#michael barth

Autoreninterview Michael Barth am 6.9.2015

Das Autoren_Netzwerk freut sich, den Autor Michael Barth vorstellen zu dürfen. Michael Barth ist 1970 in Gelsenkirchen geboren. Der gelernte Mediengestalter für Digital- und Printmedien hat im November 2014 mit »SuTera« seinen ersten Roman veröffentlicht. Inspiriert durch seine Kontakte zu anderen Selfpublishern, deren Buchcover er gestaltet hat,…

In case it hasn't popped up on any of your feeds yet: every year, the Nebraska State Activities Association invites select state champions to perform on public television. One of the invitees this year is Michael Barth, the Class C champion in poetry interpretation. Two days before filming, Michael was informed by NSAA director Rhonda Blanford-Green that he would need to change his program, which deals with themes of acceptance and gender/sexual identity, or he would not be allowed to perform. 

The irony of trying to censor an activity built upon the effective communication of new and varied ideas is starkly apparent. So is responding to phone calls from speech and debate coaches inquiring about the matter by hanging up on them. And so is, most importantly, the professed desire to not "cause controversy," because that's exactly what's going to happen when you piss off a group of people who argue competitively for fun. 

It took mere hours for the speech community to rally--not just in Nebraska, but across the country, because this is an activity that changes people's lives, and everyone who has come into contact with it knows that and never forgets it. Michael's story made not only local news outlets, but The Huffington Post and Buzzfeed. GLAAD and the ACLU stepped in. People I knew from college who had done speech at high schools hundreds of miles from Nebraska were spreading the word to their networks in a beautiful expression of solidarity and activism. A petition to get the NSAA to revoke its decision has 6,202 signatures as of this writing. By the time I left work today, the NSAA had officially changed its mind. 

The fight's not over: the NSAA hasn't apologized, and the underlying issues--its lack of understanding and support for speech and debate, and how it and other organizations involved with public education in Nebraska feel about LGBTQ rights--are much bigger than anything that can be addressed in a single day. But I am so immensely proud of this community for acting without hesitation. So many people threw themselves into this reflexively. And look how it exploded.

I joined the speech team as an awkward, pompous, unmotivated high school freshman. I left it an articulate speaker, a conscientious thinker, and a confident young woman who fully appreciated the magic of words and knew how to handle them carefully and effectively. The skills I gained through speech, the people I met, and the things I learned about the world and myself continue to influence my life in unquantifiable, often imperceptible, yet incredibly meaningful ways. 

I am proud every day to belong to this community, but today especially, I am glowing. You all are my family, even if I have never met you. We will change the world. We already have.