Motley Morris banned !

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 11:05 AM

MDDL is Morris Dance Discussion List.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 11:02 AM

Why shouldn't we overwhelm the school with e-mails. They need to understand how some of us feel about their decision.

I personally kept my e-mail polite and to the point and in no way included any swear words or threatening behaviour. I agree with you there manitas.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 11:00 AM

[e-mail]

[e-mail]

Sir

I have lived near Gravesend for nearly 50 years. I have been proud of Gravesend's flagship status in terms of integration for many years, from the pioneer days of Pier Road (where I later nearly bought a house) to today. I am proudly opposed to all racists.

But Chantry School's actions in cancelling, without examination of the facts, a contractual booking of Motley Morris, a side dancing in the established English border tradition, because it made unjustified assumptions about their "blackface" traditional makeup, play into the hands of bigots. The face blacking is a tradition to prevent dancers from being recognised by local worthies and potential employers - in the border regions where the border morris style originated. It is echoed in blackface molly dancing from the East Anglian regions. The face blacking is not a racist reference to black skin.

White racists will now say that English traditions are being sacrificed, and that therefore they who value English traditions must fight back.

A pedagogue should have known better.


Yours, etc.


Richard McD. Bridge

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:59 AM

Well I just got notification that they have read my e-mail at least.

Well done romany man.
Maybe this sort of thing will get us stirred up enough to do something about all this PC issue, before we all disapear up our own backsides.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:58 AM

What is MDDL

L in C

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:55 AM

There has been discussion about this on the MDDL. A request has been made that you don't overwhelm the school with emails and another request was made to watch your language. We don't want this to escalate so that it reflects badly on morris dancers.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: romany man
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:48 AM

I have also emailed said school. I dont often get upity about pc pratts, (much) but this one catches my craw, ifn we all email them and express OUR offence at them being banned surely this must have an impact. I suppose as usual the english "well it dont involve me" attitude will prevail, however if all the morris fed got together to protest what then, or shall we sit and allow this small chip to become a canyon before we complain.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:46 AM

What do we make of this?

CleeHill


"A dance from a Niggering gang from this area is known by the Clee Hill Mummers. It consists of four men dancing   alternately rounds and stick clashing, to Step dance tunes, and almost certainly with Step Dancing steps. Its origins are probably fairly close to the Westwood dance. There is also a dance similar to the Bromsberrow Heath dance but with
stepping instead of stick clashing from another village on the hill.

Border Morris

Best wishes

L in C

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Fidjit
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:43 AM

I think I'll get my children removed from that school. ( I'm sure I have some there) They are not educating them properly.

Chas

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: RB3
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:41 AM

Not that you shouldn't fight against ridiculous PC-ness whenever it crops up, but in the U.S. there is too much connection between the tradition of black-face and actual racism for us to get away with it (although I may be wrong--there may be some teams out here doing black face). The teams I've seen doing that type of border morris over here tend to use multi-colored face paint instead.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:34 AM

A Brief Background to Border Morris Dancing

From

"Andy Anderson's booklet on Border Morris for the Morris Federation."

This is an extract from my booklet about Border Morris Dancing, which is published by the Morris Federation. I've no objection to you using extracts from this material (although a credit is always welcome) but please try to avoid passing great chunks of it around. It'd be nice if, instead, you ordered copies of the full text from the Morris Federation. You get a nicely formatted booklet, and the ludicrously small markup helps the Federation to make material like this more widely available. If you are new to Border Morris, this text or the booklet may help you to decide what you want to do and suggest how to go about it. If you already dance Border, it may give you some new ideas for answers to the questions "How did the current style of Border Morris start?" and "What did the original teams do?" Ideas contributed by many people appear in this text and it would be unfair to mention only a few. My thanks go to all concerned or their contributions. Any errors or omissions are, of course, entirely my own.



Border Morris

What is the status of this?

L in C

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Marje
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:32 AM

Crow Sister has a good point, and I'd never really thought of it that way before. Morris traditions are not set in stone, and the disguise could be tweaked a bit by the use other colours, or by drawing black patterns on the face rather than going for that all-over blackness which could lead to confusion about its purpose.

And local schools, in their turn, have a duty to educate their children and the wider community that they claim to be supporting, by encouraging the morris to explain (or getting the teachers to explain) what the blacking-up is all about, and its place in our social history.

As to why the teachers all seem to be female and white - well, the great majority of primary school teachers are female and white in England. I don't expect Gravesend is any different to most places - I'd be surprised if it had a large, settled non-white community, and primary teaching is simply one of those careers (like nursing) that attracts far more women than men, almost everywhere. There's nothing very sinister about it.

Marje

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:19 AM

I trust you have been able to explain the origins and evolution of the various kinds of Morris - as far as I can tell most Morris people can't agree on what they are.

Best wishes

L in C

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 10:14 AM

Well I have sent my e-mail off to the head teacher.

Richard, have you got e-mail addresses for those other ones you mentioned?

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 09:46 AM

Beware the troll...Gedi

Gedi's not a troll, Royston. He's a nice bloke who sings at our local singaround and plays for Bollin Morris. After your unpleasant experience on the FAF thread, I'd have thought you'd have thought twice about casting aspersions...

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 09:35 AM

>>Should Motley sue for their fee? They were, were they not, contracted for a paid stand, and the contract was it seems repudiated for no valid reason. <<

I had exactly the same thoughts Richard. Would they win?

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 09:26 AM

Well, I wonder what "English Country Music" is. Is it like Big Al Whittle's hilarious "Buster the line-dancing dog"?

