66 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
66 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
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>>>>>>>>>>> FROM THE AUGUST HALLS OF HIGHER LEARNING <<<<<<<<<<<
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(7/25)
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If you have no college degree, or at least not one from an Ivy-
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league college, you are really ignorant and uneducated. You have been
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missing the lectures by such scholars as tenured Dartmouth professor
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of music Bill Cole, who teaches "American Music in the Oral Tradi-
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tion."
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One of his handouts exhorts his students to "read little, think
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deeply... and much." He tells his students to meditate deeply, to
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become one with the universe and then write very important feelings in
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their notebooks.
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Meditate about music? No, about poverty, sexism, racism, nuclear
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war, nuclear waste, and what a horrible place the US is. People are so
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poor that they are forced to become criminals. Like the burglar whom
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this scholar knew personally and whom he extols in a lecture on music.
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Cole is black, which is probably unimportant to any of his stu-
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dents, but appears to be the only thing important to him. The nearest
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he came to music in a long "lecture" recorded and reprinted in the
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DARTMOUTH REVIEW of 2/24/88 was his explanation of why there were
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comparatively few women in music.
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"You know," he expounded, "it makes it real difficult, you know,
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because it gets down to, if you'll excuse the expression, pussy or no
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play... You're talking about an art form that has a very small part of
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the economic pie. Very small, man. People are gangsterin' to keep
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people out all the time. People, like, physically hurting other peo-
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ple, they don't like them to play."
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But of course there are other things more subtly connected with
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American Music in the Oral Tradition. For example,
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"Why are we willing to put nuclear waste in the ground and say to
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ourselves `It's cool, because it won't really contaminate things for a
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thousand years.' Come one, is that cool? And, man, it's going to keep
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on..."
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DARTMOUTH REVIEW editor Christopher Baldwin was decent enough to
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ask for Cole's comments before printing an article on his lectures
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with long extracts taped in his class. Cole hung up. When Baldwin
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phoned again, asking "Why did you hang up on me, sir?" the scholar had
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a scholarly explanation.
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"You're going to put your racist bullsh*t in the paper anyhow, it
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doesn't make any difference what I say... I knew you motherf**kers
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were going to do the same thing you always do...!"
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"I am astounded," replied the DARTMOUTH REVIEW (the conversation
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was taped), "that a professor at Dartmouth College, one who is
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tenured, would use language like that..."
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To which the august Dartmouth scholar replied,"You're all Goddamn
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f*ck*n'-*ss white-boy-racists!"
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- - -
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Readers would probably expect me to say once again, "Stop giving
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to the college of your choice," and I do.
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However, there is more to it. For publishing the truth, backed up
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by tapes of Cole's lectures, the Dartmouth administration staged a
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kangaroo hearing, which was prejudged by Dartmouth President Freedman
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and was severely restricted in attendance (not even an ACLU represen-
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tative was allowed in). In an unusual candid display of what the con-
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temporary professoriat understands by academic freedom, all involved
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members of the Dartmouth Review were found guilty. Two were suspended
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for six terms (including one who would have graduated in June), a
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photographer (whose flash was knocked to the ground by Cole) was sus-
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pended for two terms, and a freshman reporter was put on probation.
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Friends and alumni have set up a fund for their vindication. Send
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tax-deductible contributions to Dartmouth Review Fund, Box 343, Ha-
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nover, NH 03755. A donation of $25 entitles you to a subscription to
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the very readable DARTMOUTH REVIEW, one of the few campus papers that
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are not a local edition of PRAVDA.
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* * *
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