School Apologizes for Nazi Display by Band

[w4rma]

DALLAS (Reuters) - The Paris, Texas, school district apologized Tuesday for a performance by one of its marching bands which played an Adolf Hitler anthem and waved a Nazi flag during a football halftime show.

Band director Charles Grissom said the song and flag were part of a musical performance called "Visions of World War II." It was performed at a Dallas high school Friday, which was also Rosh Hashana, the start of the Jewish new year and one of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar.

"The performance is an attempt to factually portray the history of World War II, triumph of good over evil, and to honor our veterans for their sacrifices in ensuring freedom throughout the world," Grissom said in a statement. He added later that he made a major mistake in judgment.

The performance was greeted by heavy boos at the Hillcrest High School in Dallas, and several objects were hurled at the band.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=573&ncid=757&e=1&u=/nm/20031001/od_nm/life_nazi_dc

[XanaDUer]

1. !

:wtf:

[bobthedrummer]

2. Not surprising out of D/FW gau

they're unlike Texas in D/FW more like Munich in 1930.

[elfwitch]

29. No kidding

I live in Dallas and I spend a lot of time in shock and fear at the level of stupidity in this city.

[joshcryer]

33. The people booed, which was good.

I didn't see anything about that bit before.

[Richardo]

3. File under W for "WTF were they thinking"?

I swear, how can these people hold jobs?

I mean, I was a band nerd. These half time shows take weeks to develop and rehearse. In all that time, with all that effort, no one said, "Gee Mr. Grissom, is it really a good idea to play "Deutschland Uber Alles" and wave around a swastika?"

At the very least, he had to requistion a purchase order for the Nazi flag. No one thought to ask why he wanted it?*

* I'm resisting the urge to suggest that maybe he had access to a "private collection" of such artifacts.

[CO Liberal]

5. Maybe He Already Had a Nazi Flag

In the closet, next to his KKK sheet........

[Richardo]

9. :-)

Just what I was trying not to imply. No, really. :D

[saigon68]

26. NO IT WAS UNDER THE KKK SHEET NEXT TO THE HOOD

Or it might have been in the trunk of confederate money and posters describing rewards for slaves captured and returned.

[damnraddem]

31. Good point --

no sense in letting things like that go to waste. Did he also have a WWII hand grenade? If so, why let that go to waste either?

[Occulus]

14. I'd have to see their show.

I remember the Star of Indiana drum and bugle corps, in their 1991 show "Roman Images", had a "burning" cross on the field. The "flames" were made of this wispy material and it was very tastefully done. It was somewhat controversial at the time, but they still went on to win DCI finals that year.

If the Texas band had really wated to be creative, they could have rewritten the Hitler anthem so it was ever so slightly out-of-key in key places of the music, and put the Nazi flag under the feet of the band. They could have written in our national anthem over that in a completely and stridently different key and stomped on the swastika at the same time. The clear impression would be that we tromped all over the Nazis.

[CO Liberal]

Or They Could Have Played the "Hogan's Heroes" Theme

With people dressed up as Hogan, Klink, Schultz, etc.

[Occulus]

16. yes, the key to it

would be making a clear impression during the show that the Nazis are to be derided and shunned while at the same time acknowledging their part in the war.

NOT an easy job for a show designer, and it's successful attempts at the same which win the competitions.

[CO Liberal]

15. Or They Could Have Played the "Hogan's Heroes" Theme

With people dressed up as Hogan, Klink, Schultz, etc.

[damnraddem]

34. They could have instead played 'Springtime for Hitler.'

I bet The Producers could also have inspired some interesting choreography for the band.

[tabasco]

4. Honor veterans by flying Nazi flags?

This POS band director had other motives. The timing is certainly no coincidnece. If he was not fired immediately, there are bigger problems in this school district.

[bowens43]

8. "The timing is certainly no coincidence?"

this shows that you know nothing about high school bands. The don't perform a show just once. They do the same show week after week. They didn't time it to fall on a Jewish holiday, that was the work of the calendar. This may have been in poor taste but I doubt that it was malicious.

[Richardo]

10. I'd say the odds are pretty good they didn't know it was a Jewish holiday

Not an overload of cultural awareness around here.

[elfwitch]

32. I have to disagree...

There is a rather large Jewish population in DFW. I'm pretty sure someone knew it was a holiday.

[htuttle]

45. I have a generic calendar on my office wall

Very plain -- from 'Quill'. Not even a picture on the calendar -- just boxes for the dates.

