Jazz prof is on sick leave after student boycott
NewsWe hear that London jazz professor Martin Speake went on sick leave today after students boycotted his classes at TrinityLaban, Guildhall and the Royal Academy of Music. They are demanding his dismissal.
The protest was triggered by a private email that Speake had written to the principal and head of music at TrinityLaban, questioning aspects of its inclusivity agenda. We have seen the email and some of its contents may be interpreted as counter-cultural. Speake’s email, which was not intended for public perusal, ends with a quote from Martin Luther King who ‘famously called on us to judge people according to the content of their character not the colour of their skin.’
Some students claimed that the content of the email affected their mental health.
The college management held a meeting today with student representatives.
It’s tense out there.
More hogwash from the woke brigade.
I am still not entirely clear what has been said here. “Counter-cultural”: does that mean not falling into lockstep with the new BLM orthodoxies?
I quiver to think if any of the members of “college management” have the cojones to stand up for logic and reasonableness, let alone freedom of speech, in the face of people who think a college’s responsibility is to provide them with a “safe space” (by which they mean one in which their half-assed ideas are never challenged) rather than a good, tough education.
A man who calls upon the words and thought of Dr. King — and this was one of the things I was thinking of when I made reference to him on a post on another thread — is unlikely to be a racist. It’s time normal healthy blacks ad their supporters realised that the philosophies of BLM and its ilk are light years away from the philosophies of Dr. King, only the man who galvanised a nation, changed a lot of hidebound attitudes and got government behind them.
“normal healthy blacks”? As opposed to …?
Without knowing the context in which MLK was quoted, it is hard to say what it proves about Mr Speake’s views.
From what I can glean, he might have been saying that black students were being admitted because of the colour of their skin, not because of their ability, and white white applicants were discriminated against. If that is what he said, quoting MLK in support, I can see why black students would be outraged.
I don’t know what NL means by ‘counter-cultural’, but perhaps it would be healthier to wait until the email is made public before rushing to judgement.
In the US, many white right wingers are using MLK’s remarks for cross purposes, in other words, to insist at that we discontinue affirmative action and the like. They are putting a false meaning on his words, it is disingenuous at best and racist at worst. That is NOT what MLK meant when he made that speech.
Then what do you think MLK meant in that speech?
As a left-winger I says its time to end affirmative action forever
“We have seen the email and some of its contents may be interpreted as counter-cultural.”
Would you please feed the email contents into ChatGPT and ask it to determine what parts are inflammatory. Post the results here, thanks Norm.
Students should not have the right to dismiss their professor. If these institutes don’t man up and discipline these students, it sets a dangerous precedent for the future.
This comment shows how old you are Anonymous. Student course feedback is a standard procedure at any American University, and it has been this way for decades. This is not the military, and students rightly expect and dictate what they want from the school. And what precedent? The fact that schools change due to feedback and cultural shifts? That ship has sailed since the dawn of human civilization. Your conservatism is staggering in that it is based on zero sense of reality.
Thet are “students”. They need to behave in a manner that takes account of the fact that they are there to learn, understand and develop their views and knwledge. Have their prejudices and pre-conceived ideas challenged.
I’m struggling to comprehend where feedback and boycotting overlap. Regardless of this, if students have ideas and notions they want to discuss, conversation doesn’t happen if you remove any disagreement. Schooling is designed to develop critical thinking; not nurturing this will be more like the end of human civilisation.
‘man up’, ‘discipline’. I think we see where you are coming from.
A healthy grown up’s “mental health” should not be affected by a teacher’s written statement, no matter how offensive it is.
A healthy grown up should not need to go on sick leave no matter how offended others are by his email. Sounds like the reaction of a snowflake ….
I assumed it was a euphemism. Some people call it gardening leave. Lets him be absent while the college administrators, who already seem to have picked sides, decide how to proceed.
Tell the snowflakes to grow up.
Say that once again to all the snowflakes in this comment section being triggered over a letter they’ve not even read!
The real quote was, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” which may or may not impart a different nuance of expectations than Professor Saxophone’s version.
So, his email “contained, allegedly, ‘harmful and defamatory narratives about black musicians in the jazz industry.’”?
I’ve certainly witnessed college professors venturing far beyond their portfolio into real dumbness, but I’d be curious to know what was really said to be able to make sense of it all, to figure out if or why he was expounding narratives about musicians who are not his students(?) for some reason.
