Heather Mac Donald has written a terrific piece in Spiked about how the hysterical crusade against ‘whiteness’ in the upper echelons of the American cultural establishment is threatening to destroy classical music. Here’s how it begins:
Until August 2020, Dona Vaughn had been the longtime artistic director of opera at the Manhattan School of Music. Her experience included singing, acting and directing on and off Broadway and on opera stages. The Manhattan School of Music’s 2019 production of Saverio Mercadante’s little-known opera buffa, I due Figaro, showed her influence in stunningly charismatic and witty student performances.
Vaughn was committed to championing minority musicians – so much so that she endowed a scholarship for them at her alma mater, Brevard College in North Carolina. “In all my years of teaching’, she said at the time, “I often have wished that more minority members were encouraged to pursue a music profession.” Besides the classics, she produced socially conscious contemporary works, giving the first professional staging, for example, at the Fort Worth Opera Festival of a feminist opera about a 17th Century nun.
The mob cares nothing for facts, though. On June 17th 2020, Vaughn was teaching a class via Zoom on musical theatre. An unidentified participant, whose name and image were blacked out, asked her, out of the blue, how she could justify having produced Franz Lehár’s allegedly racist operetta, Das Land des Lächelns (The Land of Smiles), several years earlier. (The racial sin, in this case, was allegedly against Asians.) Vaughn cut the questioner off for raising an issue irrelevant to the current discussion.
The fuse was lit. A Manhattan School of Music student petition was immediately forthcoming. Vaughn must be fired because she is a “danger to the arts community”, it thundered. The petition resurrected a meme from the time of the Lehár production: that Vaughn had cast a black singer as a butler, thus supposedly proving her racism. For good measure, the petition threw in unspecified “reports” of “homophobic aggression and body shaming”. The petition quickly garnered 1,800 signatures. Phoney Instagram accounts under Vaughn’s name suddenly appeared on the web, containing fake inflammatory material
Vaughn’s colleagues, cowering from the mob, let her twist in the wind. Almost none came to her defence. Vaughn was fired and replaced by a black male.
Worth reading in full.
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He should be hung drawn and quartered. No way should he be allowed to have a dignified exit
There’s a “bloody” good pub named after your recommendation, not far from The Tower.
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A dignified exit is the last thing he should be given. There were murmurs in today’s press that what he has done could attract the same level of criticism as Cummings trip to Barnard Castle. Cummings Barnard Castle jaunt pales into complete INSIGNIFICANCE by comparison. This picture was taken, and Hancock was acting in this way, before the British public was officially ‘given permission’ to hug people, and I am sure you will remember that when they were so permitted, sanctimonious guidance was issued advising people to ‘hug with caution’ and ‘how to hug safely’ (no kissing was to be involved) which frankly beggared belief.
But at least one MP has found his backbone and we are now using the right word – “exit”. Mind you, any re-shuffle will be nothing more than the equivalent of the rearranging of the deckchairs on the titanic.
New slogan has been coined : “HANDS. FACE. BACK TO MY PLACE”
[I can’t take any credit for that – it was the best joke of the night on last night’s edition of channel 4’s “The Last Leg”]
“A dignified exit is the last thing he should be given”
Yes – but we’re nowhere near the land of ‘should’ and ethics.
There are plenty of them who should suffer the same fate. Add them here please.
““The Secretary of State …. has said everything he needs to say.”
So have we. To re-iterate :
“F. off you stupid, lying, self-seeking, incompetent, narcissistic sociopaths and psychopaths. We’ve never taken any notice of you, and you confirm every day that we’ve been 100% right.”
“Dignified Exit” A little late, lol!
Not after one has been caught fondling a bottom!
Imagine Gove in charge of Health. We will be more doomed than we are already.
“Imagine Gove in charge of Health.”
I can!!! I can!!!
I saw ‘it’ in Education.
(Heaves into the WPB)
Interesting to ponder whether Johnson/Whitty/Vallance/Ferguson behavioural dysfunction, dishonesty and amorality have rubbed off on Hancock, or vice versa. Thinking longer, they are just sh*ts tarred with the same dirty brush.
The problem here is that nobody capable in the Tory party, at least, anyone with a fig of ability, honesty or decency, would want to jump into this steaming pile of ordure. That leaves just the Johnson Hosanna Chorus, led by the conductor Gove, or some brown-nosing backbencher with no talent other than that.
“ they are just sh*ts tarred with the same dirty brush.”
Be more concise :
“they are just sh*ts “
Just put the CFO’s of Moderna, AstraZeneca and Pfizer as the Secretaries of UK Health
At least then will we
know they have made enough moneyit’s safe to have our personal freedoms back.We’re living in a technocracy run by deluded communists anyway.
A technotyranny.
We’re better off with Hancock staying in post. We don’t want someone more efficient and honest imposing lockdowns. Better an obvious clown/liar than one who hides it better. There’s very little in this for us.
Yes I wanted him to be tried for his crimes against humanity. I know there is still time for that, but this is not worth the attention it is getting. We know he is evil we shouldn’t be getting distracted from his real evils. A smoke screen. The MSM are focusing on him in the march yesterday and therefore detracting from what the march was about. Not impressed with this sites reporting of yesterday’s march.
Lest we forget the initial mainstream reactions to this story. It’s almost as if they’re written by algorithms – downplay, find excuses, hide facts, nothing-to-see-here.
Sadly when he does go he will continue elsewhere and another corrupt cronie will come in and continue the job of brainwashing the nation and destroying the economy, businesses and society.
Im sure the Globalists have many “leaders” groomed and ready.
We should all follow his excellent example and stick two fingers up to the rules.
ncocks best mate and a zealot jumping from frying pan to the fire
You can be dignified on a scaffold.
But he wouldn’t be.
Lamppost is too good for him.
I’d bet on a promotion instead.
After all, Raab is equally incompetent, useless and dangerous.
Like moving the deckchairs while the whole bloody country is sinking.
In what imaginary universe has Matt Hancockwomble ever been dignified?
Hancockwomble needs fired into the Thames from a trebuchet.
Johnson should choose the new Health Minister out of the 64 MP’s who voted against the government, we need some balance now.
Johnson is a puppet. He’ll do what he’s told.
meet the new boss.. same as the ..
https://www.wef.org.in/sajid-javid/
Sounds like mr zahawi needs to step down as well if he is convinced Matt did nothing wrong.
Out of date now – Hancock has resigned!