On the 27th of September, there is a little label at the bottom that says, "Rosh Hashannah".

Hard to miss.

:eyes:

[tabasco]

39. OK, Band Expert...

Tell me how you know this had been a weekly event. Football season has been here for awhile now. Are you telling me this has been performed the previous Friday nights, and nobody noticed until now?
I guess you're all inside the band director's head.

[CO Liberal]

40. My Daughter Was In the Color Guard....

...when she was in high school (Mid '90s). And I know they and the marching band performed the exact same routine each and every game during the season.

[Occulus]

42. It depends

Some states have high school maching competitions patterned after the DCI shows (www.dci.org). In areas where there are not enough like-minded bands, or where the schools are too spread out for a curcuit, many bands will forego a single, competition show in favor of three of four that they choose from from game to game.

I can tell you from personal experience that marching bands which compete have halftime shows that are generally far more polished than noncompetitive marching bands; my HS was one of the former, my college was the latter- and then I marched corps.

[trapper914]

48. It was performed at least once before...

...in front of the home fans in Paris, who applauded.

I understand what the band director was attempting here. It was to be history through music, and his effort at being accurate was misunderstood, even though a disclaimer ran before the performance explaining exactly what the audience was about to see. They ran disclaimers throughout Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" broadcast, but few listened then either.

[damnraddem]

35. Hey, remember that that depends on ...

which veterans the band director had in mind to honor. ;-)

[wtmusic]

6. Next: Visions of Our Great Civil Rights Struggle

complete with hooded robes...

[CO Liberal]

11. ...And a Tribute to Steppin Fetchit and Amos & Andy

Complete with minstrel show. In blackface.

[bobthedrummer]

12. The Green Lantern and Kato, Batman and Robin, X-men

Catwoman...meow

[bowens43]

7. Sounds to me like the whole thing was blown out of proportion

and taken completely out of context.

"The performance is an attempt to factually portray the history of World War II, triumph of good over evil, and to honor our veterans for their sacrifices in ensuring freedom throughout the world,"

Like it or not, nazi germany was a major player. These folks would have them portray good triumphing over nothing. Maybe we should remove all the nazis from the various world war ii movies and history books.

[wtmusic]

17. LOL yes fascism must be presented tastefully

reenacting the Kristallnacht or a gas chamber scene would be going too far

[bowens43]

19. It wasn't presenting fascism.

Did you even bother to read the article? Probably not. It was depicting world war II . It wasn't praising the nazism. So do you want to purge all mention of nazis from depictions of world war II. Whether you like it or not, nazis were the primary reason the war occurred.

[CO Liberal]

20. Playing an Anthem and Displaying a Flag........

....are acts of respect afforded to a country. Like at the Olympics.

It was uncalled for.

[bowens43]

21. Well, youre entitled to your opinion.

But it wasn't done to honor the nazis. Sometimes the PC stuff gos way too far, this is one of those times.

I guess from now on when we tell the story of world war II we should leave out the part about the nazis.

[CO Liberal]

22. It Could Have Been Done Without The Flag and Anthem

IMHO.

[Occulus]

25. yes, but

it would have lost much artistic value (had it been done properly in the first place) to omit those things. See my post above.

It's quite possible to present issues such as this one in an artistic setting while making it clear that the artform isn't intending to promote such values. Mocking the Nazis in their show would have been very appropriate.

I hear "The Producers" is quite popular. :D

[damnraddem]

36. He who first charges 'PC' ...

loses the argument.

[Kusala]

51. well then they paid respects to every country

involved in the war, axis or allies, because they flew every flag during the performance.

It's sad that we are so PC sometimes that we can't handle a bit of history in performance art. That's why we are doomed to repeat history. We constantly run from it.

It's also sad that the reverse of a swastika is a buddhist symbol, stolen by the nazis, and you can't display it here in the US without getting ignorantly chastised.

And finally, it's unfortunate that people DO glorify bad things in history(Like the confederacy) and ruin the sybolism for people that want to remind us of our historical past.

[wtmusic]

23. No clue

why some people might find that offensive, huh? So a gas chamber reenactment, if historically accurate (that seems to be your criterium) would be acceptable?

[Occulus]

43. It depends on the context.

By your logic, "Schindler's List" should never have been as popular of a film as it was. Yes, I saw it, and it nearly tore my heart right out of my chest.

