Black music prof quits Harvard in colonialist spat
NewsThe 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.
And what did she think she was joining when she signed up? Harvard Community College?
Ah… the leftist social justice warrior circular firing squad. So delicious!
Speaking of a circular firing squad.
Music professor calls his black dad racist for liking Bach
https://www.thecollegefix.com/music-professor-calls-his-black-dad-racist-for-liking-bach/
“Tenure, Ewell drew out, is “the citizenship of the music academia world.” Tenured professors do not want their studies and positions potentially undermined by a reframing of the discipline. “They want to believe it’s the KKK and that’s it,” Ewell noted with heavy sincerity. He brought up his own Black father’s white supremacy as a counterargument; the hierarchies he imposed entailed white supremacy by definition, and Ewell bore witness to them firsthand.
Ewell called this phenomenon the “concentric circles of white supremacy” – the way it radiates from its crux into the hidden corners and crawl-spaces of everyday life, all the way from burnt crosses on lawns down into a Black man’s deification of Bach.”
His dad fell for the “white supremacy” trap, Ewell argued.
For these insights on racism in music, he won an award from Yale, at one time a good university.
Industrial strength envy and resentment will mine and dust-up the most insulting terms for convenient weaponry. Who would want kudos and success when you can harbor grievance? Seriously, now.
Ah, Yale is no longer a good university because someone there gave an award to someone that a skewed right wing blog told you was unworthy. Got it.
And with that, you fall into the right wing media trap wherein you believe that some weird anecdote by some nobody faculty member is somehow a widely held and mainstream idea. And moreover that you should be furious about it. Good job.
Yale has always had a bigger name than the quality of its music department. Despite having a mostly no-name faculty, its money and proximity to New York made it a viable alternative for graduate degrees. In fact, I think they have no music degree for undergrads.
And now for more of what Ewell actually said (from the source, not a right-leaning rag):
“His father, a Black intellectual who attended Morehouse University with Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1948, was “committed to excellence” for himself and his children. In the mid-20th century, Ewell explained over Zoom, the conceptions of excellence by which he was surrounded were deeply intertwined with ideals of whiteness and maleness.
One was not supposed to admit such a notion aloud; instead, it was safer to put forth “that Mozart and Beethoven were simply the best composers on the planet,” Ewell stated. He does not believe his father ever blatantly made those connections; they had ingrained themselves into his notions of what classical music ought to be.”
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2022/11/11/profile-philip-ewell-01-the-cellist-shaping-music-theorys-racial-reckoning/
Perhaps you agree that racism is only the KKK?
Inevitable, like the day following the night.
“Under the BAEDAP model, Harvard would “rematriate” some of its land and buildings, offering them as spaces where “Black and Native artists, scholars, students, activists, and cultural workers,” as well as the broader Harvard and surrounding community, could collaborate and make art.”
Harvard’s colonialists n imperialists can tolerate a lot of bullshit from these blowhards of color, even pay them $$$ to shut them up or give them professorships. But to “rematriate” its land n buildings, hell no! That’s gone too far. Giving lip service to woke manure is one thing, but touching the world’s largest university endowment…you are out of your mind.
Oh, come on now – that’s what the Bolsheviks did so successfully. They just ran out of body bags.
Her name is Esperanza.
… che delude sempre.
What’s the meaning of all that? Go to work, folks.
Bye Felicia!
Brilliant, terse, and definitive, this is the best of all possible responses. It’s a drop-the-mike statement that makes clear that no matter how highly one thinks of themselves, no one is indispensable. It needs to be the standard riposte when leftists throw puerile fits and leave or threaten to.
C’mon, Norman, it says right there in the *first sentence* of the linked article that esperanza spalding does not capitalize her name.
Harvard must have disrespected her in many ways, just as you have with her name.
The situation is obviously more than a “colonialist spat”, as you so flippantly put it. It’s ingrained, endemic, systematic racism, is what it is.
Everything else is satisfactory, though, isn’t it??!!! Is there anything else we can do for you?
You go Greg Bottini! Way to defend someone who desperately needs your help quitting a posh DEI gig!
Wow. It really surprises me that so many racism-deniers are commenting on this post.
