Sexist, racism hurt both
students at Rutgers and Duke |
|
|
| Both the women basketball players at Rutgers and the men lacrosse stalwarts at Duke were victims. The former were victimized by racism and sexism, the latter by reverse racism and sexism. The former were assaulted by a media culture which seeks to tear down the barriers of political correctness and the latter by paragons of such correctness -- academic faculty and administrators. The former were victims of their black skin and their role as women athletes, the latter of their white skin, thick necks and huge muscles ("farmyard animals," one Duke professor called them). | ||
|
Rutgers women were
deprived of the respect that men used to owe women. The Duke men were
deprived of the presumption of innocence. Both teams were used: the women by
a "shock jock" who has built his audience by such abuse, the latter by a
prosecuting attorney seeking re-election. Both were savaged by perverted
world views -- the first saying that it is an exercise of freedom to use
language about black women that many black men use in their music, and the
second saying that white men, especially athletes, are always guilty. Media
networks, making money off obscenity and scatology, were responsible for
spoiling the victory of the Scarlet Knights (a gender problem in that
image!). Corruption of justice in North Carolina and the weakness of Duke
University spoiled the season of the Blue Devils -- and drove away players
and coach. Don Imus is gone, but Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Neil Boortz, Glenn Beck and their lesser imitators still thrive by serving up the raw meat of bigotry and ignorance that certain segments of the population need to navigate the complexities of American pluralism. Black musicians still thrive by using exactly the same image of black women as did Imus. The media giants (including record companies) will continue to make money by exploiting the lowest level of taste they can get away with. Academics will still despise athletes, especially white ones. |
_ Keep in touch... |
|
 |
.I
am asked two questions: 1) How did this all happen? The New York Times hinted at the reason in an article celebrating the last season of ''The Sopranos.'' The author said that the series changed television forever by expanding the possibilities for sex and violence and, I would add, a torrent of coarse language. Coarse language is now all right on prime time and the morning news and any other place where it can be used to shock. Civility goes out the window. This decline in civility is celebrated as freedom. If Americans want that kind of freedom, there is a price they have to pay for it. 2) Who suffered more: the Scarlet Knights or the Blue Devils? (Not the real Blue Devils, of course -- they're Coach K's team!) That's a question I won't answer because I believe the need to ask it is the other component of the problem: the terrible passion of many Americans to find which victims have suffered more so that they will occupy the top rung of the victimization ladder and hence have ultimate moral superiority. In my judgment, this impulse is the other side of the coin on which is written the words "incivility is freedom." Combine that dictum with its converse, "the victims are always the most moral," and you have the ultimate violation of any moral code. Hence, black women are always the most moral and white men always the most immoral. A more pragmatic question would be how do we protect the good names of all young athletes, regardless of gender or color. .
Read Father
Greeley's latest Articles: |
|
