Posted on 04/22/2016 7:26:19 PM PDT by markomalley
A simple musical performance at Brown University became a source of tremendous controversy Thursday night after student protesters denounced it for having Hindu chants sung by a white woman.
Carrie Grossman, a 2000 Brown graduate, performed in An Evening of Devotional Music, which organizers touted as an intimate evening of inquiry, music and meditation. Grossmans performance was a kirtan, a form of traditional chanting that originates in the Indian subcontinent.
But to some students, it was actually an intimate evening of gruesome cultural appropriation, because Grossman had the temerity to sing chants from India despite being white.
How does your whiteness impact how you engage with these cultures? a student asked Grossman prior to her performance, according to The Brown Daily Herald. Another denounced her for disturbing and appropriative language on her website.
Eventually, Grossmans performance began, but the protesters in the audience continued to shout out questions, which caused attendees who actually wanted to hear the performance to turn around and tell them to be quiet. Students were induced to move outside after announcing they would hold their own competing kirtan (notably, a photo of the protesters suggested only a handful were ethnically Indian).
After the production, the Herald said, Grossman came out to meet with protesters, where she was berated for not understanding the harm of her actions. When Grossman tried to say she had no intention of offending Indians by using their music, she was told that wasnt enough.
You saying that it wasnt intended to be harmful doesnt make it an apology, student Aanchal Saraf said. Later, Grossman was told that she could at least atone for her crime by [using] your privilege to make structural change.
Assimilate. Or LEAVE.
Severe Anti-white intolerance
Er, ever hear of the Brahmans? Chanting in Sanskrit? This is the core of white heritage, one of the most archaic Indo-European languages, very close to the speech of the common ancestors of all Europeans and high-caste Indians.
So Hinduism is not for white people? Is learning a foreign language racist?
Anne Hutchinson and Roger Williams must be rolling
over in their graves at the stupid snowflakes
that don’t even know that Hindu chants require blue skin.
So blacks,Indians,and Asians can’t sing songs by Hoagy Carmichael or Johnny Mercer????
What a screwed up world.
.
The vast majority of the protesters were WASP trust-fund babies.
Arrest Daryl Hall!
These poor little snowflakes need a lesson in basic genetics.
Indians are Caucasians.
As are all peoples who trace their ancestry from Iceland to India.
There’s a reason why such a thing as the Indo-European Family of Languages exists!
“The vast majority of the protesters were WASP trust-fund babies. “
—
Right—and as soon as they graduate they will forget all about diversity and try to make as much money as they can.
.
I think Brown is considered the most liberal college in the nation.
What are you doing at a university? The modern university is created by and an integral part of western European (and therefore American) culture. You're misappropriating my culture by attending. (how's that goose sauce, gander?)
I'd be "making structural change". To the protestors.
Even more liberal than Oberlin?
So, Sam Worthington was culturally appropriating a Hindu deity?
There is no difference between this and a white racist berating an African-American musician for playing something by Mozart because “only whites should perform ‘white’ music.”
The best French kisses I ever had were by an Italian. I didn’t mind the appropriation.
Next thing they’ll be saying is you have to be “brown” to attend Brown.../s
Personally, I'd go with, "I'll play whatever music I want, and you fascists can pound sand."
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