Students at Penn Replace Shakespeare Portrait With Picture of Black Writer
“affirming their commitment to a more inclusive mission for the English department.”
Shakespeare is apparently the embodiment of the old-dead-white-guy patriarchy or something.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:
Penn students replace Shakespeare portrait with photo of black writer
Students at the University of Pennsylvania have removed a large portrait of William Shakespeare from a wall in the building housing the English Department and replaced it with a photograph of Audre Lorde, a black writer who died in 1992, the Daily Pennsylvanian reports.
The student-run news outlet said the portrait was left in the office of Jed Etsy, an English professor and the department chairman.
The portrait had hung for years on the Heyer Staircase at Fisher-Bennett Hall.
The English Department voted a few years ago to replace the portrait, but had yet to do so, according to the DP.
In an email, Etsy told the DP that “Students removed the Shakespeare portrait and delivered it to my office as a way of affirming their commitment to a more inclusive mission for the English department.”
He also was reported as saying the Lorde photo will remain until the department decides what to do with the space.
Here are some related tweets:
Poor @Penn snowflakes remove a #Shakespeare portrait because he isnt diverse? More likely you cannot understand his work. #mondaymotivation
— Dayspring (@bodyslideby1) December 12, 2016
https://twitter.com/ZacharyLesser/status/808399779109736448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
@phillydotcom This is a perfect example of why Trump won the election
— Dr.Wu (@2ATJL) December 12, 2016
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
As an alum who majored in English, Penn ’69, this saddens me beyond words. I studied with great professors and wonderful colleagues. Just to get admitted to the major, I had to get through some rigorous prerequisite courses that studied Chaucer, Milton, and the history of the English language which included a semester studying Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxon precursor of English in which it was composed. One memorable highlight was a semester on 17th & 18th century prose writers — Dr. Johnson and Alexander Pope wrote biting stuff that would no doubt send today’s snowflakes running for a blankie.
Although I have decried the wacko direction of Penn in general and the humanities in particular through the years, my education there was superb. I feel for the generations who are being cheated out of our cultural heritage.