When does a sound, even music, become noise? Is it the volume, time of day, type of sound, location, relationship of the listener to the sound, personal taste, personal needs, race of the listener, race of the sound maker?

I well recall how the girl across the hall in my freshman dorm put a penny on the tone arm of her record player so that it played Bob Dylan singing “Lay, Lady, Lay” loudly over and over and over and over. And then there was the incident of a resident of a town blaring opera back across the street at a fraternity when disturbed by the loud rock music filling the neighborhood.

These are annoyances, matters of musical preference, and cases where one’s sound of choice spills over into the wider environment without sufficient regard for others. But loud music can uncover much more about how people feel about one another.

The music of others can expose or trigger instances of racism and discrimination and highlight a sensitive issue that has been called the sonic color line. Jennifer Stoever, Associate Professor of English at State University of New York (SUNY) Binghamton and author of a book examining.

the relationship between race and sound in America (The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening nyupress.org/books/9781479889341/), captured my interest during an interview segment on To the Best of Our Knowledge on National Public Radio (ttbook.org/interview/can-you-hear-segregation-and-intolerance).

In this interview, Stoever focuses on ways where sound, often music, has been used to rationalize violence or reflect power. An early incident piqued her interest in sound, race, and power when she was waiting for a bus in downtown Los Angeles late at night. She became aware of loud classical music and discovered that it was being piped into the doorways of a large building. Upon reflection, she realized the music was being played to dissuade homeless people from sleeping in those doorways. The classical music, though loud, was acceptable to the white building owners.

Gentrification often brings sonic prejudice into the light. In New York City, a large building near Harlem was made into condos and the new, largely white, residents began making complaints to the police about the noise of a drum circle that had been playing in the nearby park for decades.

Picture a gas station at night. As cars come and go, the sound level of traffic and radios vary. In Florida, a white man was at a gas station when a car full of teens of color, radio loudly playing rap music, pulled in. The man told the teens to turn it down, they refused. He ended up shooting and killing one of the teens. Over music. Music that would drive away in a few minutes.

The stories go on and on.

Sonic prejudice. What unnoticed assumptions do we each hold about how shared spaces should sound? What governs decisions on whose sound of choice is ruled acceptable? Who needs to accommodate whom?

Take 15 minutes to listen to the full segment (see the website link above) and ponder. What does sonic inclusiveness look and sound like? What does it feel like? How can we create and sustain it, respecting all?