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Pride Month: A Culture Of Equality & Inclusion


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For Pride Month, we’re highlighting the excellent work of our Equality and Inclusion Committee, a group of Cadets members, staff, and Board members representing a wide range of backgrounds, races, ethnicities, ages and genders. Once a month during the winter and spring, the committee hosts a one-hour, organization-wide training session to cultivate a safe, inclusive, […]

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I would suggest that the Cadet organization is an appropriate group to address these issues. Though it may seem like ancient history to some, it was quite common for many drum corps to display a marked tendency towards non-inclusion in the past. In their "Garfield" days, these things had to be worked through, and sometimes it wasn't very pretty.

Not that they were alone, by any means. In the case of this particular corps however, I witnessed the often awkward transitions as the gender and color barriers were disassembled. There was push-back, to be sure, and some ties were severed, but they had to be.

Like the Boomers we were, my generation assumed we had "fixed all that", proving that we could be both naive and smug at the same time.

Even as recently as the late '70s and early '80s it seemed some felt that homophobic posturing (in drum corps and elsewhere) was still somehow "permissible".

None of these prejudices can be tolerated in a civilized society, or in a drum corps which is, after all, just a microcosm of same.

I applaud the Cadets and all who realize that the lessons of equity and inclusion must be reinforced for every generation. This is not optional and can be uncomfortable, but it is a necessity.

 

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