Abstract
Abstract This chapter examines auditory racism via the concepts of the sonic colour line and the listening ear and details its fundamental, deeply-rooted impact on what is called ‘sound art’. As the sonic colour line sorts ‘good’ listeners from ‘bad’, the curatorial listening ear—the disciplinary mode of white listening operating as the sonic colour line’s ready attendant—thoroughly permeates the exhibition, review, and scholarship of sound art, particularly in three areas: the field’s origin story, the pointed rejection of self-identified black diasporic aesthetics, and a refusal to hear critique on these grounds. In addition to auditing prior scholarship, I challenge previous renderings of ‘sound art’ via close and historically-contextualized analysis of artworks by Camille Norment, Betye Saar, Mendi + Keith Obadike, and Jennie C. Jones.
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