[Vision2020] Boy Scouts At It Again
Tom Hansen
thansen at moscow.com
Tue Jul 16 14:28:53 PDT 2013
Circa ?
Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .
"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
"There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill."
- John Lennon
On Jul 16, 2013, at 2:08 PM, Darrell Keim <keim153 at gmail.com> wrote:
> BSA policy at the time for African Americans was to allow the individual troops to decide whether or not to be integrated. This is a policy they have also debated in recent times in regards to homosexuals. Your example illustrates the perils of the policy.
>
> I don't know enough about the Jamboree to go any further in-depth than I already have regarding policies. It simply hasn't been something I paid attention to. I do my thing locally, and leave it at that.
> On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 1:49 PM, Saundra Lund <v2020 at ssl1.fastmail.fm> wrote:
>> Hi Again Darrell, and I do appreciate you taking your time to share your thoughts and speculations from “you as a person.”
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>> I hope you calling me “Rose” was just a typo, but to avoid tarring Rose with a brush that’s rightly mine, I just want to make sure folks know it was me – Saundra – who brought up this topic.
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>> Oh, how I wish you were part of the group that went into planning the National Jamboree! If you are correct about the risk of being sued as a motivation behind banning obese boy and adult Scouts and leaders from the Jamboree, I think your suggestions might have been helpful in reaching a decision that wasn’t discriminatory.
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>> As it stands, though, I find the decision heartbreaking & inexcusable. As anyone who has spent any time trying to educate themselves about our nation’s food crisis knows, the factors leading to obesity are far more than just some lack of “motivation.” I do understand that the kids & adults were given significant advance notice of the new restrictions, so if motivation was enough to fix the obesity crisis, perhaps that would be one thing. But, that’s simply not the case, and the result is that the BSA has decided to – once again – exclude valuable kids and adults.
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>> Let’s not forget, too, that there is no absolute correlation between BMI an individual’s physical fitness level! The BSA’s decision to focus on that – rather than on actual physical fitness – is beyond ignorant at best and mean-spirited at worse, it seems to me. This leaves yet another really bad taste in my mouth with respect to BSA.
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>> Finally – and these are genuine questions – do you know if differently abled kids with physical challenges also banned from this Jamboree because the location selected is more physically challenging? Or, have they already been excluded from participating in previous Jamborees?
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>> Perhaps because I’m older than you, I’ve had less . . . pleasant BSA experiences with respect to inclusion, and they are the kind of things that have stuck with me for nearly half a century.
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>> My brother is older than I, and since my mom was a “den mother,” my exposure to Cub Scouts/Boy Scouts began very early in my life. The boys had such a blast, and I wanted to be a member, too. My mom explained that first, I was too, young, but second, that when I was old enough, I could be a Bluebird, which was for girls. Even at that early age, it seemed unfair that I couldn’t stick with the big brother I worshipped, but there you have it, and I can’t say that I gave it much further thought as a 3- or 4-year old. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of the Pinewood Derbies J Once I was old enough, I became a Bluebird & never looked back – I’ve still got all my beads J
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>> I don’t know when the Explorer program that allows adolescent girls started, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t around back in the Dark Ages of my childhood J At that time, Boy Scouts and Camp Fire (I don’t know about GSA, but I suspect it was the same) were definitely gender specific.
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>> The first serious BSA dark cloud came when I was in first grade, IIRC. A new friend of my brother’s, who happened to be black, from our elementary school wanted to join my brother’s troop. Say what you want about how BSA hates to exclude kids, but boys of color were absolutely excluded from the BSA troops where I grew up, while I was a Bluebird with girls of color. I’ll spare you the details of the vitriol I heard at some big meeting that was more than just my brother’s den members parents before my mother whisked me out, but it wasn’t pretty and was my introduction to the racism enshrined in BSA at the time (mid- to late 1960s and early 1970s) where I lived (Bible Belt OKC & later the Dallas metropolitan area). My mom quit being a den mother over the discrimination and exclusion of boys of color & wanted to yank my brother from Scouts. My father disagreed, so he decided the decision was one for my brother (who was probably 8 or 9 at the time – great parenting . . . NOT) to make. My brother absolutely agonized over the decision. He decided to continue with Scouting, a decision he to this day beats himself up about.
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>> To be fair, I have no idea of what any “official” BSA policy of racial discrimination was at the time, but regardless of any official policy, BSA racism & exclusion were rampant where I lived in two different states. I suppose it would be fair to say that the BSA is responsible to my personal awareness of institutional racism. Even as a young child, the . . . injustice was perfectly clear to me.
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>> Flash forward a few years to when we lived in a relatively conservative and staunchly Catholic part of the Bay Area. That time, it was one of my pals who was excluded from BSA. Why? Because his parents were atheists. As an 11-year-old boy, Bobby himself wasn’t sure what he believed with respect to God, but he was ethical enough – even as a kid – to not feel comfortable taking an oath to a God he wasn’t sure existed.
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>> In fairness, as a kid, I wasn’t aware of the link between Boy Scouts and churches, but having had a lot of exposure to Scouts, it was beyond stupid to me that a kid was punished and excluded for being honest. I’m sure that’s an excellent lesson he learned about honesty, yes?
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>> So, that’s BSA exclusion experience #3, although #1 (no girls allowed) wasn’t particularly traumatic. I suspect, though, it played a role in my motivation of working for gender equality as a human right J
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>> Then, let’s flash forward quite a few years to Idaho – I think we all know that brings us to sexual orientation discrimination. I’m not going to mention any names because the adults responsible still live here. Personally, I think they should have the guts to publically apologize for the bigoted way some of them have treated this community’s kids, but I imagine h*ll will freeze over before they have that kind of integrity.
