"Lord Jeffrey Amherst was a soldier of the king And he came from across the sea, To the Frenchmen and the Indians he didn't do a thing In the wilds of this wild country But for his Royal Majesty he fought with all his might For he was a soldier brave and true He conquered all his enemies whenever they came in sight And he looked around for more when he was through."
"But as more attention has focused on what a tradition this song - which invokes lynching positively - is, I realized as an Amherst grad I have no business scolding Oklahoma college students when Amherst college students and alumni still celebrate not just Lord Jeffrey Amherst - a key British general - but also his victory over the French and Native Americans, the latter accomplished by genocide."
Racist fraternity songs that praise lynching prompted scrutiny after the SAE incident and Oklahoma University's presidential response. Amherst College retains a fight song and mascot honoring Lord Jeffrey Amherst despite his documented advocacy of violence and suggestions to give smallpox-infected blankets to Native Americans. The fight song praises Amherst's military victories over French and Native peoples. Women competed as the 'Lady Jeffs' after coeducation began. Recent efforts to remove the Lord Jeff mascot have intensified, but many students and alumni defend the symbol as tradition, mirroring defenses of other racist campus practices.
Read at Emptywheel
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]