FreeThought

Evolution of the Band Shirt

Man, adults can be so lame sometimes.  Gosh.

The Smith-Cotton High School Marching Band is dealing with the consequences of lameness of adults, including their assistant superintendent who took away their band t-shirts.

The Smith-Cotton High School Band t-shirts depict a monkey evolving in to man while each figure is holding a brass instrument.  Clever, seeing as that the band’s theme is “Brass Evolutions”.

After the band marched in the Missouri State Fair, wearing these t-shirts, the assistant superintendent Brad Pollitt received complaints about the evolutionary theme of the t-shirts.

I’m not surprised he received complaints.  Missouri can be a very conservative area.  It also doesn’t surprise me that there are people who call the science of evolution a religion.  Apparently Brad Pollitt is one of those people and he is using that belief to justify recalling the band’s t-shirts.  Pollitt is quoted as saying “if the shirts has said ‘Brass Resurrections’ and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing”.  It does surprise me a little that he would say something like this and allow it to be printed.  “Brass Resurrections” would make an awful band theme.

The thing that I don’t understand is, why do all of this now?  Wouldn’t just the theme “Brass Evolutions” set off someones alarm?  What has changed in the schools dress code that now makes the t-shirts inappropriate? Or did no one bother to approve such things before hand?  Don’t get me wrong, I think the theme and the t-shirt are perfectly acceptable and quite fun but, shouldn’t someone have expected some kind of controversy and created a reasonable response?

So now the district is going to have to absorb the cost of the t-shirts ($700) that will probably be taken out of the budget for the band, effectively making the students pay for someone’s failure to understand that evolutionary science is not a religion.

The thing is the people complaining are the parents, not the band members wearing the t-shirts.

On Friday afternoon after practice, band members piled the shirts on a table. While most were apathetic about the shirts, others felt the drama surrounding the shirts was unwarranted.

“It’s not like we are saying God is bad,” sophomore band member Denyel Luke said. “We aren’t promoting evolution.”

High School junior Adam Tilley said he understood why the shirts were repossessed.

“I can see where the parents are coming from,” he said. “Evolution has always been controversial.” The 17-year-old trombone player said his parents “didn’t care” about the shirt because it was the “name of the band’s show.”

Senior Drum Major Mike Howard said he was disappointed when he had to return the shirt.

“I liked the shirt because it was unique,” Howard said. “The theory of evolution never even crossed my mind.”

While Howard was discouraged when he wasn’t given a choice whether to wear the shirt, he said he wouldn’t want to offend anyone. “Our fans are the community,” he said.

My sympathies are with the band members, who have to deal with a controversy they didn’t create and pay for a mistake they didn’t make.

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