Why are Western people of authority such boneless wonders when confronted by these gormless twits whose oh so fragile mental states experience PTSD from an email? Just tell them to pack up n leave if they can’t deal with it, with no refunds. And shut the front door on the way out. There are plenty of eager students willing to take their place. You will never find this kind of nonsensical depravity in the East.
“Some students claimed that the content of the email affected their mental health.”
Send the students to a headshrinker and keep the teacher. Those administrators who don’t agree should go to the shrinker too.
As I observed in another thread (about a rise in mental ill health cases), the concept of mental health is being stretched so that ordinary cases of being worried or upset are now being classified as cases of damaged mental health.
A typical case of woke absurdism.
The petition where it’s all about, does not quote anything of the supposedly harmful expressions of mr Speake, except of a vague description:
“Martin’s behaviour undermines the contributions of black musicians and the idea that black musicians are overrepresented in the jazz industry overlooks the systemic barriers and challenges that black artists continue to face in the music industry.”
The insanity of the petition text can hardly be overstated.
If black musicians are indeed in an overwhelming majority in jazz, there would be no reason to complain about ‘systemic barriers and challenges that black artists continue to face in the music industry’, as far as jazz is concerned. It is like saying: yes, we are in the majority, because we are superior and are always being discriminated against in the field.
As long as the full email of mr Speake’s apparently harmful email message is not published, all that can be done is to try to understand the petition text. It seems that mr Speake has complained that black musicians are over-represented in the jazz field, i.e. non-black musicians are supposed to get less chances, i.e. are discriminated against in the field. Imagine he claimed there were a form of inverted racism going-on in jazz: ‘you are white so you cannot be as good as we are, we are superior in jazz’. If this were the case and he objected, and therefore quoted M L: King, then it would be absurd to protest and ask for his dismissal. Because he would merely have shown to be a normal person.
In this way, the petition would be a case of serious racism, and the students who complained should be dismissed, instead of the teacher.
His comments affected some students “mental health”……….what a load of wusses there must be at the institution if they can’t cope with someone who may disagree with their views. The college management should have told the students to grow a pair and then ****off and get back to practising their instrument!
Hello! Some clarification as there is some misinformation on this post. The email wasn’t leaked. Martin sent the email to a student and then when other students asked, he consented for it to be shared with the student body. If one reads the full content of the email conversation, this is made clear by Trinity’s head of music, who posted Martin’s email. As well as quoting Martin Luther King, Martin’s email also stated there was a “war on whiteness”, and stated that several of my very talented and capable black teachers were only there to fill quotas (which in my opinion was pretty sad to read, especially as a black student at Trinity who aspires to teach), as well as a tributing the success of some of his black former students to this anti-white agenda. I as a student, don’t want to be EXAMINED by a man who obviously believes black artists have a conspiratorial advantage. I want my playing to be evaluated not by the colour of my skin but on the content of my music. Although Martin may have quoted Dr King, the whole email left me unconvinced that, this would happen under Martin’s tutorage. This is my own decision and maybe the fact that multiple students feel this way after reading it points not to the cancel culture mentality of students, but our free choice not to engage with teachers who are due to their beliefs, unable to perform their jobs.
On top of this Martin’s classes were canceled before most students we knew of the email. Martin directly appealed to students, while Trinity went through due process, for support about an email which we didn’t know about. I think that we should recognize that in any institution, a teacher reaching out to progress their own professional career and using uninformed students to do so was unprofessional and if done in any other educational setting would be a massive safeguarding issue. Especially when he was harassing students during early hours of the morning to secure his position. I am able to evidence all these claims and would love to help those who actually want to know more.
Although I’m sure these facts were left out unintentionally, it is very dangerous to create a false narrative villanizing students who are just trying to learn. Many thanks and have a good day!
It is so heartening to see this generation of students taking responsibility for their learning and brave enough to stand up for yourselves to confront ill treatment and injustice. Many years ago, music students were far too cowardly and intimidated to defend themselves, fearing for their grades and careers. But that snowflake era would appear to be over with students much more willing to flex their collective muscle and not tolerate anything less than the highest ethical standards.
Good luck to you and your student colleagues.
Hey there I would love know more possible.
I’m ‘Kwabs’ on Instagram if you wanna message
I’m an ex-jazz student from RAM and this topic has been in my daily conversations since last Thursday!
