karl E. Hungus Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 (edited) And what of the makeup of the DCI activity? What about the fact that we are 92% white in a world that is not?What can we do to attract a more diverse community? Is it the music we play? the Uniforms? the tradition and military approach that might perhaps keep many youth from becoming involved? this is completely ridiculous. first of all... last i checked drumcorps didnt collect race statistics and data, what would be the point? so lets not try to start a debate based on false statistics this guy pulled out of his ear. second of all............................................ who cares? maybe im being progressive, but when did race start to matter in drumcorps? what the hell is he getting at? personally i dont think it makes one bit of difference what race im marching next to. to even try to put on some sort of charade where you think it has something to do with the final product or demographic or overall experience borders on racism. and as long as were making up statistics.... ill bet the nba is 92% black... hockey is 92% canadian or russian, and cricket is 92% indian or english. what do those statistics mean?.... absolutely nothing. ofcourse the race demographic deosnt balance with that of the world.... its the world, idiot, people are not all the same, and not everyone has the same dislikes and likes. to think that DCI or any sport or activity would somehow have a population that is a clear even ratio(or even CLOSE!) to the actual race and culture of any town/city/county/state/country or world even is almost moronic. even if i somehow misread that quote and hes talking about just reaching more people... its still ridiculous. we attract viewers and members because we are what we are. change is good, but to change so far as to become unrecognizable to oneself is suicide and failure at that. remember kids, sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken. drumcorps is what it is. theres plenty of changes and improvements to make that will keep it drumcorps, and without having the kids look like fools. i find it kind of funny and ironic that this guy talks about attracting more people, yet the material him and his staff come up with is almost completely unaccessible and confusing to even the common drumcorps viewer. let alone the channel flipper who surfs by espn 2, sees a strange guy in an angel/bunny suite flopping around on a football field, says "WTF?" and continues surfing. sorry audiodb, i started writing before you posted. Edited February 19, 2008 by karl E. Hungus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harvey Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 Um...I'd try the 2000+ dollar tuition for the top units first before we start to deride "tradition".Couple that money with the fact that most music education/performance majors (aside from those at historically black colleges and universities) are, indeed, white...and, well, there you go. It is what it is, and no amount of tweaking the music, uniforms or "tradition" is going to make DCI or the Cadets (or any other corps) a pan-cultural paean to the world community. Tell you what, though, George: drop the fees down to about 250 dollars for a Cadets "Cadet" corps, go into inner city Philadelphia and get some kids together and give them some drum line equipment (get Yamaha, etc to donate it) and create a few lines to compete against each other regionally. There's your entry point into the multicultural world of today...which sounds suprisingly like the entry point many, many years ago people used to get kids off the street and into a little thing called drum corps. Funny, no? I won't hold my breath to see that happen, though. I promised myself after this year's rules votes that I was through with posting on the DCI forums. But this thread I just could not ignore. You folks have hit the problem spot on. Even here in the frozen north called Minnesota we have alot of poorer kids that just cannot be a part of the modern drum corps activity. Their families barely scrape by as it is, many times struggling just to put dinner on the table. But now the activity's "big hero" wants to diversify by including them too. Plain and simple: Let them march for free and maybe they might have a shot. Put your money where your mouth is for a change and maybe some of your detractors will gain a little respect for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkyRyder_FMM Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 this is completely ridiculous. first of all... last i checked drumcorps didnt collect race statistics and data, what would be the point? so lets not try to start a debate based on false statistics this guy pulled out of his ear. second of all............................................ who cares? maybe im being progressive, but when did race start to matter in drumcorps? what the hell is he getting at? personally i dont think it makes one bit of difference what race im marching next to. to even try to put on some sort of charade where you think it has something to do with the final product or demographic or overall experience borders on racism. and as long as were making up statistics.... ill bet the nba is 92% black... hockey is 92% canadian or russian, and cricket is 92% indian or english. what do those statistics mean?.... absolutely nothing. ofcourse the race demographic deosnt balance with that of the world.... its the world, idiot, people are not all the same, and not everyone has the same dislikes and likes. to think that DCI or any sport or activity would somehow have a population that is a clear even ratio(or even CLOSE!) to the actual race and culture of any town/city/county/state/country or world even is almost moronic. even if i somehow misread that quote and hes talking about just reaching more people... its still ridiculous. we attract viewers and members because we are what we are. change is good, but to change so far as to become unrecognizable to oneself is suicide and failure at that. remember kids, sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken. drumcorps is what it is. theres plenty of changes and improvements to make that will keep it drumcorps, and without having the kids look like fools. i find it kind of funny and ironic that this guy talks about attracting more people, yet the material him and his staff come up with is almost completely unaccessible and confusing to even the common drumcorps viewer. let alone the channel flipper who surfs by espn 2, sees a strange guy in an angel/bunny