It is inherently bad because it is trying to limit dance. It is censorship of an art form. Sam already nailed it on the head about the govt. trying to tell people what moves are and aren't ok. The fact is that certain communities don't consider some dances to be suggestive while others do. Communities are better able to determine this than govt. is . Also I doubt Al Edwards has the slightest background in dance is unqualified to exclude certain moves.
I mean these routines that are causing parents to complain. That should be enough. Personally I have an 11 year old daughter, do you? I don't think the choice should be either capitulating to the opinion of the local drill instructor or removing my daughter from drill team. This legislation gives parents a forum to air their complaints when they are ignored locally. As previously stated, I have a daughter - and a graduate degree with an emphasis on gender studies - and I don't think its paranoid to have an opinion on the appropriateness of some dance routines our CHILDREN are being taught to perform in schools. Further I find it laughable that you propose the BrittanySpears-a-fication of drill teams is really some higher art form that just 'needs to be understood.' How did you go about determining that the current situation is adequate? Personally, I don't really give a **** about convincing you because you don't ever change your stance as far as I've seen on any issue. I'm not aware of any statistical study on the issue of whether or not parents feel disempowered by the current arrangement, but I am aware that there are complaints from parents that are not being heeded locally. This legislation gives them another forum to address the issue, and there is no reason that is undesirable. Refusing to let them do nude performance art is censorship, but not inherently bad. 'Dance' is not a moral absolute that cannot be impeded, and I think that's just a ludicrious line of argument to pursue. We regulate ADULT dance, for crying out loud. Here we're talking about CHILDREN. As for the local vs state issue, this only gives LOCALS another forum to address the issue if they feel there concerns are not being addressed. There is no dance board that goes from town to town converting the state to footloose county.
Actually, you have another choice. You can talk to all the other parents to see if you can build consensus. Is it that hard? If most of the parents agree, well, they don't have much choice. That would be MOST effective. Of course, that would require you to actively participate rather than sitting back, complaining, and hoping for more governmental intrusion. If the remaining parents don't agree with you, then why would you want your daughter around them anyway? It's called taking personal responsibility...something Republicans have always espoused.
Sure, kinda like voting for a smoking ban instead of using market power to affect change. I'm not sure you can get other parents to act in unison anymore than you can get nonsmokers to boycott smoking establishments.
Really? How aware are you of this issue? Who are these forced-gyrational children of whom you speak? She or they were about to be kicked off the cheer or dance squad and had no recourse? The remedies at the administrative and schoolboard level were exhausted? It's funny because I don't see any of that mentioned in an article, just some windbag poltician denouncing "salaciousness" as usual. Where are the victims or are you just assuming that they exist? And assuming that they exist can you specifically identify any societal harms which occur from this gyration? I mean, hell, I'm sure you could find substantially more parents and children who think that homework sucks and that legislators should outlaw that.
Parents complaining is certainly not enough for the govt. to step in and censor dance routines. Those parents like most legislators are probably neither experts in dance, or music, and can easily over emphasize things based on their own issues. If a panel of dance experts looked at the routines and made those conclusions unamiously, then maybe it might be different. I haven't seen that many Britney routines, so I wouldn't know how bad or not bad her dancing would be for young girls. Her personna, lyrics, and statements be something for partents(not the govt.) to steer their children away from. What dancing I have seen from Britney in her videos has been relatively mild. Though, I admit I've probably only seen a total of 1 1/2 Britney videos. But she does have ability as a dancer. A lot of the moves that I imagine people are upset about including some of the ones that Britney Spears does come from the jazz era, tap, blues, or swing dancing. Trust me I'm not defending Britney as art, but certainly dance teams and drill teams might be a step towards art development for interested young female students.
So if the other parents don't think there is a problem, the better solution is to petition the government to ban something that the local community doesn't think is inappropriate? I agree that there should be limits to the "gyrations" of pre-teens, but believe that said limits should be imposed by the people whose children are part of the group and/or the community that sees said routines. If it isn't "salacious" enough to draw enough widespread community response to get the dance director censured or fired, then there can't be that big a problem. I just think it is silly to create legislation that will allow a small minority of religious types to have that much power over people who don't have a problem with the dance routines.
You've gone overboard. Your race centered view of the world is a bit much. More than a bit, in fact. You should try looking at things from a different perspective in the future. Open up your mind.
I'm not sure how much power you're giving to religious types. This is only creating oversight for local districts so that they have to review complaints. I think this interpretation is not unreasonable: "Representative Tommy Merritt, whose Longview district includes the famous Kilgore Rangerettes, also supported the bill, using the dais to trumpet the squeaky-clean dancing of the world's first drill team. (Former cheerleader) sponsor Carter Casteek, told her colleagues that nove is the time to take a stand and remind the state's young people that its not necessary to be sexual in order to be artistic and entertaining. Sometimes we should, as adults, stand up and say there's a better way to do things. As adults we should stand up and say there's a proper way to behave. Personally, I have a daughter about to enter middle school. Some of the stuff going on just blew me away. I take my information from administrators and other parents. I was startled to learn that oral sex is widely practiced by children in 5th and 6th grade. That 7th graders were found to be engaging in 'trains' where groups of children not only have sexual partners but change partners frequently like a square dance (forming a 'train' of relationships). It makes little sense to try and deter this behavior on one hand and then having the icons of these schools, cheerleaders, dry humping each other to the cheers of parents and students alike.