Yes, it’s a very poor post on this site, and seems to be eliciting a sorry stream of people moaning about ‘wokeism’ (irony upon irony…).
Basic facts. Email was openly shared. Missing that basic point rather undermines anything else here, particularly the ‘countercultural’ imaginative stretch.
I don’t understand what is happening here. What do you mean “counter-cultural”? Why is it not possible to share the email, which he allegedly gave permission to be shared with other students?
I also cannot understand why the central email was not provided to this thread. Instead, we are left floundering, with the (unnecessary) task of trying to guess it’s contents in order to make sense of the situation.
These students don’t deserve someone of the calibre of Martin Speake.
Egregious misuse of the phrase “countercultural”!
Wow, just wow. Skin is really thin out there amongst the college/university level students today. I fear for our future.
Thank you for being the one place where I can read the entire letter, posted here by a commenter on one of SD’s items a few days ago. This man did not write that Black people are overrepresented in jazz. He wrote that they are not under-represented in jazz. And he said that to the degree there is under-representation of them in classical music this is a class/income issue that applies for all races.
He also wrote that in jazz if there is under-representation it is of White people, and that in jazz, Black people are promoted, awarded, and hired based on color due to the desire of institutions to trumpet their diversity. You can agree or disagree with those assertions, and you can debate those assertions. But where is the vile, hateful bigotry and exclusion that merits destroying this man’s career, and probably his life?
Here are links to reviews by the Guardian of some very cool and innovative work by this person. This situation seems like a tragedy.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/mar/02/martin-speake-duos-for-trio-the-music-of-bela-bartok-review-pumpkin
https://www.allaboutjazz.com/martin-speake-the-thinking-fans-saxophonist-martin-speake-by-duncan-heining
I just read the (in)famous email from Martin Speake. Is THIS what created all this brouhaha and “trauma”? There isn’t one single racist word in his email. His “guilt” is that he doesn’t bow to the new gods of our era, BLM CRT ETC He doesn’t use “approved” language and dares to have opinions based on his assessing the reality surrounding him.
Incidentally, and perhaps ironically, the overreaction in his attempted virtual lynching by the “oppressed” gives credence to the facts exposed in this email.
Professor Speake, for what it’s worth, has ALL my respect. The new Maoist Red Guards, with their mob mentality, reenacted struggle sessions, and lynching propensities, don’t.
Also, SHAME on the cowardly, opportunistic principal for enabling the abuse brainwashed teenagers feel entitled to inflict on their betters.
We understand that Mr Speake made the email public and was happy for it to be shared and forwarded. We’ve read the email and are 100% behind the students. It’s to our surprise that news updates like this are being published without full disclosure of the facts. If you cannot provide all the information, then please stay away from leading comments.
Quoting MLK is not white-washing racist statements.
People who insist the email was “racist” forget that now we could ALL read it. Accusing a professor with NORMAL, equalitarian views of racism is absurd, slanderous, and incredibly petty. Before attempting to destroy the livelihood of their betters, the brainwashed young loudmouths should do a long, LONG soul search into themselves. Martin Speake is a great artist, an incomparable teacher, and a genuinely dedicated musician, not a disgusting, demagogic BLM activist.
The Martin Speake email:
Dear Aleks and Anthony
I began writing this last year but after another BLM reference and email from Anthony recently I have been prompted to add more to this response and send this as you have asked for feedback. Regarding your statements on inclusivity and Kaleidoscope: Celebrating Black British Music and now BLM at Trinity.
I would like to discuss this whole issue at some point as black musicians in jazz and many other styles of music are definitely not under-represented in the UK and have far more opportunities than many others as funding bodies, media, promoters and festivals are biased in this way. Some white musicians deliberately have black musicians in their band to help them get gigs rather than thinking who is musically suitable and are too scared to speak out about this issue as they will be labelled ‘racist’.
I and many others find it very hard to get concerts particularly at festivals because of this agenda that is now going on throughout the UK. I realise it comes from the government and above and all institutions and companies are being instructed in this way throughout the UK and many countries worldwide or they won’t get their funding maybe?
Why is it relevant what colour the skin is?
You mention systemic inequality. This is just not the case in my department. Also why hire somebody because of the colour of their skin?
Which black composers in Jazz are underrepresented? Can you tell me?
Several below have OBE or MBE’s. Hardly not recognised by the system.
