IMHO it's Mel Brooks greatest flick along with "Blazing Saddles"
Posted on 09/30/2003 4:54:09 PM PDT by Recourse
Texas band uses Nazi flag on Jewish new year
Associated Press Sept. 30, 2003 07:29 AM
DALLAS - A Texas high school band leader is apologizing for his band's half-time performance on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year.
During a half-time show at a football game at a Dallas high school last Friday, a student from Paris High School went running across the field waving a Nazi flag.
At the time, the band was playing the composition that eventually became known as "Deutschland Uber Alles".
Band director Charles Grissom says it was part of a show entitled "Visions of World War II," in which the flags and music were intended to represent the warring nations.
Grissom says the musicians were booed and cursed, and had things thrown at them. He adds they have learned their lesson. The band's show will likely now include only the U.S. flag.
Grissom tells The Dallas Morning News it was "an error in judgment."
(Excerpt) Read more at azcentral.com ...
IMHO it's Mel Brooks greatest flick along with "Blazing Saddles"
Well, let's just do a commemoration of the Civil War and have some black folks walk across the football field in shackles.
The presentation was tasteless, and the band director said so, after everybody else said so.
Same zip code, same student body make-up.
Nazi flag removed, apology issued
By Van Hilburn
The Paris NewsPublished September 30, 2003
Bad timing.
That’s what Paris High Blue Blazes Band Director Charles Grissom said of Friday’s controversial halftime performance at Hillcrest High School that left some residents in that Dallas community very upset.
A Nazi flag was waved as part of the performance honoring World War II veterans.
Because of the backlash, Grissom said only the American flag will be used in future shows.
Paris Independent School District Superintendent Paul Trull issued an apology to Dallas Independent School District Superintendent Mike Moses, who was at the game watching his son, Hillcrest starting center Mason Moses, play. Trull also apologized to anyone who may have been offended by the performance.
For the second consecutive week, the Blue Blazes Band performed “Visions of World War II”, a seven-minute show honoring war veterans, complete with flags from all countries involved.
The Nazi flag was part of that show and when it was shown, fans at Hillcrest, an old Jewish community in the Dallas area, were outraged.
A disclaimer describing the show was read prior to the band performing, but that apparently wasn’t enough, according to Grissom.
“We had kids being cursed and things thrown at them. They were taken back,” Grissom said.
Even Paris High School coaches returning to the pressbox after halftime meetings were cursed.
What upset the Hillcrest fans was the fact that Paris High brought the swastika flag of Nazi Germany into their Franklin Stadium during Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New’s Year’s Day and their day of remembrance.
“They didn’t understand that our intentions were quite honorable, that they were trying to do something nice. We never intended to cause this much confusion and distraught,” Grissom said.
A week earlier at Paris High’s homecoming game against Athens, the same show was performed, complete with two seven-second scenes in which the Nazi flag was prominently waved, this time by a black band member. Paris fans, however, applauded the show, which had to be performed after the game because halftime homecoming queen crowning ceremonies ran long.
The Nazi flag was shown for about seven seconds twice and was just one of the flags in the short performance. Others included flags from France, Japan, Great Britain and America.
“The show all along was intended to honor veterans of World War II. It was very patriotic in nature. Our intent was certainly honorable, but we made a mistake. We didn’t know that it was a Jewish holiday, and we didn’t intend on the negative reaction. It was just for historical purposes only and wasn’t created to offend anyone, only to honor the veterans of World War II.
“It wasn’t that we were condoning what happened during that war, but to be historically accurate, you have to include it,” Grissom said of his reasoning to include the Nazi flag.
The Paris band will also do the performance at the Oct. 15 University Interscholastic League contest, Grissom said.
“The program was a musical and symbolic interpretation that was intended to depict history. Unfortunately, a portion of this program was offensive to some members of the Hillcrest community. For this, we are deeply sorry and offer our most humble apology,” Trull said in a letter to Hillcrest principal Jonlyn Mitchell. “We strive to be sensitive to the feelings of others and are always willing to amend our actions when we fall short. To the Hillcrest High School student body and community, please accept our deepest apology.”
DISD spokesman Donald Claxton responded to the apology.
“We’ve accepted an apology from the superintendent at Paris, and he also offered one to our principal at Dallas Hillcrest High,” he said. “We know that they certainly weren’t trying to offend anyone.”
Mike Martin, athletic director and head football coach at Hillcrest, said he was surprised at the amount of publicity that the halftime show received.
“It’s been on the news, on the radio, on television. It’s been pretty much everywhere. I think it will slide and all will be fine because of the apologies. It was just kind of bad timing, especially with Friday being a Jewish holiday. It wasn’t thought out,” Martin said. “(The performance) wasn’t malicious, and I think people know that, but they have to stand up and say it was not good to do it on that day.”
To me a flag is nothing more than a sheet of fabric with some silly geometric shapes on it. I also find it easier to sympathize with the provocateurs than with the provoked, who typically prove themselves small and petty whatever their cause.
(Incidentally, I have known a good few real Holocaust survivors, the kind with tatooed numbers on their forearms and found them far more reasonable, philosophical, in these matters than the current crop of posturing American impostors. It all happened on another continent. Duh!)
That same evening, the history channel showed a documentry entitled Desert War. It was about Field Marshal Rommel. Was it inapproriate to air this show on Rashashana? Now that you know about it, are you offended?
Had it not been the Jewish New Year, would the performance have been less offensive?
I do not know where you studied logic, but I'll argue your point nonetheless. The evils of slavery are indeed present in our lives. We talk about them every day in this country. Turn on your TV, read your newspaper. Slavery is a enormous problem in the world today.
The flag is a symbol, nothing more. You do not defeat evil by destroying its symbols, you defeat evil by destroying evil. Burning the Nazi flag, like burning the American flag does nothing. Its a symbol, and thus your action can be nothing more than symbolic. In other words, useless.
2. I do question the intention of the band leader for doing such a thing on the Jewish holiday
3. I am Jewish.
4. Also, I would not see anything wrong with booing the Italian, Japanese, and Nazi flags. It just gets the audience into it.
5. I did not see any Swastika in the video.
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