I received a message the other day telling me that bands aren’t allowed to play at football games.
I was in the middle of a phone conference marathon and didn’t have time for that to sink in, but when it did set in? Whoa. See, I’m a band mom. I do try to separate my mom life from my organizer life, but damn, ya know? Football was still a go, and those kids must have physical contact, but the band was cut?
And, the clincher for me was that the news report stated that it was due to limited spectator seating. So all of the hard work the bands had put in (my kid has been rehearsing at school for two months already) was going to be irrelevant because football spectators deserved the seats while band students didn’t deserve the chance to play.
I didn’t say much that night because I was waiting to hear it was all a misunderstanding. The next morning, I was online for about three minutes before I had read enough and began making my phone calls down state. The women in both offices told me that they had been extremely busy with calls from band parents, which I assumed when the lines had been busy for several minutes. I sent a couple of messages to band parents I knew to gauge the temperature and wasn’t surprised when they were red hot and ready to do something. It took about three more minutes before I was asked to join a Facebook group started by band parents from the southern part of the state.
When I say that I was surprised and energized at the same time, it’s the truth. I mean, as a band parent it was fantastic to see hundreds of others feeling the same way, but as an organizer? I mean, it was an organizer’s dream come true! I was on fire! Long story short? The governor reversed the decision. But here’s why organizing is so hard:
When that decision to ban bands from football games was made public, hundreds of band parents collectively gasped and, because they didn’t know what else to do, they took to the phones and social media. They organized themselves around a common cause and got the kids back on the field. So why was there such an immediate grassroots response?
Well, for starters, they were picking on our kids, but they also took something away from our kids that they loved and that made it worse. But not only that, there was no science behind the reasoning. Did it have to do with COVID-19? Well, it did if you consider using the band kids’ seats for the sake of social distancing football spectators. Other than that, bands had already been given strict protocol to follow to participate in the first place, so it appears that it was about football more than anything else.
As for the rest of the story? A bunch of b.s. (my opinion) regulations were placed on the bands in an effort to give us something so we would be quiet. And it’s working. A lot of parents are jumping off the rally bus, stating that they’re satisfied that the bands get to go back to the games … and this is why organizing well is so hard.
The government throws crumbs at us to shut us up and we, because we’re so used to not being loud in the first place, accept them and bow as we walk out the door. We do things like ask folks to thank the governor for changing his mind. Wait … what?
Thank him for reversing a crappy decision that he helped to make in the first place? No thanks, man; I’ll hold out for a real hero.
As I watch parents clear their call logs, I want to scream, “Wait! Why are you quitting?!? We didn’t win! It’s a draw!”
I mean, the fact that our own local board of education and superintendents never spoke out in support of the band is infuriating. A video of the drum line rehearsing was posted on Facebook, but it was a weak attempt at showing support.
Regardless of the issue at hand, organizing people is hard because a large part of a successful campaign is convincing people to stick around to get a solid win. But there it is … we are so conditioned to give all of our attention to the shiny object they wave in front of us that we forget we’re the ones sitting on the gold mine. I’ll give sincere thanks to the hundreds of parents who made the calls, but as for thanking a government official for reversing a bad decision? No, thanks, man; again, I’ll hold out for a real hero.
Onward,
Amy Jo
