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I'll just share this, as is.
Make of it what you will.

Maybe I'll say something later.
Depends on what direction this thread takes.

Have at it, hounds.

It's a great feel good story of triumph. The guy at about 10:40 nails it all.... "challenge anyone to tell you how the concert does damage to the USA, it doesn't, it brings out the best of us."


Thanks for sharing. Zakiah Mclenny was awesome and to my ears played the clarinet beautifully.

Its sad the arts funding is going to be slashed all over as if art does not matter. They will save a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of government money. trump wants a soleless nation. easier to dictate too

I saw this story on 60 minutes when it aired. It's a shame that so many innocent people are paying for a policy that has been used to punish them.

The only message this White House sent them is, "You aren't the right color so you don't count. You have been canceled."

I wish all problems were as easily solvable as this one. All that organization just needed to do was give the following message to the Marine Corps Commandant. We would like to select 30 of our most talented young musicians to accompany the Marine Corps Orchestra in concert.

Voila!!!! Problem solved!!

They solved what they think the problem is.

Spoken with gusto and the authority of white privilege. Bravo.

Ahh yes. All it takes is a challenge to racial preference to bring the racism out from behind the curtain.

Yes, here you are.

It's hilarious how you so easily gloss over the main point of the link, which is the reason why this problem is a problem in the first place.

I didn’t gloss over it at all. I pointed out that the reason the concert was cancelled was because the young musicians were selected based upon race, and others were excluded because they were of the wrong skin color. You lefties would go berserk if someone approached the Marines with whites only musicians ( non whites need not apply) to have a concert. So if making selections by race one way is wrong making it by race the other way is also wrong.

So it didn't go the usual way and that bothers you. Did you bother to even watch the video? I didn't think so. But you are the usual suspect.

So after glossing over how this problem shouldn't have been a problem in the first place, then you invent something how they excluded whites. The video didn't say anything about exclusion (I'm saying this because you obviously didn't watch the video).

When I first grabbed a 1/4 sized plywood cello with my grubby, 4th-grader hands, I was the beneficiary of America's socialist policies of the time.

Mid-1960's.

Arts instruction was woven into the education programs for public schools across the nation. This initiative began around the same time as Eisenhower's Interstate highway project. By the time I grabbed that cello neck, the Arts initiative was in full-swing. Elementary schools were feeders to the middle schools. Middle to Secondary schools. We kids were part of something that actually worked- for any kid whose parents could pony up 10 dollars/school year to rent those crappy instruments. When I got to Middle School, I was amazed at the number of kids in orchestra who looked like me. When I joined Secondary School, Lima Senior's orchestra consisted of 20% Black/minority students. At least half that number were trained/educated/qualified to matriculate as Music majors in Higher Ed. Of those 12-14 kids, only 3 of us professionally pursued Music beyond HS. All three of us are now preparing to retire- after a lifetime of paying forward this gift that we were given.

Consider the raw numbers: only 2% of practicing performing music professionals fit my profile.

When existing systems fail to produce numbers in keeping with talent demographics [read: 'merit-based ability'], other means must be employed.
And so... AfAm citizens did what we've always done: "We'll provide for ourselves those things which other Americans may take for granted."

And so, "Equity Arc" was founded.
And they aren't the only organization of its kind.

For 20+ years, I have been a supporter of the Sphinx Foundation... the seminal organization that helped aspiring minority musicians find inroads to the highbrow insular world of Western Art Music.

These Non-Profit organizations are the absolute epitome of America's "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality.
From nothing, Equity Arc made enough of a civic difference to command the attention/invitation of 'The President's Own'.

Sphinx Foundation has placed promising minority students (younger versions of Clem) on the stage of Stern Auditorium/Carnegie Hall.


...suffice it to say, I'm a total fan of their efforts.



@keithfromxenia:

These private non-profit efforts were enacted by Minority Americans because Your Fellow American Citizens saw a need to provide for themselves an avenue to equity that America's system didn't provide. They provided a support system for themselves, in the absence of a broken system that was healthy when I was a kid. Their efforts were being rewarded by one of our most venerated institutions: the US Military.

The United States Marine Band chose to collaborate with these young people.
Nothing can take from them that distinction.

The only fly in the ointment that could scuttle their hard-earned honors: A blanket executive order by a man who understands nothing about the art/craft that inspired them to seek something better for themselves.

Thanks, 47.

While you want to say white privilege is about racism - I think of it as being about statistics and facts. As others have mentioned - clearly you did not actually watch the video, clearly you just mindlessly followed the direction Trump pointed you in without regard to anything else.