For those of you who don't know, I'm an alumna of Pomona College, a blue-ribbon liberal arts school in Claremont, California, where a degree currently goes for about a quarter of a million dollars. Yikes! Good thing I don't have any kids. For those of you interested in learning more (actually, it was a fabulous undergrad education), here is the website:
Yesterday was my 30th reunion, and the alumni picnic on the quad was fraught with controversy. I seem to get embroiled wherever I go - what was it Nichiren said about the body and its shadow?
Anyway, the Pomona College alumni were all a-twitter this weekend over the potential sacking of the school song. The college president has suspended the alma mater (which is over a century old) from being sung at commencement, convocation, and alumni day this year until a blue-ribbon committee has had a chance to meet and make a decision about where to go from here.
Here are the lyrics to the offending ditty:
"Hail, Pomona, Hail,
We thy sons and daughters sing
Praises to thy name,
Praises of thy fame,
'Til the Heavens above shall ring
To the name of Pomona
Alma Mater, Hail to thee
To the spirit true of the White and Blue
All Hail, Pomona, Hail!"
The tune is original to this song (i.e., only "Hail, Pomona, Hail" has this particular tune), but it has the usual lofty yet clunky college song sound to it. It is a favorite with the Pomona glee clubs and other a capella vocal music groups which flourish on campus (Pomona actually has an excellent music program). So, what's the problem, here? Why has this song been suspended? What offense has it committed? Well, it has been suspended because......
.....it was recently discovered that this school song had its debut over a century ago at...get this... a blackface minstrel show which was held on the campus. For those of you who don't know what that is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface
Some student printed up copies of a record album cover from this show, complete with the name of the song, and posted it around campus. One thing led to another, the song was suspended, and yesterday, there was a special "forum on the controversy" held in one of the college's small theatres.
The room began to fill with greybeards and blue-haired ladies (all Caucasian, as there was a competing - timewise - meeting of the Black Alumni Club in another building) around a half-hour before the panel began their presentations. A couple of hundred, at least, were ultimately squeezed into the room, and the air was abuzz with angry anticipation. In the front of the room was a table with the ever-present bottles of water, and four microphones.
The expert panel comprising the forum consisted of:
1. A professor of history in the Black Studies department;
2. A professor of musicology with a specialty in choral music;
3. The besieged college president who had made the decision to suspend the song and impanel the expert committee investigating the matter; and
4. The current student body president - a lovely young (blonde, Caucasian) woman named Elsbeth, who had to leave early to go play at an NCAA tennis championship.
The history professor led off with a 15-minute video presentation, narrated by the unmistakeable voice of Maya Angelou, which gave examples of minstrel show and "pickaninny" art. I thought it was a very interesting educational presentation, although I personally got more out of the movie Spike Lee made on this theme a few years ago:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboozled
After the video presentation, the history professor led off with a quote from the Reverend Jesse Jackson:
"A text out of context is a pretext." He repeated this piece of wisdom, just to be sure it sank in: "A text out of context is a pretext."
We all maintained a respectful demeanor while scratching our heads at this.
The professor then proceeded to discuss for another ten minutes or so, the shamefully racist history of blackface minstrel entertainment in the United States.
...(to be continued)...
Byrd in LA
P.S. Re-read the text of the song. I will personally pay $50 to any reader who can find a single racial implication. I guess now you know where I stand on this controversy. Anyway, I will finish this wacky tale tomorrow or Tuesday.
You're lucky. My alma mater's unofficial song is "The Lumberjack song" from Monty Python. No one knows the official song, although I did happen to run into an older alumnus who knew it. Furthermore our marching band is known for its hijinks, including marching naked.
My high school mascot was the Indians. Sometime after I left they changed it to red-tailed hawks. I'm not too upset about it, it's their school now. But I hate PC run amok.
Posted by: Vanya at May 4, 2008 05:36 PM