By John Ballard
Neda Ulaby of NPR reports today the official end of the Harlem Boys Choir.
December 25, 2009 - For the past three decades, the Boys Choir of Harlem enraptured audiences around the world. But representatives of the choir say it is now officially defunct. It had not performed since 2007.
The Boys Choir of Harlem began in 1968, when a young graduate student noticed that kids in his Harlem neighborhood had nothing to do. Before his death, two years ago, Walter Turnbull told NPR that the needs of the kids had dictated the choir's growth into a school � with tutoring, counseling, and social services. Sometimes, Turnbull said he picked kids not for their voices, but because the choir could help them.
"Whether a kid had a coat or whether he was cold, or whether the family was breaking up or there was nobody for them," Turnbull said. "Or whether they were going to have to go into a foster home."
Ninety-eight percent of those kids graduated from high school, Turnbull said, with many earning music scholarships to college. He started a girls choir in 1988.
But Turnbull believed the moment when a young man's voice changes, he faces new perils in the inner city. So bucking tradition, he created parts for alto and bass.
The boys choir was shattered by scandal in 2001, when it came out that a staff member who molested a student had been allowed to keep working at the school. After Turnbull died in 2007, the choir never recovered, according to representatives who made the announcement of its demise last week.
This is a sad but inevitable development. The details of the story speak for themselves.
But an alumni website is still active. Lives changed and events set in motion by Dr. Trumbull decades ago will bear fruit for generations still unborn.
Blog buddy Catfish remembers Christmas this year by posting the immortal John Lennon anti-war "Happy Xmas" featuring a heart-wrenching counterpoint of the smiling faces of the Boys Choir of Harlem. These young faces are forever in the memory of those who recall the Vietnam protests.
It is a poignant reminder that a newly elected president is mired in an ugly two-war quagmire, conscripted into the role of commander-in-chief and bound in place by conflicting political forces.
My mood this morning is gloomy as I witness the political spectrum erupting in a near unanimous negative chorus bitching about the president and circumstances they don't like. Not only his adversaries from the GOP but a growing number of fellow Democrats, joined by independent and bipartisan groups, are behaving like so many predators in an Animal Planet wildlife film, attacking with a view of killing and eating a single political target. Name a subject, any subject, and you can find a ready list of complainers that either the president is not doing enough to corredt a problem or that he's in fact makingmostly the wrong moves.
I have waited forty years to see someone of Barack Obama's stature get elected to the office of President and I remain one of his most avid supporters. It makes me sad to think that so many ignorant people imagine the president has some kind of magic to resolve problems that he had little or no part in creating. My sympathy comes from a career in management during which I was obliged to enforce company policies I didn't like, getting around them as much as possible but realizing that in the long run my subordinates and I were better off with me in charge than someone else. No need to cite examples here. The point will be grasped by those who understand and ignored by the rest.
In the end all leaders must choose between hurting one group or another. Effective leaders may hurt supporters in the short term in order to help them in the future. It's a gamble because sometimes it fails. But the alternative can be even more disagreeable. That's what Obama meant when he said early in the campaign, "I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear. I'm going to tell you what you need to know." We are not yet at the end of the first of four years and his support is melting like ice cream on an August day. What I say will not make a lot of difference. All I can do is observe what is happening and shake my head.
Commenting at my own post -- what he said.
ReplyDeleteTim Geithner in an interview...
I spent most of my professional life in this building. Watching the politics of the things we did in the past financial crises in Mexico and Asia had a powerful effect on me. The surveys were 9-to-1 against almost everything that helped contain the damage. And I watched exceptionally capable people just get killed in the court of public opinion as they defended those policies on the Hill. This is a necessary part of the office, certainly in financial crises. I think this really says something important about the president, not about me. The test is whether you have people willing to do the things that are deeply unpopular, deeply hard to understand, knowing that they're necessary to do and better than the alternatives. We'll be judged on how we dealt with the things that were broken in the country. We broke the back of the worst financial panic in three generations, more effectively and at a much lower cost than I think anybody thought was possible.
"I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear. I'm going to tell you what you need to know."
ReplyDeleteThat was the only campaign promise that mattered to me; it was the only one that i expected Mr. Obama to keep, partly because it plays to his greatest strength.
As soon as he starts fulfilling that promise i'll be ready support him in doing difficult things.
Sorry John but I have not seen a lot of "stature" from Obama. The big banks and the big banksters are playing the same games. The medical industrial complex won the health care reform wars and speaking of war there are still two of them.
ReplyDeleteObama could end Afghanistan tomorrow. He has the power but not the will.
ReplyDeleteWell, John, I think those who are quite stunned at Obama's performance will retract complaint when -- as you imagine -- things start to come around after Obama's insistence on policies that are in no way consensus.
ReplyDelete"I was obliged to enforce company policies I didn't like"
Uh, being president means you set the policy. If you think Obama cannot do this, and must conform to previously formed policy, then this is either an inappropriate comparison, or you have a profound misunderstanding of what elections in America are supposed to do.
You cite Geithner's statement, as though his is the definitive conclusion about what happened in the financial industry. Nonsense. It is not. Not even close. But the point is, we don't know what happened because of people like Geithner, and because of that, we won't know what will happen.
Instead of taking advice from across the board -- ignoring previous actions taken in financial crises -- Obama stuck with Gold Sacks advice. Right now, the financial industry is trying to convince everyone that the gloom is over. No serious person believes this.
Nonetheless, if Obama's policies wind up matching, or even approaching, his campaign tales, I'll be the first offering kudos for a sly operation. If the economy takes off and all the current bewarned gloom fails to come to pass, well, great. If the torture stops, and the secret detention ends, and warrentless spying is brought to heel, and we actually see a meaningful withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, and lobbyists stop populating his administration, and the banks do experience some real regulation, well, when that happens, hail to the Chief.
But given what you have seen, what we have all seen, do you really think that that is going to happen? People are disappointed in Obama's performance. The head shaking ought not be directed toward they who are in the worst of straits in this current epoch. You fail to recognize that the American people in toto are usually quite perceptive, despite mind numbing waves of bullshit from the media. I find it amazing that you would chose to castigate those who see the scam because ... they see the scam. Obama is no agent of change, and the American people are figuring that out. The head shaking deserves another target.
Anyone else?
ReplyDeleteClearly I am a minority of one and feel chastised. (To some I was also a poor manager. Probably some character flaw. I dunno.) I have only two responses.
First, it is not my aim to castigate anyone. I chose the head-shaking image deliberately in as peaceful attempt as possible not to castigate any group or individual. All I want for myself is whatever respect remains for what once was called a loyal opposition. The term has vanished in the political arena, so I hope it's possible that the concept survives. Being shown to be wrong will be punishment enough.
And second, I like Barack Obama's management style. Not to put too fine a point on it, I liked how he campaigned and I see him governing in the same manner... deliberate, intelligent, analytical and accommodating. No drama Obama is still the same person, but he now wears a different hat and carries a different toolkit. His main shortcoming, if it can be called such, is a Carter-like impulse to micromanagement.
Whatever consolation it may be, by all indications he is on the way to being a one-term president and those who don't like what's happening have about twenty-five or thirty months to find someone they like better and find a more constructive way to vent frustration than maligning Barack Obama.