So, what do we do?

Bring womxn, people of color, and other marginalized folks into the fold. Seriously, it’s that simple. Put diverse people in leadership positions and remember that empowered womxn empower womxn (and empowered people of color, LGBTQ people, economically marginalized people, people with disabilities, and other marginalized people empower even more people, too).

That seems. . . like an overly simplistic answer.

Well, it’s not as complicated of a problem as we like to pretend it is while we grasp for an anemic defense of our poor practices.

This year, at the California State Championship Tournament, I made a conscious effort to diversify our staff and judging pool. It was far from perfect and we have a long, long way to go, but of my almost 60 tournament officials, 52% were female-identifying (56% of tab staff specifically) and 73% “diverse” (meaning womxn, POC, LGBTQ people, etc.). As far as I know, we had the only major tournament in the country that had a final Policy panel of judges that was majority womxn (and 80% comprised of diversity enhancing judges, too). Don’t tell me there aren’t “qualified” people for you to bring in, when the reality is that you just aren’t trying.

Did we have to train some of those people because they had been shut out of the boys’ club and had no prior tab experience? Of course. But it takes 5 minutes to teach a brand new person the entry level basics of Tabroom or Joy of Tournaments. Those are real skills that these diverse folks can take back to their teams or leagues and use to educate and empower others. That is how we break the cycle.

Talk about Implicit bias

Talk about implicit bias with your team judges before you even get to the tournament, to the judge pool at the tournament, to other coaches, to parents, to students.

Nobody believes that there’s some secret cabal of white male coaches, maniacally twisting their mustaches and figuring out how to alienate womxn and POC, but the fact is that we are all victims of implicit bias, regardless of how “woke” we are or what passionate allies we consider ourselves to be. Being brought up in the same forensics world as everyone else, I’m just as guilty of this as anyone. I have no doubt that I would be mortified and appalled by some of the ballots or comments that I made earlier in my career, whether about “shrill” voices or short skirts or whatever else. I was wrong to ever make comments like that, but it took years of experience and talking to people way smarter than me to realize how wrong I was. Even as a woman, my privilege shielded me from the harm I was causing. That’s shameful.

To overcome that as an activity, we have to talk about implicit bias and address it head on. In California, we are rewriting our State judging instructions this year and will be adding a section at the top about implicit bias. This is something all leadership at every level should be tackling. We still have to do a lot more.

Create safe spaces

There’s a lot of reflexive and misguided mockery in our world for the idea of safe spaces, but the forensics space ought to be just that. After all: we’re working with children.

A safe space doesn’t mean a space safe from contrary opinions or challenging ideas, but rather a space where everyone feels safe and empowered to speak their truth.

Speaking as someone who is known as a rather public advocate for these types of causes, I can’t tell you how many coaches and students have come up to me over the last year- often as total strangers- and shared their experiences with me. I am honored that anyone would feel safe to share their truth with me, but it also breaks my heart that so many are suffering with prejudice and bias in an activity that should be nothing less than empowering. At our state tournament, a coach brought a student up to me who had a bad interaction with a judge; the young woman was embarrassed, had her head down, and was afraid to speak, but her coach looked at her and said, “it’s ok, Miss Angelique cares and she will listen.” She took a deep breath and we talked about what she experienced. Do people know that you care and will listen? Are you sure? Be loud and shameless with that message, so you can serve as a beacon to those who need help navigating the darkness.

Oppression only survives through the silence of good people

Don’t just create spaces either, codify them. The National Speech and Debate Association has a phenomenal anti-harassment and discrimination policy (found on page 44) that they have had on the books for a very long time. Last year, the California High School Speech Association adopted virtually the same policy. I argue that every state organization, every invitational, every league, and every program ought to adopt something similar. You may think that policies like that are just empty words on a paper, but I assure you that those words are awfully meaningful to the marginalized students and coaches who are mostly suffering in silence.

Stop giving good money to bad people

Or at least stop giving good money to people who perpetuate bad ideas.

Listen, I get it. Not every team has the luxury of traveling across the wild blue yonder to seek out tournaments run with less-problematic practices. And hey, maybe you really need that one last bid. But please remember that we have two very powerful weapons in our arsenal: our voices and our money.

Ask tournament directors about the demographics of their staff and judge pool. Ask what they are doing to make sure that students (and coaches!) feel safe to speak up when bad things happen. Do they have ombudspeople? Do those folks have training on how to deal with sensitive issues? What is the reporting procedure? What practices are in places to insure equality of representation? That type of information should be public and easily accessible, likely on the tournament invitation or camp page itself. If the answers you get from directors when asking these questions are subpar, tell them. And don’t just tell them, tell others.

Most importantly, when you get those insufficient answers, take your team elsewhere if you reasonably can. There are other tournaments, but if there isn’t one where you are. . . start one. Ultimately, these bad practices are never going to stop if we murmur our complaints to one another, but still agree to pay thousands to attend (or cash checks when we work at) tournaments or camps that perpetuate harmful norms.

Actively support programs, tournaments, and directors that are members of marginalized populations. Focus on empowering our most marginalized students. Bring your teams, volunteer to help, and get others to do the same. Yes, it’s work, but it’s also what’s right.

Our amazing, outspoken, thoughtful kids already are doing what’s right, so us grown ups need to step up and amplify their message. After all, we are the ones with the privilege of a platform. Like Representative John Lewis said just the other day:

“Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Make some noise. Get in good trouble. Get in necessary trouble. Do better.