White Choir Sings Black Spirituals
and All Hell Breaks Loose
Townhall,
by
Todd Starnes
Original Article
Posted By: ladydawgfan,
2/27/2020 8:46:30 AM
Should white people sing black spirituals?
Western Michigan University is grappling with that question after a black student was triggered and suffered a social media meltdown when a predominantly white choir sang “Wade in the Water.”
“So apparently Western Michigan University thinks it’s ok for WHITE peoples to sing negro spirituals while the instructor talking bout ‘these songs don’t belong to one race.’ They sure as hell DO,” WMU music major Shaylee Faught wrote on a social media now seen by more than 1 million people.
Faught got triggered after the choir’s black conductor reportedly told the audience that the selections were “American songs” performed “for everyone” and “have no ethnicity.”
Reply 1 - Posted by:
LadyHen 2/27/2020 9:05:46 AM (No. 331023)
fta: "“I just got off the phone with the bass from ‘Sweet Honey in The Rock,’ (an African-American a cappella ensemble) and her first question was, ‘Has anyone looked into the mental health of the people who made those comments,’” he told the newspaper."
Good for the bass from Sweet Honey, a group with some amazing voices and a group who encourages and embraces learning. These songs are part of the American lexicon. I grew up singing them in our Baptist choir. Some snowflake won't take that from me!
What's next? Only blacks can own restaurants where white beans with hock, hoe cakes and collards are served? Some folks like to call it "Soul food." Lol. Poor rural folk's food in the South was eaten by all the poor folks, my white sharecropper great grandparents included.
28 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Ida Lou Pino 2/27/2020 9:13:20 AM (No. 331031)
I'm still outraged that The Marcels sang "Blue Moon" - - a white song if there ever was one.
What was all that "bom-ba-ba-bom dangy-dang-dang" about? No white person would ever sing that way.
And how about The Drifters singing "White Christmas"? RACIST!!!
15 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Condor44 2/27/2020 9:15:47 AM (No. 331035)
Next will be that Margaritas will be banned.
6 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
MNluxiegal 2/27/2020 9:16:50 AM (No. 331037)
If the choir refused to sing Black Spirituals, they would be accused of racism. Our Catholic parish always sings 'Were You There" on Ash Wednesday. We have two black families in the parish, but they are immigrants from Africa. So, by these standards, we should stop immediately with that song. I think the Christmas song "Go Tell it on the Mountain" is also a black spiritual song. I would think they would be proud of these classic songs, instead of complaining about someone singing them just because of the color of their skin.
20 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
janjan 2/27/2020 9:17:51 AM (No. 331038)
I feel the urge to have a social media meltdown over a) the butchering of proper English in the statements of these so-called college students and b) their presumption that they are entitled to personally approve all musical selections in college performances. Their time would be better spent opening an actual book and reading it.
33 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Urgent Fury 2/27/2020 9:26:43 AM (No. 331042)
Another news story about what people post on social media.
7 people like this.
A perfect example of black self-segregation. What would Martin say? Racists such as Shaylee Faught need to be overcome to make this one nation someday. MLK may have seen the Promised Land, but many are still blind to their surroundings.
4 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
earlybird 2/27/2020 9:34:49 AM (No. 331048)
Maybe we pay less attention to “social media”?
11 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Goose 2/27/2020 9:41:03 AM (No. 331054)
The words to "Dixie," the Confederate anthem, are sung by a slave. Go figure.
6 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
fayebeck 2/27/2020 9:41:12 AM (No. 331055)
Other than a brat shrieking in Walmart or some twit chick sounding like a Kardashian and my wife following me throughout the day pointing out what I did wrong, there is no more irritating sound in the world than a shrieking black choir singing one of their gospel songs. Drives me nuts.
6 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
kiwinews 2/27/2020 9:46:54 AM (No. 331063)
As a musician I feel VERY strongly about this kind of bigoted crap. ART BELONGS TO ALL. As a child I read about Marian Anderson not being allowed to sing in the DAR hall, and not being allowed in the Met opera until her later years. I heard my parents say the Boy Choir in my city couldn't be integrated because the black children's voices weren't compatible with classical music. I heard about Leontyne Price's struggle to be allowed to sing Verdi. As a student I heard about the "scandal" of Simon Estes singing Wotan, and as an adult I was free to sing excerpts from Porgy and Bess - as long as I didn't do it in my own country. WHAT UTTER NONSENSE. Are we artists or bags of skin? Isn't the whole point of art to understand and share experience? Talent is a gift that like mercy "dropeth as the gentle rain from heaven" - and LANDETH WHEREVER THE HECK IT DOES. Might as well burn books as throttle voices.
19 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Pegmo 2/27/2020 9:50:35 AM (No. 331067)
Wonder why these same people don't see any issues with an all black cast performing Hamilton?
21 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
WhamDBambam 2/27/2020 10:02:33 AM (No. 331079)
I don't want to hear another black person speaking anything other than Ebonics.
1 person likes this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
bad-hair 2/27/2020 10:04:45 AM (No. 331080)
Dang it. Now I'm going to have to purge all of Scott Joplin's ragtime piano from my repertoire. Extremely difficult stuff but gangs of fun to play.
5 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
fayebeck 2/27/2020 10:22:54 AM (No. 331098)
Thank goodness there's only 2 more days in "black history" month. I find it "disturbing" that black history month is the shortest month of the year.
