"The piece – which was all instrumental, no words – celebrated the legacy of transgender and gay rights activist Marsha P. Johnson.
The fusion of jazz and disco with the historical context of the Stonewall uprising is just one of the ways band teacher Reid LaDew intended students to think critically about art and social change."
192
N8CCRG1 day ago
+73
> intended students to think critically about art and social change
Well, I imagine they've now learned an important lesson about how difficult social change is, even nearly 60 years after the fact. And that progress is never finished and always in danger of being erased.
73
datsoar23 hr ago
+50
Students at the school [organized a walkout yesterday](https://www.channel3000.com/news/watertown-high-school-students-walk-out-after-controversial-band-concert-song-ban/article_52676151-8cc0-4fb9-aa9e-a583fb7da10e.html)
50
Ratstail9118 hr ago
+9
> “It’s about an act of violence. This was not something we celebrate...political violence is not something we praise with music or song,” said board member Christina DeGrave.
So the war for independance was just some harse words?
9
Ratstail9118 hr ago
+3
f****** BAMFs
3
1877KlownsForKids1 day ago
+12
Freedom's not a noun, it's a verb.
12
IOl0I0lO22 hr ago
+15
Play it anyway. It’s not like the school board will recognize it.
15
QuirrelsTurban1 day ago
+155
You shouldn't be allowed on a school board unless you have a degree in education and experience working as a teacher.
155
Proud_Tie1 day ago
+82
best we can do is people endorsed by Moms4Liberty to ensure none of that gay shit gets taught to our kids /s
82
TrumpnEpstein23 hr ago
+11
Johnson Creek just voted out their Moms4Liberty member. Still would’ve preferred she not been elected in the first place
11
sasha_the_impaler1 day ago
+13
You could always go to the school board meetings and support the opposition to M4L. It's not like they're running uncontested or the only ones allowed at SB meetings.
13
StipulatedBoss1 day ago
+3
But that requires actual civic engagement, and more work than banging angry comments into a keyboard on a smartphone.
3
dah-dit-dah1 day ago
+7
They hated him because he spoke the truth
Local politics are hilariously easy to influence because hardly anyone shows up
7
dustergrl17 hr ago
+2
Gays?! In the arts?!
Seriously I hope no one on that school board listens to any Elton John.
2
sasha_the_impaler1 day ago
+25
That's kind of the opposite of the point of school boards. School boards are supposed to be elected from members of the community. Not hired specialists from outside of the community. They typically hire Superintendents with education degrees, though.
25
mr_jawa1 day ago
+20
The issue with that idea is that people with no concept of pedagogical instruction are making decisions for education. It should be specialists that have the education and experience and data-driven decision making to give our children and their future the best chance of success.
20
Malaix23 hr ago
+7
Yep. Its a repeat of the Trump/Socrate's ship captain issue. If you don't understand the subject you should not be involved in its decision making.
Its why democracy in America has failed again. The median voter didn't understand government so they voted and allowed Trump to win on top of voting in decades of slowly eroding failing neo-liberal policy.
the assumption that people know what they need just because their needs are dependent on their choices has been proven utterly false. Communities routinely vote to destroy themselves.
7
sasha_the_impaler22 hr ago
That's why they're supposed to hire specialists such as superintendents.
It's also just... How democracy works sometimes, unfortunately. There are sheriffs who never worked a day as a cop, and judges without law degrees.
0
callmesixone21 hr ago
+5
I’m still in my old hometown’s kooky local facebook group just for the lolz.
The superintendent is up for re election soon. He has a PhD is this field and one of the most popular posts I saw was about how we shouldn’t be letting a DOCTOR (emphasis theirs) run our schools
This country is in for a wild ride
5
mr_jawa22 hr ago
-2
So do you go to the doctor with a plumber stand in for your coronary issue or a computer engineer for neuroscience? No. I’m saying that school board shouldn’t be an elected position.
-2
sasha_the_impaler22 hr ago
+4
>No. I’m saying that school board shouldn’t be an elected position.
Okay, so who's in charge of the school? It's a public institution. You vote for public representatives. You can't just hire a CEO and call it good.
You need to start by reading what it is school boards even do. The school admin staff all have education degrees and they're the ones actually responsible for managing the school. School board's job isn't managing the school, it's hiring and supervising the admin staff and voting on policy. You will never see a school board member doing anything teaching related. It is purely a policy position.
4
mr_jawa21 hr ago
+3
So then if the staff are in charge of managing the school how did a group of racist bigoted people decide to remove school content? Also, if representation matters for members of the community why did this school board remove representation? People don’t recognize the importance of local elections. And to address your comment, Im a certified teacher and have served as an elected official in my city. So I’m pretty sure I understand what a school board does.