Certainly not Byron Wallen, Soweto Kinch, Peter Edwards, Jason Yarde, Xhosa Cole, Nubya Garcia, Tony Kofi, Sultan Stevenson, Ezra Collective, Courtney Pine, Ayanna Witter Johnson, Shabaka Hutchins, Moses Boyd, Cassie Kinoshi, Binker Golding, Daniel Casimir, Mark Kavuma, Tomorrow’s Warriors, Nu Civilisation Orchestra, Gary Crosby OBE, Cleveland Watkiss MBE, Orphy Robinson MBE, Julian Joseph OBE, and many others who all have lots of press attention, label support, funding and high profile concerts in comparison to many high quality white musicians who don’t get this support.
Just look at the publicity for the LJF last year https://sites.barbican.org.uk/britishjazz/
and the publicity TL use is all about the black musicians who have graduated such as Nubya Garcia, Ezra Collective, Cassie Kinoshi, Moses Boyd who have media and label support.
This is not representative of the whole of British Jazz or even of TL but a tiny section the controlling bodies choose to promote and these organisations have a lot of power and create an inaccurate perception of what British jazz is.
This is not 20th century USA or apartheid South Africa when there was obvious discrimination and violence from the state against blacks.
There are many under represented musicians and composers of all skin colour and backgrounds. The bias of emphasising black composers regardless of quality of music doesn’t make sense to me. This quote from Frank Haviland sums up for me what is happening “Mainstream publications, educational institutions, the media and public figures are now collectively normalising the war on whiteness to such an extent, you’d think they were discussing a sickness, not a race.”
From this article. https://countrysquire.co.uk/2019/12/30/brits-are-not-racist/
Maybe in classical music and dance it is an issue but there are very few black classical musicians as far as I know, looking at the student body at TL or orchestras and professional musicians, although probably increasing? Let me know. You can’t force black children to play classical music just to get quotas up and promote ‘equality’, whatever that is. Hence TL can only use the jazz course for their quotas hiring black staff and recruiting black students.
It is the classical arena that needs to change in many ways and as I mentioned in a previous email to Aleks, particularly how it is taught. It is a mistake to direct any of this agenda to the jazz course or jazz scene. I feel it is divisive. This makes no financial, artistic or educational sense and I feel this old model and these courses, who
This makes no financial, artistic or educational sense and I feel this old model and these courses, who cannot recruit, are bailed out financially by TL because of the historical tradition. As I said in my previous email to Aleks last year, which he said he agreed with everything I had written on this subject, my suggestion is to recruit the best instrumentalists and then arrange the music for this line up rather than sticking to the orchestral or traditional model. Music can be arranged for any line up. Then students will get far more playing opportunities. The jazz course is thriving and turns away huge numbers of students applying yet has a miniscule masterclass budget for example. These issues for me are a far bigger priority that the so called race issue that TL seems to be making an unnecessary priority to please some goverment dictat.
For me the opportunity is about class not skin colour. Many poor white, asian and black children don’t get the opportunity to play music or afford instruments. Not just black. This policy being promoted by TL is totally discriminatory ironically. If there is systematic bias in Britain which discriminates against one race over others it is against white people. Also there is a use of the victim mentality to further careers (and for other reasons) that needs to be discussed but this is a wider issue.
By constantly emphasising that blacks are discriminated against, institutional racism (which does not exist in the jazz world, apart from maybe against whites now in certain areas of promotion) and are underdogs, deprived of opportunities etc, this encourages the victim mentality and is untrue.
You just need to look around Greenwich and can see the majority of students at Greenwich University are black. So how are they underprivileged or
discriminated against?
Also the promotion of the organisation Black Lives Matter, as you have put it in capital letters I presume you are referring to BLM, is very dangerous in my opinion. The critical race theory stated by BLM states that racism is embedded in society, not only the product of individual bias and prejudice, but is entrenched in institutions. I don’t believe this to be true. Look at all those who I have mentioned above recognised by the system and the number of black Greenwich University students. They are in the massive majority
BLM promotes defunding of the police so are you supporting that?
The other concerning issue is that because of this emphasis on being black and supposedly a victim and under represented the ‘race card ‘can be used if anybody criticises or disagrees with a black student or staff, then that it is called racist. This is happening and the issue will be nothing to do with skin colour. Very dangerous area we are getting into. Apologising for being white and presuming blacks are always right. Divisive.
Martin Luther King famously called on us to judge
people according to the content of their character not the colour of their skin.
With best wishes