for the program. In addition, though it is largely unstated, the powers-that-be clearly do not believe music training is of any value to young people from this background, either because these students are seen as incapable of learning the subject, or because the subject would do little to get them the kind of vocational job the administration believes is their lot. The parents as well doom their own children to a life without the sort of musical sensibility Roberta brings to them--one mother complains that all Roberta is teaching her children is the music of "dead white men." There is a racial concern on both sides, with the white power structure seeing young black children as less capable, and with black parents fearing what the white power structure will make of their children.
Roberta shows that these children are as capable of learning as any children, and she makes true musicians out of many of them, good enou
...