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>> Please let me take this opportunity to thank you for your advocacy within the local Scouting for your advocacy of our gay youth.
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>> And, please accept my gratitude for your contributions to the BSA. As I hope this email makes clear, my personal BSA experiences have been a real mixed bag. On the one hand, some of my best childhood memories really are of Cub Scouting things like attending the meetings as a tiny girl when my mom was a den mom and going to the Pinewood Derbies (and watching my brother & father make those magical cars) especially but also to other Scout family activities.
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>> OTOH, some of the most heartbreaking aspects of my childhood result from the BSA excluding really wonderful kids because of their skin color, religion, or sexual orientation.
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>> And, I really hate to see the BSA step in it yet again by replacing one banned group of kids with another, only this time they’re targeting and excluding kids who are already Scouts rather than preventing those kids from becoming Scouts.
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>> Maybe that’s next.
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>> After all, that’s a newer “acceptable” form of discrimination in American society as a whole, isn’t it?
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>> Saundra
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>> Moscow, ID
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>> Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
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>> ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
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>> From: keim152 at gmail.com [mailto:keim152 at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Darrell Keim
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2013 11:13 AM
>> To: Saundra Lund
>> Cc: vision2020 at moscow.com
>> Subject: Re: Boy Scouts At It Again
>>
>>
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>> Sure, Rose, I can give a few thoughts. I am still involved in the BSA as a local district volunteer. But, in no way should my thoughts be construed as anything but my own speculations.
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>> My comments are interspersed below.
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>> -------------------------------------------
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>> It's not too often that I find myself speechless, but the BSA & its
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>> supporters have accomplished it by deciding to exclude obese adults and
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>> Scouts from the important Jamboree:
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>> http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/15/19488312-obese-boy-scouts-left-ou
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>> t-of-national-gathering?lite
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>> I don’t usually pay much attention to the National Jamboree. I prefer to focus my efforts locally, where I feel I can best make a difference. With that said, I know it is a great experience.
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>> I read the linked article. It appears they chose a physically challenging location for their camp, and gave lots of notice to prospective participants that they need to get in shape if they wish to attend. Physical fitness is a major goal of the BSA, a goal they have recently pledged to work harder on. I like this, and feel that providing boys with a goal to work towards is an excellent motivator. I would’ve liked to see them have some activities in less physically challenging areas of the camp. I’d like boys off all levels to be able to attend, with the motivator being seeing the more fun activities the physically fit boys can do in addition to the regular activities.
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>> It also appears they are getting health info of those planning to attend, and not permitting people over a certain BMI. I do not like this, but I suspect I know where it is coming from: Controlling risk. The BSA is self-insured. They want to make certain no one dies or is seriously injured because they over-estimated their physical abilities. Put simply: They don’t want to get sued. I would rather they had explained the risks clearly, and required waivers from people over a certain BMI. People can make their own choices.
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>> Granted, since I'm female, I never participated in the BSA (I went the
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>> Bluebird and Camp Fire route), but my brother did, and attending Jamboree
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>> was one of the highlights of his life.
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>> Actually, as a female you could’ve participated in their Exploring program for adolescents.
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>> Looking at the photos of him in those years, it's possible he would have
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>> been excluded during those chunky pre-puberty years. And, he'd have missed
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>> the opportunity to return in better shape and more enthusiastic about being
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>> physically active.
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>> I guess there's just something about the BSA that deep down *wants* to have
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>> groups to exclude.
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>> Speaking as a former professional, I can tell you the BSA HATES to exclude kids. Most volunteers and professionals passionately believe that every kid should benefit from the Scout program. My success as a professional was dependent on my ability to grow the local program. My sworn duty was to give every kid in the area a chance to participate as I grew the local BSA program. The more kids in the program, the stronger the program is. I did not like that there was a population of local kids that I could not reach. But, the kids must be willing to follow the Scout Oath and Law.
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>> As recent BSA policy changes have shown, interpretation of that law evolves very slowly. Our council held a series of Fireside Chats in the lead-up to the recent policy change. I went to the Lewiston chat. It was led by the Council executive and top two council volunteers. Purpose was to gauge local feelings about the proposed change. There were about 30 people present. Opinion in that room was strongly against changing the policy(At that time the proposal was a total lift on the ban, not the eventual compromise proposal that passed). I was THE ONLY PERSON to speak favorably of lifting the ban. And the furthest I went was to ask the following questions “Why does the BSA put itself in the position of dictating theology to churches? Why don’t we let the churches pick their own Scout leaders, as they did before the BSA instituted a no homosexuals rule in the nineties?”
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>> First, it was blacks, then it was gays . . . and now
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>> it's the obese. Oh, and aren't atheists still banned?
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>> Todays BSA is a reflection of the organizations that Charter its troops. That is mostly conservative churches (LDS, Methodist, Catholic and Lutheran are some of their largest charter partners). Charter Organizations approve all major policies. The BSA will change as the desires of these organizations change. Since we are talking about churches, I suspect those changes will be very slow. Societal views changed on racism, and are changing on homosexuality. As are the BSA policies about them. I suspect the BSA will always ban atheists, due to their Charter Organization structure.
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>> But, honestly, I guess I shouldn't be surprised this is coming from an
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>> organization with long history of justifying discrimination.
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>> Darrell, I seem to recall you've devoted a part of your life to BSA (they
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>> are/were lucky to have you!), and I'm genuinely interested in your thoughts
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>> about this, if you care to share.
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>> Saundra
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>> Moscow, ID
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>
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