suite flopping around on a football field, says "WTF?" and continues surfing. sorry audiodb, i started writing before you posted. It would not surprise me if there is a legitimate reason behind Mr. Hopkin's concerns. I have been pouring over grant and foundation applications recently, and in several cases, demographic information of the membership is requested. If the demographics of the membership are skewed, it might impair your ability to be succussful in obtaining funding from certain sources. It is possible that something along these lines is behind the comment. I do agree with what others have posted though - lower cost of membership is the key to obtaining a more diverse membership base. However, that in and of itself will not change the fundamental demographics of music students in the scholastic environments that feed today's programs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drumcat Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 (edited) OK, wait a second... why don't we require that we not discriminate against women first. Wouldn't that be the first, simple step? Last I checked, women were actively discouraged from trying out at Madison and Cavies. If you want to talk about protected classes in an audition setting, let's first work on removing the self-imposed barriers before talking about anything league-wide. Pot. Kettle. Black. Edited February 19, 2008 by drumcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kusankusho Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 OK, wait a second... why don't we require that we not discriminate against women first. Wouldn't that be the first, simple step? Last I checked, women were actively discouraged from trying out at Madison and Cavies.If you want to talk about protected classes in an audition setting, let's first work on removing the self-imposed barriers before talking about anything league-wide. Pot. Kettle. Black. This is an interesting point and bears some thinking about. I guess the only thing I'd say about it is that the possibility for all-girl corps exists just as much as all-male corps. Bandettes were the most recent example (sadly not active as all-girl anymore). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sopemloud Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 Last I checked, women were actively discouraged from trying out at Madison and Cavies. True, but I don't know a girl of marching age today (including myself) that would dare interfere with the beautiful traditions those brotherhoods have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
euponitone Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 OK, wait a second... why don't we require that we not discriminate against women first. Wouldn't that be the first, simple step? Last I checked, women were actively discouraged from trying out at Madison and Cavies.If you want to talk about protected classes in an audition setting, let's first work on removing the self-imposed barriers before talking about anything league-wide. Pot. Kettle. Black. Eh, i dont see it as a big deal. Those corps make up a small (but increasingly larger) percentage of the total world class corps member population. If there were only 2 corps that cost 5000$, and the rest were free or close to it, then I think you'd have a better comparison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CorpsMan97 Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 OK, wait a second... why don't we require that we not discriminate against women first. Wouldn't that be the first, simple step? Last I checked, women were actively discouraged from trying out at Madison and Cavies.If you want to talk about protected classes in an audition setting, let's first work on removing the self-imposed barriers before talking about anything league-wide. Pot. Kettle. Black. Okay then, lets ban college fraternities and sororities, remove boy scouts and girl scouts from our communities, close private schools that are gender specific, combine the NBA and WNBA, and make the european football clubs non-gender specific. Drum corps, even after all of the rule changes through the years, is still an activity based strongly on tradition. I do not think diversifying the activity should be an important point of interest. It would be great if the activity could go back to what it used to do back in the 60s and 70s and pull kids from the streets but everything has transformed a bit. Corps, although transformed if they are very competitive, still try to hang onto what tradition they have. I think that costs are a problem for the natural diversification to happen and basically agree with the majority of you. When you actually take a look at the drum corps race population it is silly to think it is 92% white. I do not believe that. If anything it is probably around 80%. A lot of corps in Southern Cali have high "minority" percentages. Revolution, from Texas, has a lot of Hispanics. Mandarins used to and probably is still made up of a lot of people of Asian backgrounds. Yamato (Open Class) is half Japanese... The list goes on I am sure. Although the majority of the activity is white, i think some programs do offer a lot of diversity. For example Pioneer always always shows off its Irish heritage in their programs year after year. Manadrins used to do the same with their Mandarin Chinese heritage, and probably still do (sorry I'm not fresh on my Mandarin's current events). Troopers are seen as the Real American Drum Corps. I do not think the race card needs to be thoroughly studied. Perhaps Georgy wasn't really making a big fuss about it, perhaps we are all over reacting to his statement. I know a lot of people dislike him and will jump the gun just to discuss "how much an idiot" he is. I'm not saying I love the man though... hah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kusankusho Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 I wonder if he was just taking World class into account for the 92% statistic, and forgetting about Open (which would not surprise me at all....) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
euponitone Posted February 19, 2008 Share Posted February 19, 2008 I wonder if he was just taking World class into account for the 92% statistic, and forgetting about Open (which would not surprise me at all....) He might actually be talking about just cadets - then again, there's no way to know. Or someone could ask him to clear it up.... Nah..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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