5 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
seamusm 2/27/2020 10:41:33 AM (No. 331118)
We've certainly lost the concept of imitation as the sincerest form of flattery. I get the being mad about white actors playing certain ethnic roles, i.e., wearing makeup to play an oriental character when thousands of orientals are readily available. BTW that doesn't include Downey in Tropic Thunder - I can't imagine anyone else black or white having the star-power draw as he does of late. But I see this choir incident as reflective of media-provoked mental illness. For goodness sakes there WERE blacks in the choir.
3 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
FleetUSA 2/27/2020 10:42:10 AM (No. 331120)
Can't they just enjoy the music and be proud of their songs.
6 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
ho72 2/27/2020 10:43:26 AM (No. 331124)
From Salon, which I despise, but... blind squirrel meets acorn.
Daryl Hall has a message for critics crying cultural appropriation: "Shut the f*ck up"
Salon: One of the current debates is over “cultural appropriation” – The idea that white people should not appropriate the culture of ethnic and racial minorities. I know that you don’t like the term “blue eyed soul.” Have you followed this conversation?
Hall: Are you trying to say that I don’t own the style of music that I grew up with and sing? I grew up with this music. It is not about being black or white. That is the most naïve attitude I’ve ever heard in my life. That is so far in the past, I hope, for everyone’s sake. It isn’t even an issue to discuss. The music that you listened to when you grew up is your music. It has nothing to do with “cultural appropriation.”
Salon: I agree with you entirely, because…
Hall: I’m glad that you do, because anyone who says that should shut the f*ck up.
Salon: Well, this entire critique is coming back…
Hall: I’m sorry to hear it. Who is making these critiques? Who do they write for? What are their credentials to give an opinion like that? Who are they?
Salon: Much of it is academic.
Hall: Well, then they should go back to school. Academia? Now, there’s a hotbed of idiocy.
13 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
cor-vet 2/27/2020 10:46:54 AM (No. 331131)
No complaints about the 'Voice?' An awful lot of blacks were singing 'white' songs before I quit watching it a few years ago.
3 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
columba 2/27/2020 11:34:56 AM (No. 331195)
My wife and I (both of us have "white" skin) belonged to a racially mixed choir that practiced weekly at a "black" Baptist church in Reno, Nevada. We sang a lot of hymns that one never heard outside of black churches. It was great music. It was a good choir. I miss it.
5 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
Strike3 2/27/2020 11:36:51 AM (No. 331196)
Fine. To make it fair and balanced, let's remove every black performer from every white song, movie, TV series, commercial and sport. Remove Tiger Woods from the golf course and kick the Obamas out of Martha's Vineyard. What say you, Shaylee?
2 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
DVC 2/27/2020 11:49:45 AM (No. 331217)
Today, all the racists are blacks who hate whites. And there are a hell of a lot of them out there, raised up by Jesse and Al, and all those other race baiting haters.
7 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
dwa 2/27/2020 11:52:20 AM (No. 331221)
Perhaps that Black student should spend more time learning how to speak correct English and less time being triggered about who has the "right" to sing black spirituals.
4 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
sw penn 2/27/2020 12:07:53 PM (No. 331241)
It isn't just art...
It isn't just music...
The whole idea of America is
"bring your best, leave the rest."
The idea of "cultural appropriation"
is a direct frontal assault on the very conception of America.
7 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
kono 2/27/2020 12:19:57 PM (No. 331253)
Wade in the Water is a wonderful hymn. Our church's choir had it on the list a week before Katrina made landfall. How tragic it would have been had the storm come ashore a week earlier than it did.
Anyone claiming it's an ethnic song or an American song can take a hike -- it's a traditional CHRISTIAN hymn about baptism in Christ, who transcends every categorization of humanity.
4 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 2/27/2020 12:28:00 PM (No. 331264)
When the Black community gives up ALL their misappropriation of white things like dyed and straightened hair, sneakers, denim jeans, phones,, cars, computers, money, and so on, then maybe we will consider giving up our black spirituals.
I don't pity or feel sympathy for those who are willfully stupid. They deliberately ignore all commonsense and reality, preferring their ridiculous fantasies.
3 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
crashnburn 2/27/2020 12:50:11 PM (No. 331285)
All I have to say is “Bless his little heart!”
0 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
ROLFNader 2/27/2020 1:07:27 PM (No. 331308)
Everyone one has already said all that I could without getting booted. So, instead I would like to let those who haven't heard it to listen to Eva Cassidy's version from her "Songbird" CD. I would also challenge you to listen to " Somewhere Over The Rainbow" and not be moved to tears.
3 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
Flagstone 2/27/2020 3:34:30 PM (No. 331434)
Were the statements from the student union written by a sixth grader? Perhaps they should spend more time in their books than twitter.
1 person likes this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
anniebc 2/27/2020 7:39:17 PM (No. 331610)
Lift every voice and sing.
4 people like this.
So tell me again why black women are bleaching their hair blonde ? Whining is not becoming.
I have to deal with one woman every week and it's getting old.
1 person likes this.
Below, you will find ...
Most Recent Articles posted by "ladydawgfan"
and
Most Active Articles (last 48 hours)
Comments:
More snowflake student "demands."