The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Wasn't this done to a statue of Felix Mendelssohn?

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/oh- ... soc_trk=fb

I realize that this issue may be a sensitive one, but Stephen Foster was one of our great Early composers. Not great, in the modern sense, of course, but great in the time in which he composed and he should not be so dishonored.

billybob62 wrote:I realize that this issue may be a sensitive one, but Stephen Foster was one of our great Early composers. Not great, in the modern sense, of course, but great in the time in which he composed and he should not be so dishonored.

I'm likely as much of a liberal socialist as you could want (or not want, LOL), but I am completely against the idiotic idea of whitewashing and rewriting unpleasant or uncomfortable history. We need to acknowledge and embrace the good with the bad, tinctured with the accepted fact that times and attitudes change. To me the proper treatment is to acknowledge Foster's importance by allowing the statue to remain, yet also viewing it as a positive testament to how far we have come so that we do not go back.

And with that... I'll shaddup.

Thanks George. I agree 100%. Many young people today do not even know who Foster was.
I went to Pitt and frequently passed by Foster's home in an area of Pittsburgh which is now a predominately African-American neighborhood. All Pittsburghers should be proud that he was from Pittsburgh.

Bitterness becomes the result of trying to rewrite history.

Many of his songs are on collectible discs and cylinders.

I don't see anything racist in this statue. Foster was inspired by black musicians and it would more racist to depict Foster without the banjo player who gave him the inspiration to write this early American folk music down. It's the hip-hoppers who ought to be taken down. Very outrageous to eliminate the Foster statue!

I didn't see anything wrong with the Foster statue.I think it's VERY wrong to eradicate reminders of our history.It's something out of George Orwell's book 1984.edisonplayer

edisonplayer wrote:I didn't see anything wrong with the Foster statue.I think it's VERY wrong to eradicate reminders of our history.It's something out of George Orwell's book 1984.edisonplayer

A better idea would be to put a plaque at the statue to frame the nature of his work in the time it was written..to re write history is idiotic

I read that the city couldn't find a museum that would take the Foster statue, so it is now just sitting in some rural pasture.

This is so stupid. No surprise it was pushed by some hip-hop "genius".

If the banjo player was perceived as offensive by so many people, it doesn't seem too difficult to me to have only that portion of the statue removed, and the base remodeled.

Oh Susannah, despite being just a funny tune, for some reason is immortal and is still known and sung all over the world. Even here in Italy everybody would know how to sing or whistle it, if they were asked.

Wow, this is sad. I wish my generation not only respected history more, but at least tried to learn about it.