Using the Mic

[sasha_feather]

What you're Saying when You Say "I Don't Need the Mic"
By Erika A. Hewitt
August 31, 2017

https://www.uua.org/worship/lab/what-youre-saying-when-you-say-i-dont-need-mic

This is directed at a Unitarian Universalist audience, but can apply to any group or event.

“When a mic is being used at a meeting and someone looks at it and says, ‘Do we really need this?’ I feel outright anger. That person just asked if people like me really exist and demanded that we defend ourselves.”

Comments

[lilacsigil]

The only person I've ever met who actually didn't need the mic was my high school chaplain who had been a professional opera singer and could easily reach the back of our huge, echoey school hall without raising her voice. Everyone else, use the mic!

[fred_mouse]

We had someone like that! I don't know what her training was, but she was five foot nothing and all voice. She was the senior art teacher, and she would get on the gymnasium stage in front of ~800 students plus staff, and could be heard no worries at the back (her enunciation was fabulous as well).

[lauredhel]

That chaplain's mic-less projection isn't going to do a lot for someone who's relying on microphone input for the hearing loop system.

[lilacsigil]

There was no hearing loop system in this case.

[sasha_feather]

Sure, there may be an exception to every rule. But it's nice when *everyone*, without exception, uses the mic because it normalizes mic useage and encourages others to use it.

[jewelfox]

I feel like a lot of the outgoing, exuberant, public speaking types don't really get that some of the rest of us have lots of trouble with that. There's a lot of ablism.

I grew up Mormon (unfortunately), and I remember they used to do this thing like "everyone come up and fill the first three rows!" when we were all spread out through the chapel. Dear goddess, I hated the boundary violations, especially the back-slapping and hand-shaking and things. It felt like everyone who ran that church was extroverted.

[sasha_feather]

I never thought about the ableism inherent in "fill the first three rows" request. Thanks for pointing that out.

[lilacsigil]

Yeah, that was meant to be my point - unless you're an opera trained chaplain in rural Australia in the 1980s (and you're not!) please use the mic. Sorry it didn't come across.

[sasha_feather]

Ah sure, no worries! :)