[Norbert]

13. This was posted Yesterday.

[CO Liberal]

24. The Story Was Yesterday's News - The Apology is Today's

[recidivist]

18. The headline is a bit misleading.

According to the story, the band played anthems and displayed flags from several WWII combatants. Japan, France, Britain and the U.S. are specifically mentioned, as well as Germany.

It's hard to believe they left out Russia. Perhaps they didn't and the reporter failed to mention it, but it's also possible that someone took a U.S.-centric view of the war and forgot about the Eastern Front. FWIW, if I were planning the show I'd also include Italy and Poland, time permitting.

Anyhow, this was apparently not a Nazi fest. If you're doing an historical revue, you're probably going to include both sides.

The same issue arises when someone does a "flags over ...." type of display, and up go the Stars and Bars as part of an historical flag display. Sometimes the professional soreheads make an issue of that too, but history comes with villains as well as heroes.

Much ado about nothing, IMO.

[BiggJawn]

27. Uh-Oh...I feel a "Heritage Rant' comin' on....

"...an Adolf Hitler anthem..."

Oh, the "Song of the Germans" is an Adolf Hitler anthem????

Then why are all 3 verses and the melody allowed to be performed in Germany today?

Why is the 3rd verse the "official" national Anthem of Germany, proper for all State Occassions?

"Der Horst Wessel Lied" is "an Adolf Hitler anthem", "Song of the Germans" is NOT...

[jobycom]

28. Geeze, I guess you guys hated "O Brother Where Art Thou" huh?

You know, with the KKK rally, the burning cross, the white sheets-- all to mock the bad guys, not support them?

Breaking news-- a lot of band directors are liberals, and it's just possible that this display was meant to warn of the dangers of Nazism and maybe even draw parallels to current events. That's just as likely as the way most here are interpreting it. Or it could even be that the band director meant what he said and was trying to honor WWII vets by telling the story of their victory. Be a little hard to do that without reference to whom their victory was over.

The real idiots in this story are the people of Paris, TX, who can't understand a story unless it has lots of loud bangs and cute one-liners. I blame Reagan. Since that mofo destroyed our educational system it's damned hard to teach any kid to understand the arts.

[joshcryer]

37. I had the impression that the Nazi symbolism had equalled respect.

So, there was no actual mocking as far as I know. If there was, if the Nazi's were shown to truely be defeated, then I'm totally for it.

[jobycom]

41. It was not a show of respect, according to the story

The band was showing the defeat of evil by good. Hard to respect someone while calling them evil.

[damnraddem]

38. O Brother succeeded at mocking, ...

just as The Producers did. It doesn't sound that way with the marching band.

[jobycom]

44. I didn't mean to say the show "mocked" the Nazis, just that

the band wasn't honoring Hitler just because it portrayed Nazi symbols. You can show symbols for reasons other than honoring. The Cohens did it to mock the KKK. Nothing in the story implies that the Paris band was honoring the Nazis, or that the band director was a closet Nazi, but that's what several posters were implying. That's mainly what I was responding to.

[damnraddem]

30. And next year, they'll feature:

'A Salute to the Holocaust.'

Or how about 'Visions of Texas under Slavery'?

Maybe they could feature a 'Tribute to Al Qaida,' complete with exploding instruments.

If the band was supposed to 'factually portray' the Nazis, was their march a goosestep?

[sal]

46. Jefferson HS in SA, Tx had a hitler youth portrait

on the 2nd floor vestibular wall in front of the library, at least until 1995. The boy was named Bob Nixon, and he was student council president in 1931. I called and asked them to take it down. I spotted it when I was there judging a debate contest. I do not know if it is still there or not.

Please remember that Texans are by in large the dumbest race of idiots on the planet, mix in a healthy dose of meaness, and viola! Facism.

[trapper914]

50. Whoa, Pilgrim!

"Please remember that Texans are by in large the dumbest race of idiots on the planet..."

Please don't judge all of us by the pResident and other carpetbaggers. We're not the <i>dumbest</i> race of idiots. As idiots, we're not nearly as dumb as West Virginia.

Trapper (a Texan in Indiana)

[boneygrey]

47. Person resposible

That idiot needs to be fired. Immediately.

[0rganism]

49. Wierd. All questions of artistic intent aside, this wasn't the venue

People don't go to football games to have "the history of World War II" portrayed by the halftime band.

Somehow, I am reminded of the scene in "This Is Spinal Tap" where the heavy metal band gets a gig playing at an officers' dance in an air force base.