3
sasha_the_impaler20 hr ago
+1
Through policy changes?? Lmao
Why did a president who's not a doctor sign a bunch of EOs about healthcare? Because he's a policymaker. That's how politics works. This argument could be used against literally any politician lol. So I guess we should get rid of the presidential election process and simply appoint the most skilled individual we can find. Seems to work well for dictatorships lol.
1
mr_jawa20 hr ago
Policy changes that are hurtful are a tenant of the right wing conservatives. Exactly my point.
0
sasha_the_impaler20 hr ago
That's... No, I'm pretty sure a lot of Democrats have enacted policy that hurt people, actually.
0
somecasper1 day ago
+4
Thank you. I understand the emotions behind the concept of expertise tests for public officials, but that's not how representative government is meant to work. If a community of wackos votes for all M4L candidates, that's who should run their school board--and that's a good thing.
4
sasha_the_impaler1 day ago
+11
Not necessarily a good thing. A pillar of democracy is minority rights in addition to majority rule, and M4L fights against minority rights. It's good if a community is represented by candidates that, well, represent them. But if they democratically vote for anti-democracy candidates it's still a sticky situation and a strange gray area.
Other than that small correction, I agree.
11
manachar22 hr ago
+3
That's a pillar of many modern democracies, but not a historical pillar.
It was most certainly not a full pillar of the US version of democracy except for a short period of the 20th century which has been utterly unraveled.
The only minority rights the US was founded to protect was wealthy white landowners in rural areas. Slaves were explicitly excluded and rural areas fought hard to be more represented than urban areas (hence why the urban areas insisted on the 3/5th compromise).
Every state at founding didn't have anything approaching universal suffrage.
They did put a kernel of the idea of universal rights that government could not infringe and we've spent 250 years and a civil war fighting about how that should work out.
3
sasha_the_impaler22 hr ago
+4
It was a founding pillar of American democracy, actually. "Protection against the tyranny of the majority."
It is one of the first things you learn in college government classes.
The cognitive dissonance of slavery doesn't invalidate that it is part of our democracy.
4
manachar22 hr ago
Yes, I included the way they practiced it.
Sure, they called it the "tyranny of the majority", but not because they believed in government protecting the rights of all, but because they wanted to empower a wealthy elite against the hoi polloi.
They sure had no issues with not protecting the rights of slaves, or women, or non-landowners who couldn't vote.
This was not a universal protect against the tyranny of the majority type of thing. This was "we like democracy so long as the right kinds of people vote" sort of thing.
The founders were horrified at Athenian democracy and more admired the Roman Republic, which was horrifically imbalanced against the Plebians.
We know they knew the difference and that people like Abigail Adams was calling them out.
The Republicans are not wrong when they say the founders essentially created an oligarchic democracy with only certain people allowed to vote.
0
Aldarionn1 day ago
+48
Disgusting abuse of power. And a disgusting policy - what does it even mean to refrain from teaching material that undermines the religious values parents want to instill in their children? Why are religious views being used to inform on public school policy? There should not be any respect to religious views in public school curriculum. Your right not to be challenged on your views ends at your property line.
Wisconsin is full of districts like this. The further you get from Milwaukee and Maddison, the more conservative and religious people get, and the more Bible thumpers with positions of power you run into. I lived there for two years and it was a wild dichotomy of drug/alcohol abuse and Christianity.
48
wh4tth3huh14 hr ago
+2
>a wild dichotomy of drug/alcohol abuse and Christianity.
This is just Rural America in a nutshell.
2
Aldarionn14 hr ago
+2
"Which bar or church do your folks live across from?" - Midwest Uber Driver
-Charlie Berens
2
Still-Cut10981 day ago
+30
They should immediately make the performance nothing but LGBTQ+ pieces. That or not perfom at all.
30
Lightning-McDreamy1 day ago
+51
I saw a suggestion that the students and director sit silently for the exact amount of time of the piece and at the spot in the program where it was scheduled. Would send a powerful message.
Edit: in the program, they could call the piece "Removed" and in the composer spot, "Watertown School Board".
51
Still-Cut10981 day ago
+14
That is probably better than not performing. The kids work hard so they should be able to show off their talent.
14
OnionDart23 hr ago
+6
As a former band nerd my thought is let director walk off stage to take a break so that they aren’t held responsible, and while they’re using the restroom the kids just play the piece.
Except, I remember my high school band and we were really competitive in the band competitions and everything, pretty solid, we still needed a director lol. Pros, no. But that could go off the rails if they attempted this lol. Maybe one of the student drum majors can step in though.
6
dog_of_society22 hr ago
+4
That was my thought, too. Maybe if it was a drumset piece, but we played that one when I was in high school band and it has no drumset and a whole offbeat ostinato deal lol. It'd fall apart pretty quick with no conductor.
We did have the student drum major take over for a picket line pep band when the faculty went on strike though. I could see that working. It's mostly in 4, nothing insanely hard.
