Below you'll find a video, originally posted by Fox 8 Cleveland, of the Cleveland Browns "drumline auditions" yesterday. And oh my.
The drumline is one of several new additions to First Energy Stadium's entertainment repertoire this year. Evidently, the putative percussionists will not only "keep the excitement going" during games; they'll also be out and about generating untold decibels during tailgating.
Sounds potentially not-awful, except if the audition reel below is any indication, these aren't exactly the folks I'd want revving me up while enjoying a cold one and playing corn hole, you know what I mean? With the exception of the larger man doing a sort of hip-centric sashay, there's not much energy or enthusiasm to speak of on the faces / in the bodies of the hopefuls. The average age may or may not begin with the numeral 1.
Also, so this is significant — and I'm frankly not sure who this may offend — but if the Browns establish a drumline and there's zero African-American presence, that strikes me as a missed opportunity of a very high order.
This might be playing into my own accidental racial dichotomies in which I tend to associate white drumlines with — more or less — military ceremonies, and black drumlines with, you know, cool choreography and bona fide entertainment, but this audition tape makes the Browns drum line look like something most of us were happy to be done suffering through after high school.
And look, this is probably only one group of a very large audition. And if there were a thousand white high school band kids who tried out, no fault on the Browns I guess. You just think they'd make a concerted effort to promote the auditions among diverse communities — notably those with successful drumlines already.
Except
