Black music prof quits Harvard in colonialist spat

The jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding has resigned as professor of practice in Harvard’s music department over what she describes as its failure ‘to restructure and remediate the historical and lingering colonial impacts of this institution.’

Spalding, a five-time Grammy winner, wrote: ‘I am no longer willing to endorse a cultural norm whereby artists & artist-educators passively participate-in, and benefit-from institutions born and bolstered through the justification, and/or ongoing practice of exploiting and destroying Black and Native life.’

Her Black Artist-Educators Decolonizing and Placemaking (BAEDAP) model failed to gain faculty support, it seems. She has been at Harvard for five years. Dean of arts Robin Kelsey said: ‘She is an incandescent artist who inspired our students and taught our communities in ways I will never forget.’

More here.