To Bullis, from a Prospective Family: Stadium Songs Containing the "N Word"

[Anonymous]

If Bullis wants to go the Magnet route and specialize in the sciences and maths that is fine with me. The problem I foresee is the tuition ($36K) is extremely high for a school whose academic perception is towards the lower end of the independent schools in the DMV market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Bullis wants to go the Magnet route and specialize in the sciences and maths that is fine with me. The problem I foresee is the tuition ($36K) is extremely high for a school whose academic perception is towards the lower end of the independent schools in the DMV market.

The school just brought in the biggest class in school history. If things don't go well, I suspect enrollment will fall. Still puzzled why people who don't send their kids there would really care.

This "anonymous" poster mode is so lame. There should be specific user registration so we can know who said what.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure how anyone can claim that Bullis is 30% lower in annual giving than a school like Sidwell, but that would not be shocking.

1. Some other schools have larger populations.

2. Many other schools have much longer histories of giving.

3. Many other schools have alums who have much deeper pockets and/or come from families with history of giving

4. Many other schools have current families much better off financially.


If Bullis (or any other school) is so bad and your child doesn't go there, why the obsession?

Sorry -- I meant to say the participation rate lags by 20-30%. (You can find this info easily on any school website, BTW.) Not obsessed, just curious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:MANIC

Good post -- very enlightening.

It is actually, I think the poster is actually manic. He has posted the same exact post at least 20 times that I have read and I have only been on DCUM for 8 months.

It is too bad he had a bad experience with Bullis but he is obsessive and needs to move on.

Many of us have had bad experiences at a school but don't try to discredit the school, over and over and over again, obsessivly. Sometimes it is a bad fit. So what, move on... but this obsessive need to prove they are right and the school is wrong is sad.

This poster will not be happy until Bullis is kicked out of the IAC and then they can be vindicated.

It's almost as pathetic as the dad at Sidwell who is sueing over his wifes affair. Move on already, nobody cares.

In reading posts that are negative - I do not think it is the same poster. Varying word choice - tone and inferences. Why are you so interested in squelching discourse? If you like Bullis and their practices - great. But stop trying to dictate how others should feel. Your opinion doesnt make it fact.

Bullis is controversial. Miles down the road from a top high school that people forgo to pay $35,000. That in and of itself is interesting given that it just honestly cannot say it is a top academic school. Across any metric - it is not.

This fact and these athletic practices are creating controversy. Who are you to say how we should react to this? It is you that is continually telling people to shut-up. Maybe you should.

I am not interested in quelching discorse but this poster has posted the same information 8 times, just on this thread. He jumps on every single Bullis thread and posts the same thing for days, weeks, months.

You can not have any conversatin about Bullis without this one poster taking it off course. What does a senior transfer have to do with the music selection at a football game?

I said move on, which is very healthy advice. You say for me to shut up, I can see you are a very sad person.

Bullis is not controversial. On with your quest.

It is you that is sad. The way you defend Bullis and tell people to move on .... its pathetic. There is controversy here -- obviously. Are you a Bullis teacher or Board member. They can do no wrong...huh... its better than Exeter and Andover.... riiiiiiiiight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How was the word used in context? The word "nigger" appears in Huck Finn, which is part of the English curriculum at many high schools, including the school my kids attend/ed (not Bullis). A word isn't "bad" per se; it's about how the word is used and interpreted.

Sorry to break it to you, but the word is as offensive in Huck Finn as it ia anywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How was the word used in context? The word "nigger" appears in Huck Finn, which is part of the English curriculum at many high schools, including the school my kids attend/ed (not Bullis). A word isn't "bad" per se; it's about how the word is used and interpreted.

Sorry to break it to you, but the word is as offensive in Huck Finn as it ia anywhere.

So you would ban Huck Finn because a character uses a word in an offensive way? You do understand that Twain wasn't endorsing this, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is you that is sad. The way you defend Bullis and tell people to move on .... its pathetic. There is controversy here -- obviously. Are you a Bullis teacher or Board member. They can do no wrong...huh... its better than Exeter and Andover.... riiiiiiiiight.

LOL. Pathetic strawman argument (not that you know what that is) to bolster your case. Nobody said Bullis has the academic reputation of Exeter. Playing "Holy Grail" is not a controversy, you idiot.

[Anonymous]

1. As noted, the significance of upperclass transfers. The other IAC schools do not appear to bring in senior transfers, even the ones that recruit most aggressively. If the other IAC heads feel that what could be analogized to bringing in junior college transfers at the collegiate level is not consistent with an athletic conference meant to keep a balance between academics and athletics, this could be something that is a flashpoint in terms of a movement to expel Bullis from the conference.

2. Recruiting players from other league schools. There are several sports in which Bullis coaches or their emissaries have approached athletes already attending a school in the conference and encouraged them to switch to Bullis. Maybe the IAC will go in a direction that some of the big Catholic high school conferences have gone -- just prohibit such behavior and make students sit out a season if they switch schools -- but this could also be an impetus for kicking Bullis out of the conference.

My own assessment is that it is unlikely, but not impossible, that the IAC would expel Bullis. Bullis's best protection is the small size of the conference already (only six schools), and the gentle hand of inertia. Perhaps a more plausible scenario would be that, as was done with Georgetown Prep, Bullis would not be part of the conference for football. Again, because the conference is so small (only 5 IAC football schools) that probably would not happen.

