’s membership is white, 90.4% of all full-time employees in music theory are white, and 93.9% of associate and full professors in music theory are white.

Aside from this literal version, there exists a figurative and even more deep-seated whiteness in music theory. This is the whiteness—which manifests itself in the composers we choose to represent our field inside and outside of the classroom, and in the music theorists that we elevate to the top of our discipline—that one must practice, regardless of one’s own personal racial identity, in order to call oneself a music theorist.