CopiaSystems Universe

This is a sensitive issue - one I am sure that many will take me to task on.  I just can't help but shake my head here though and wonder.  The problem is a folk song that is being performed by a school choir in Michigan.  The song has its roots in American Slavery and is a song sung by slaves in the south when working the cotton fields. 

Folks are upset that this sort of song is being taught and performed by students.  I will admit that there is a right way and a wrong way to recognize our past - this appears to be a blind blunder into the wrong way.  But it raises a much larger question - Should we pretend that it never happened.  There seems to be such a desire to avoid any talk of American Slavery to the point of forgetting it ever happened. 

It is a blight on man kind when one enslaves another.  If we are not allowed to discuss this and learn from it without fear of offending one another, then we are destined to forget the past - and by forgetting we will not learn, and by not learning we may repeat it.  Lord willing this should never happen.

This situation needs to be a catalyst to teach our children, not in shame or fear or a mislead notion of indignity – but in honesty about ourselves and our past.  It was not pretty, but it did happen and it was our past.  If we don’t acknowledge it we can’t move on.

That is why I am bothered when I read this:

BERKLEY, Mich. (AP) - A black parent and the NAACP are criticizing a middle school's decision to perform a song that they say glorifies slavery.

The song, "Pick a Bale of Cotton," is on the folk music choir program Wednesday at predominantly white Anderson Middle School in the Berkley School District.

The song's lyrics include, "Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton. Gotta jump down, turn around, Oh, Lordie, pick a bale a day."

Greg Montgomery told The Detroit News that he complained to school officials, and when he was dissatisfied with their response, decided to pull his 11-year-old daughter, China, from singing.

"It's mind-boggling that people don't understand sensitive issues," he said.

China said: "They were bringing back the memories of how African-Americans picked cotton, and it wasn't a good memory. It was disrespectful to African-Americans."

To me – it is mind boggling that we do not all grow together and learn from each other.  It is mind boggling that we want to sweep under the rug the past and hope it really never happened – and far more important – it won’t happen again.

It makes me wonder: If we ignore it, will our past go away?

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Want to read the original story?  Here is a link.