I have pinged off three stroppy emails, one to the Chantry School (does anyone else wonder why all their teachers seem to be female and white?), one to the Gravesend Reporter, and one to the Gravesend Messenger - pointing out, as Roston does, that this really does play into the hands of the bigots who will leap about and call for us to fight for our vanishing national identity, or some such nonsense.

Should Motley sue for their fee? They were, were they not, contracted for a paid stand, and the contract was it seems repudiated for no valid reason.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 09:26 AM

"It is the disguise that is the essence of the tradition, not the colour."

Agreed. Plus the *style* of modern blacked-up faces doesn't much resemble a traditional "sooty" face anyway. Though, it does rather like the kind of stage make-up worn by B&W Minstrels.

Midnight blue or ivy green, would serve the same function IMO, without leading to confusion.

Having said that the modern "witch men" look quite gothic in all black - so the blackened face in that instance works well with the rest of the gothic/pagan costume.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 09:26 AM

Well I have just rung them and expressed my disgust at their attitude.

In the end the lady said that she was not involved in the decision and I should put my viewpoint in writing. She did say that they were getting lots of comments because of it.

So I for one am going to e-mail them on [e-mail]

I will not be rude to them, but will express my viewpoint about their decision

I hope some of you will do the same and support our traditions.

Maybe we should have a Facebook page for this.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Leadfingers
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 09:20 AM

Another example of Political Correctness carried to Ridiculous extremes

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Royston
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 09:07 AM

Beware the troll...Gedi

I say that anyone claiming to have been called a racist for liking english music is in fact a liar.

If I am wrong then the person accusing racism must be a lone idiot, so why would anyone bother to mention it...

...but to propagate the BNP lie that "White" traditions are under some sort of sustained onslaught.

On the blackface issue, I don't know anyone who would actually be offended by it (my recently ex-partner, still close friend, of 7 years is of Pakistani origin and I am a committed anti-racist / anti-fascist activist with a lot of supremely 'PC' friends and colleagues). I think the school over-reacted.

However, there is "always one", as the saying goes, and probably the same imaginary "one" that says liking trad music is racist.

Folk traditions are not pickled in aspic, they constantly evolve. Once there were no blackface morris-men. Then, for social reasons of some sort, they wanted to disguise themselves and used what was to hand...burnt corks.

Now, if it is claimed that society might now not appreciate blackface, why not just choose a different coloured disguise (as many sides have done) It is the disguise that is the essence of the tradition, not the colour.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Bernard
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 09:07 AM

"A pedagogue should know better"... unfortunately, narrow-mindedness knows no bounds!

The Britannia Coconut Dancers of Bacup are still banned from performing in Manchester (UK) centre, as far as I know...

Political Correctness does seem to be something people hide behind rather than stand up for...

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: banjoman
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 09:06 AM

This is PC gone mad - it seems to me that we are being asked to give up our traditions over and over again for fear of offending people. Just who are we going to offend? I have no doubt that it would be seen as racist if we were to ask our Muslim and/or other friends and neighbours to forgoe some of their traditions for fear of upsetting us.
Anyone with a modicum of common sense should be able to understand that all races, creeds and colours have long standing traditions in dance, music and other social activities and that these must be preserved. The alternate would be to ban everything that may upset someone else and we can all live in a soulless society.
Come on Chantry School - wake up its the 21st century

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 08:56 AM

So effectively, the primary school has basically branded them as being rascist and even worse stopped them from showing and explaining the tradition of morris dancing etc.

Here is the link to the school

http://www.itom.co.uk/chantry/staff.htm

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 08:40 AM

Ludicrous Ged

Maybe we should all bombard the school with telephone calls complaining about their action and how ignorent they are about tradition.

*"$£%^&!*

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Gedi
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 08:24 AM

I play for Bollin Morris in Cheshire and we tend to use a mixture of colours as well as black. To my knowledge (I haven't been with the side for very long) no one has objected to the black faces as yet. Of course it's entirely possible someone may be offended and not say anything, but we would quickly point out the tradition of disguise etc should anyone question the practice.

With some people however you just cannot win - on Friday evening, sitting in the pub in full regalia after having danced (and with a very blue face I might add) in the car park, I was accused of being racist simply because I said I like English Country Music because it put me in touch with my heritage! I began by stating that I did not wish it to sound nationalistic but alas to no avail. It seems that to some people you must like all kinds of music or else be seen to be racist.

A very tricky area methinks.

cheers
Ged

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: GUEST,Neovo
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 08:17 AM

Outrageous! I can't remember the name but I recall a well-respected Muslim scholar speaking on (probably) the Today Programme on the subject of political correctness. His view was that if English people can't respect and celebrate their own traditions how can they respect those of others.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 08:09 AM

Some traditions need to be banned for rational reasons (foxhunting, "female circumcision", seal clubbing, dogfighting, bearbaiting, badger baiting, cock fighting, and probably a whole load of others - oh yes, obligatory purdah for females) but blackface morris is not one.

This, regrettably, is PC ignorance, and indeed wilful ignorance. A pedagogue should know better.

Subject: RE: Motley Morris banned !
From: Rasener
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 08:06 AM

They are on a loser, but I for one support the morris dancers stance.

Ignorent people immediately assume the wrong thing and do not take the time to look into the tradition.

They will probably have to adopt what others like Poacher Morris have done http://www.poacher-morris.freeservers.com/cgi-bin/photoalbum/view_photo/1080274

Subject: Motley Morris banned !
From: GUEST,SallyM
Date: 29 Jun 09 - 07:49 AM

So Morris are not PC yet again :
BBC
Surely they should have been given the time to explain the tradition.

Sal the Gal