Prep is similar to Gonzaga. The junior college and D1 major program moves to D3 in college are what Bullis is doing. That happens in some college leagues but not others. NFL coaches monitoring D3 players is a big sign. Bullis is bringing in national level D1 big program recruits.

Prep was a powerhouse in the IAC but that was based on size of the school, coming in at high school, etc. Prep coaches, players, and fans did not and do not behave like Bullis. Trashy program.

[Anonymous]

The school is a farce and Cilento is a joke. Have you ever heard him speak? He can barely put two words together, not to mention reading and writing. He also calls himself the "academic coach." That's a problem right there, Bullis. Not surprising that he throws tantrums when they are up by multiple touchdowns. Dude, scale back on the roids. They're not helping ya. The headmaster should suspend the coach for that embarrassment, as he did the baseball coach two years ago. But football is driving everything right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:How was the word used in context? The word "nigger" appears in Huck Finn, which is part of the English curriculum at many high schools, including the school my kids attend/ed (not Bullis). A word isn't "bad" per se; it's about how the word is used and interpreted.

Is the word ever used or interpreted in a "good" or positive way?

Actually, it is. Younger African-American men sometimes use it to indicate friendship/comraderie with other men, white or black. More fundamentally, though, the word can be used or interpreted in a way that is neither positive nor negative, but that informs or describes.

Yeah, as a white guy I'm going to go up to one of my black companions and say "Hey nigger, what's up?". I'll let you knowhow it goes.

The word in the song is nigga not nigger. It has a completely different meaning than nigger. The meaning of words change over time! It is really not a big deal.

Well, this has actually been a pretty enlightening thread. Either a lot of people at Bullis actually do think it is okay to play stadium music with the "n word" in it (or this "new derivation" of it) -- which can tell prospective families something; or they would rather defend Bullis than get a simple change made in a music playlist (which also says something about the culture/environment of the school).

Or they have a more contemporary understanding of the word, which is informed by the context in which it's being used. I'm not a Bullis parent, but I do have kids in high school and college, and I know that this generation has an evolving understanding of the word "nigger/nigga". Think of the word "queer", which went from being an insult to being used in the title of a TV show as the gay community took ownership of the word, rather than allowing themselves to be victimized by it.

Nigga, please!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How was the word used in context? The word "nigger" appears in Huck Finn, which is part of the English curriculum at many high schools, including the school my kids attend/ed (not Bullis). A word isn't "bad" per se; it's about how the word is used and interpreted.

Sorry to break it to you, but the word is as offensive in Huck Finn as it ia anywhere.

So you would ban Huck Finn because a character uses a word in an offensive way? You do understand that Twain wasn't endorsing this, right?

You do see the difference between classic literature and a Jay-Z song, right? You've got 99 problems but a brain ain't one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How was the word used in context? The word "nigger" appears in Huck Finn, which is part of the English curriculum at many high schools, including the school my kids attend/ed (not Bullis). A word isn't "bad" per se; it's about how the word is used and interpreted.

Sorry to break it to you, but the word is as offensive in Huck Finn as it ia anywhere.

So you would ban Huck Finn because a character uses a word in an offensive way? You do understand that Twain wasn't endorsing this, right?

You do see the difference between classic literature and a Jay-Z song, right? You've got 99 problems but a brain ain't one.

I agree comparing jayz to matk twain is inane... Those lyrics are just as offensive as Elvis's swinging hips and they are going to contribute to juvenile delinquency.

[Anonymous]

If you advertise a game as a family affair -- as Bullis does with the football, encouraging all Bullis families to come and bring the younger kids -- I don't think you should play songs with that kind of language. From having spoken with him and gotten a sense of his views in general, I would guess the Head of School would agree and they'll monitor the playlist a bit more in the future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you advertise a game as a family affair -- as Bullis does with the football, encouraging all Bullis families to come and bring the younger kids -- I don't think you should play songs with that kind of language. From having spoken with him and gotten a sense of his views in general, I would guess the Head of School would agree and they'll monitor the playlist a bit more in the future.

I should add that they are still figuring out how to do the JumboTron in general. They have kids run it -- which is great, shades of the old "AV club" back in the day -- and the kids don't always have a sense of what you should put up on the big screen. At a recent game in which Bullis was routing the opponent the JumboTron camera started focusing on the Bullis bench and the players starting mugging for the camera/scoreboard screen, yukking it up, making gestures (nothing obscene) -- just like you'd see on ESPN so it's very understandable. But not the most sportsmanslike move for high school, so I'll bet they will be working on that too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How was the word used in context? The word "nigger" appears in Huck Finn, which is part of the English curriculum at many high schools, including the school my kids attend/ed (not Bullis). A word isn't "bad" per se; it's about how the word is used and interpreted.

Sorry to break it to you, but the word is as offensive in Huck Finn as it ia anywhere.

So you would ban Huck Finn because a character uses a word in an offensive way? You do understand that Twain wasn't endorsing this, right?

You do see the difference between classic literature and a Jay-Z song, right? You've got 99 problems but a brain ain't one.

So, you said the word is offensive in Huck Finn, but now you're saying it's not the word isn't offensive, but the context or the reification of the work in which it appears as part of the canon? I guess you've got 99 problems, but logical and supple thinking aren't two of them.