A few other quotes I found interesting: "Here’s a rule of thumb: how about, if the girl is so young that having sex with her would land you in jail, then perhaps prohibiting her from simulating sex in front of hundreds of screaming fans isn’t exactly the first step towards a fascist theocracy." "Yeah… I’m doing a paper on this topic, and I really had no idea how much adults cared about.. cheerleading? I just made the varsity squad at my high school, and this year we got a new coach. Our last years coach turned the squad into freaking slut buckets." "To what extent the article revealed the nature of the bill, it sounds like the legislator in question only wants to ban moves, performed by minors in public, that an intellecutally-honest person would have to acknowledge are specifically sexual in nature." "...society isn’t dealing with it. Go in a middle school and see how these 12 and 13 year old girls talk and behave. Very few of them are mature enough to understand the consequences of careless sexual behavior yet more than a few are engaged in and many consider it because they feel surrounded by it. And, in the midst of this confusion, you have cheerleading sponsors who are encouraging routines that are a mix between a pole dance, a lap dance, and a dirty dance - in the names of winning contests or preparing their girls to be high school cheerleaders...I wish I agreed with you that it as simple as social laissze-faire… as the father of a nine-year-old, I find it difficult to agree." "If you have not ever witnessed the types of displays that this lawmaker is trying to ban, then shut your mouths. I went to high school in Texas. I know what these girls are doing because I watched them do it every Friday during football season and at least once or twice in the spring. It is NOT appropriate. The type of dancing they do is not allowed at high school dances or in most public places, for that matter, and you certainly wouldn’t want a young child to see it. However, regardless of what the man from the Austin Cheer Factory says, the cheerleaders keep winning their competitions, and nothing encourages more bad behavior like a reward. In the current sexual climate, teenagers know more about sex earlier and earlier. They have sex earlier and earlier - even in Texas, with the heavy religious influence and campaigns like “True Love Waits.” Sex is a part of the educational culture because it is a part of every human being, but there is no reason to encourage inappropriate displays in a school setting. Since the coaches, teachers and administrators aren’t taking care of it themselves, I am thankful that the lawmakers are there to step in. For those of you who think that this is a personal issue or something to be kept within the family, think again. Do you remember what peer pressure was like in high school? Have you asked your own children lately? Not to mention that these are cheerleaders on a TEAM. The point is for them to be the same: look the same, dance the same, smile the same, etc. With the exception of one girl, every cheerleader at my high school had the exact same highlighted blonde hair. You can’t expect girls to go against the grain and say, “I’m not comfortable with that,” and you certainly can’t expect them to give up the honor of being part of the cheerleading squad."
I'm not making a rash opinion here. I'm backing it up so hear me out. As such, I'm presenting the "different" perspective to you. Perhaps it is you that needs to open up. I've only taken such a strong racial stance in D&D once before and you blasted me, now, both times in a knee jerk reaction without actually listening to my point of view. Why don't you embrace American values by listening to people's contributions with different backgrounds than yourself? Don't be so dismissive. I didn't really express an opinion on the issue itself. I'm merely expressing what I see as a likely outcome of this poorly written bill. I hear the arguement and understand the position of both sides. I definately think cheerleader routines are often overboard. But without a solidly written bill, this is a setup for legal battles. Fact 1: African American schools take pride at incorporating hip-hop influences in their routines. Fact 2: Hip-Hop often pushes the bounderies of what is considered "decent." Look at 2 Live Crew censorship as perhaps the most extreme example. Janet Jackson being a recent example of hip-hop causing public backlash. Conclusion: If this bill passes, it is only a matter of time before a school that is mimicking a hip-hop routine becomes the target of a group that thinks hip-hop promotes overt sexual behavior. Maybe it won't happen. But this issue is RIPE to turn into a battle with racial overtones. If you can't see that, then you are unaware of American's current climate and/or are chosing to ignore that issue.
I seriously doubt that the routines are simulated sex. That might be what it sounds like, but that isn't what the bill says. It is rubbish, and censorship in the worst kind of way. And stopping dance routines is what will change careless sexual behavior? My main problem is that I don't trust the govt. or parents who are inexperienced with dance to judge the routines for sexual content.
Well I think it's unreasonable of people to expect their children to grow up innocent when the media and society in general sexualizes everything from wearing jeans to drinking beer. Reality-wise, banning sexual cheerleading will do very little in terms of changing teenager's mentality. You'd have to upturn the movies, television, and advertising.
You are aware that you're using exactly the same rhetoric that conservatives have often derided as the politics of victimization. A particular group is being repressed, or at least percieves so, and argues that they have no power on the local level so the issue needs to be addressed on a higher political level. I don't think this is wrong but surprising coming from someone who overall seems to have a small government attitude.
In order for a law to survive..particularly one with criminal consequences...it has to provide notice. That's part of due process. You have to define pretty specifically what is the prohibited conduct. I don't see that this law does that, from what I've read.
Whether an African American sponered the bill isn't my position. But you wouldn't know that because you didn't actually read my post. My position: If this bill passes, it is only a matter of time before somebody plays the race-card one way or another on this matter...rightfully or wrongly. I'm not really making an opinion about the bill itself. I'm just prophesizing.
