Klarinet Archive - Posting 001172.txt from 1999/01

From: Ravel1024@-----.com
Subj: Re: [kl] HELP!
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 13:12:04 -0500

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Paulette W. Gulakowski wrote:

> Our district is under court mandate to accept all students ("No Cut"
> policy) - whether they play an instrument or not.

And Ed Lacy responded
>Wait a minute, let me be sure I understand this. If a student, who has no
>experience in music whatsoever, says they want to be in the band, the band
>director is required by court order to accept them? If I have this right,
>this is pure lunacy, a good example of a judge trying to conduct social
>engineering in an area in which he or she has absolutely no knowledge and
>no understanding whatsoever.

Warning: What follows is very politically incorrect. Sensitive readers may
not want to continue.

Welcome to the era of "I want it, so I'll claim discrimination to get
it...whether I can do it doesn't matter." A number of years ago, when Carter
was President, my agency had to get rid of a validated, non-culturally biased
application test for a particular occupation because minorities were not
passing at high enough scores to be selected at a rate proportional to their
representation in the country. Lawsuit led to consent decree.

What I do not understand is why the same "proportional" mentality doesn't seem
to apply to professional sports like football and basketball...I guess money
let's you go for ability regardless of race, sex, color, national origin, etc.
ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

I suspect the reason the "proportional" mentality hasn't taken over the arts
community is a matter of what is valued in the larger community. I just found
out that my former high school, which used to have an orchestra, disbanded the
orchestra. I think it is not coincidental that this appears to have happened
as the school changed from being majority caucasion to majority black. I see
very few black or other minority faces on the stage or in the audiences at the
symphony performances I have been to. in the last several years..and I'm in an
area with a majority minority population.

Ravel

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org