But on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, given the histories of the USA and the former British Empire (the two entities which, I presume, have the most readers of the written-in-English SlippeDisc).
You obviously don’t know much about racism in other countries,
Remind me: which country is the only one in the history of the world to have fought a civil war to end slavery? Hmmm…and btw, slavery is still blazing away in a few corners of the world (but don’t mention where).
systemic **
This guy has to be a troll. Doesn’t capitalize her name? *eye roll*
She’s not wrong about Harvard’s roots.
I’m glad she’s doing well enough that she can afford to walk away from a gig at Harvard, and that maybe she’ll be able to continue her work at a less exclusive institution.
Thank you for the one and only balanced thought here, made without racing to one side of the net, or the other.
Several prestigious universities are probably already courting her.
Harvard needs her more than she needs Harvard. She’s a star in the improvised music world. And she’s still just getting started.
There must be some middle way between locking up mentally disabled in institutions and appointing them professors.
Good for Harvard. On one hand, she’s essentially a musical blackmailer and they didn’t budge.
The other, a shame because she’s also a great artist!
Musicians need to check their politics at the door.
I think the preferred term is “African American mailer” 😉
Three words: good and riddance.
Classical music is the creation of European culture. Like ballet, opera, painting, sculpture, etc. I described what can be called the only culture worth its name in the history of civilization, and it is being destroyed in America by woke ignorant neo- Marxist savages.
Classical European music was invented in Europe, no disagreement. But you also add painting and sculpture to your “West only” list. Have you ever heard of China? India? Japan? Iran? The Arab world? Benin? The list could go on. I am definitely a fan of our European cultural achievement, but to call them “the only culture worth its name in the history of civilization” doesn’t pass the laugh test.
Good on her for standing up for her community!! I applaud her.
She could only have developed this critique through her white education. She is fully indoctrinated in the white, English speaking, culture of privilege. Start by abandoning the English language colonization of the mind. English is the essence of racism. Out damn spot. Run. Escape. It’s everywhere. Look at these words. Help! It’s like the Blob, it sticks to everything and absorbs you into its featureless mass.
The SD comments section has become a rallying point for racist expressions about blacks. There is much to consider and discuss in Spalding’s stance, but in this atmosphere it is embarrassing to even participate other than to note that.
Disagreeing (yes, even sarcastically) with an opinion by a black person is now racist. Good to know:)
Some of the comments above:
“woke ignorant neo- Marxist savages”
“a musical blackmailer”
“there must be some middle way between locking up mentally disabled in institutions and appointing them professors”
“blowhards of color…”
No further comment about the racism here necessary.
“there must be some middle way between locking up mentally disabled in institutions and appointing them professors”
What my comment has to do with colour? I would have said exact the same thing were the person white, Asian or whatever. You must have an enormous abundance of racist cards.
Oh Serge, I’m sure William will tell you that your systemic racism is so ingrained that it manifests itself without being spoken.
When one side’s argument is so absurd on the face of it, ridicule can be appropriate.
That’s right. We’re learning that we mustn’t disagree. More virtue-signaling from white, upper class, highly educated, armchair activists.
“Her departure comes after multiple conversations with University officials about implementing her ‘Black Artist-Educators Decolonizing and Placemaking (BAEDAP)’ model, which she envisioned as either a course or initiative.
BAEDAP “works to devolve portions of colonial institutions’ holdings, and through doing so, help heal their impact-on, and relationships to, communities of color.” Under the BAEDAP model, Harvard would ‘rematriate’ some of its land and buildings, offering them as spaces where ‘Black and Native artists, scholars, students, activists, and cultural workers,’ as well as the broader Harvard and surrounding community, could collaborate and make art.”
I would not care to be the President of Harvard charged with evicting whomever was currently using the facilities that were to be “rematriated”. Reparations are a rather fraught subject, impossible to manage without empathy on both sides.
She will never have a more prestigious post. Pretty stupid on her part.
Civilization, universities, liberties: hard to build, easy to tear down.
All too easy.
What or where is the ‘colony’ in question? Who owns it? And what is ‘colonial’ music?
Good riddance. In other words, she couldn’t do a legit job of it.
I think her statement needs a “sic” or two.
Give her a one-way ticket for a flight to Liberia….