There was a "trending" tweet that caught my attention recently which supposedly concluded that Ludwig van Beethoven was in fact a black man who used white powder and doubles to conceal his true racial identity. Is there actually any semblance of academic discourse about his descent or is it just a crackpot conspiracy theory.
This has been a popular subject of discussion for a while now, and has specifically popped up again recently because of a viral article claiming that he was black. We have received a few questions along these lines in the past few hours; please see my answer to one of them here.