4
Aldarionn21 hr ago
+3
This is a good idea. I and several other students directed our band in high school so the director could listen to us from different acoustic angles. If we were playing in a venue one of us would get up and direct a set so he could listen from the back and make sure sound was carrying properly.
Handing the baton to a student and walking off stage would send a huge message. So would the silence option, or maybe playing the oroginal piece on a stereo at full volume while the band sits quietly. Some form of protest - don't just let the board win this one.
3
APeacefulWarrior14 hr ago
+1
Nah, John Cage would probably try to sue.
1
syntaxbad1 day ago
+21
Its nuts that you can opt out of schoolwork (Sex ed is another example of this insanity - if you're so messed up that you can't explain sex to your kids in an age appropriate manner, then fine, let school do it. But you don't get to deny your children important knowledge because your parents lied to you about what your religion teaches) or whatever bullshit reason you have). Either something is worth teaching based on the teachers' judgement as educators or it isn't. Parents really shouldn't get our noses involved unless children are failing to learn important skills. A challenging piece of music is exactly what kids should have assigned. That's how learning happens. There aren't any other issues that rise to the level of needing parent input.
21
Lightning-McDreamy1 day ago
+14
Thing is, they were already given the option to opt out and one student did that. But they followed up by voting for it to not be played at all based on some vague policy.
Some students subsequently did a walk out and protested. At least they're getting a good lesson in civics.
14
Spork-in-space1 day ago
+16
I hate how every effort to “protect the children” ends up coddling the parents. Religion shouldn’t have any say in public schools. I hope those students find a way to play it anyway.
16
MAMark11 day ago
+16
It's not even coddling the parents. It is coddling a specific, vocal subset of religious parents who are forcing their worldview on all other students and their parents.
16
minidog823 hr ago
+4
Not even coddling the parents because families had the choice to opt out of performing the song!
4
AGrandNewAdventure21 hr ago
+5
It "was removed in a 7-1 vote for promoting what they say is indoctrination..."
They're fine with indoctrination, as long as it's tied positively to fascism, bigotry, or racism in some way.
5
Mikaelleon231 day ago
+8
I lived near that town when I went to a nearby UW school, and that town has a horrible reputation. There's a reasons locals call Wisconsin Wississipi.
8
Big_Lab_Jagr19 hr ago
+1
Let's not kid ourselves, what town in Dodge or Jefferson Co does have a good reputation? We can extend that to notorious Waukesha Co. It's like running the gauntlet to leave Milwaukee to get to Madison. Good thing there's no need to stop in between.
1
epidemicsaints1 day ago
+7
>“It’s about an act of violence. An act of violence where a building was barricaded, set on fire with police officers, news media and civilians inside, burning people to death or trying to. This was not something we celebrate...political violence is not something we praise with music or song,” said board member Christina DeGrave.
Lies. No one died. Her little "or trying to" isn't saving her from being a liar.
7
thejimbo5622 hr ago
+8
“political violence is not something we praise with music or song,” said board member Christina DeGrave.
The Star Spangled Banner does exactly that. Why does this lady hate America?
8
longleggedwader20 hr ago
+4
There are so many marches and military songs that are staples of band education.
And let's not forget Les Mis, Miss Saigon, Suffs, and that little Hamilton show, just to name a few musicals about political violence.
4
cranberryjuiceicepop21 hr ago
+3
I hope the students find a way to perform the piece - maybe they can gather together and do an ad-hoc performance, with one of the student’s conducting. Good for them on doing a walk-out in protest.
3
TripperEuphoric20 hr ago
+3
These people are mortally terrified and are willing to burn down the world because some folks decided to change their gender
3
Big_Lab_Jagr19 hr ago
+4
The good news is the students walked out of class yesterday. They're not putting up with this shit.
4
Deathbycheddar22 hr ago
+2
This is only semi-related, but I live in a very conservative area of Ohio and went to a musical for my son's 7th grade field trip. The plot had a gay love story, a song celebrating Spencer's gifts (including words like nipple clamp and lubricant), and a scene where a boy is pressured to have sex with his boyfriend (and talk of the boyfriend frequently gay clubs and going home with a different boy every night.) Anyways, basically the play/theater really underplayed the content to the school and it was entirely inappropriate for 7th graders (for the sexual content not the gay content.) And yet, the students were rapt, even my own 7th grade boy who is an idiot, and I've not heard of any complaints from anyone. This is something that parents could complain about. An instrumental song is not that.
2
ni_hao_butches1 day ago
+4
Interesting opposition by the School Board VP. Folks were quick to find his drag photos.
4
shf50012 hr ago
+1
"Parents had until November 1 to opt their child out of the piece"
If my parents pulled me out this I would be pissed at them.
1
Iribumkiak19 hr ago
+1
I hope this story blows up to international prominence. Do your thing internet!
58 Comments