Azizi wrote, I certainly feel that that school district showed a remarkable lack of foresight in selecting "Pick A Bale Of Cotton" as representative of African American folk culture.

I don't think for a minute that the choir director intended this to be a statement about cotton picking, or about the African American experience. I suspect it was just seen as a folk-based choral piece with an up-tempo. In other words they just thought the song was cute, it fit the program, and it would sound good and the audience would enjoy it.

I think it was a bad choice. If their intention was to show an African-American folk song, or a song in the context of slavery, there are plenty of spirituals that have been given choral settings. If they just want a familiar American folk song, there are plenty of Stephen Foster songs that would be enjoyed by the entire audience. This is a school, folks, not a folk music festival. Schools need to take a lot of issues into account.

On the other hand, if you refused ever to sing anything with potential ethnic insults in its content, I suspect you'd have to drop about a third of American folk music. IMHO, though, those songs should be reserved for occasions where folk traditions and/or history are central to the event. I don't believe China's family -- or anyone else -- said the song should be banned, just that it was a bad song for a concert at a school.

You can carry political correctness too far, and in our world that happens way too frequently. Still, consideration for other people's feelings counts too. For instance, those of us who love Stephen Foster's songs usually give them a good scrubbing before we sing them. Too many of the words, while they were accepted even as late as the early 1940's, are not acceptable now. I have a CD sent to me by a Civil War re-enactor, as a thank-you for suggestions I made about re-phrasing some of Foster's more objectionable wording. These issues are worth giving some consideration when you choose what you will present to a particular group.

Respect and disrespect are very important issues for people whose ethnic group has been on the receiving end of a lot of disrespect. Sometimes it's worth bending over backwards to be considerate. The song felt like an insult to one family, and I don't think they were way out of line (I am sure they have no ideas of its origins and derivation, only of how it sounds to them), and I am glad the school decided not to perform it. I don't see anything in this song that is worth defending the school's right to perform it; there is no obvious moral high ground here on either side, just a compromise over people's feelings.

I recently talked with someone who was hurt badly by a "cute" song with really negative implications about their ethnic group. The singer would never have knowingly and deliberately insulted someone else, but thought the song was "cute" and didn't realize their audience included someone who would be affected badly by it. She has decided to stop singing that song. Period. Sometimes a good rule is, when in doubt, leave it out.

Rita F