Sunday, April 15, 2007
The other day, I saw the spirit of Rosa Parks on television.
This wasn't a documentary about her brave decision in 1955 to refuse to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., bus. It wasn't a biography of the person many credit with spurring the civil rights movement in this country.
By taking a stand against what was wrong, she put a human face on the issue of racism in America.
Parks died in 2005. But last week, during the televised press conference at Rutgers University, 10 young female athletes and their coach brought Parks back to life.
By speaking up about racism and sexism in America, they again put a human face on the issue. And their faces were impossible to ignore.
To fully understand the context of what we witnessed, it's important to re-examine our history.
In December 1955, Parks, heading home after her work as a seamstress, was arrested for saying, in effect, "Enough."
"I did not get on the bus to get arrested," she has said. "I got on the bus to go home," according to a Time magazine article by former U.S. poet laureate Rita Dove.
"As the officer took her away, she recalled that she asked, 'Why do you push us around?,'" according to an account from CNN.com. "The officer's response: 'I don't know, but the law's the law, and you're under arrest.'
"She added, 'I only knew that, as I was being arrested, that it was the very last time that I would ever ride in humiliation of this kind.' Four days later, Parks was convicted of disorderly conduct and fined $14."
Fifty-two years later, our country witnessed a different ordeal, this time through the eyes of a college basketball team. The topic, however, was sadly familiar.
I know a lot has been written and said about the scurrilous remarks made by Don Imus and his radio show's executive producer, Bernard McGuirk. I'm not going to repeat the insults they hurled against the Rutgers women's basketball team.
But if you are a young woman, and particularly if you are a young African-American woman, their comments amounted to more than mere words.
They represented more evidence of the uneven playing field you must always face.
There's the promise: Yes, you can do extraordinary things. Yes, the future is limitless. Yes, you have freedoms and opportunities that your grandmothers never imagined.
Yes, it is as your father said: You can do anything you set your mind to doing. You can be a doctor, a lawyer, a professional athlete, a mother, an inspiration.
You can succeed and achieve through hard work, dedication and sacrifice. This is America, after all.
But there's a cost. And sometimes, through no fault of your own, you end up paying a high personal price for those dreams.
You get to shoulder the burden of someone else's callous remark or ignorant statement. You get to fend off the degrading slurs and debasing images hurled at you solely because of your gender or your race.
You get to carry on without complaint, acting as though nothing untoward has happened.
You are expected to give up your seat and move on, in silence.
But last week's press conference showed us how Rosa Parks' courage is still speaking to our country.
This team of 10 young women, who figured they had faced their toughest challenge during the national basketball championship game, found themselves fighting something much bigger than that.
And to that bigotry they said, "No."
"No" to the burden put upon them.
"No" to the idea of suffering the indignation in silence.
"No" to the demeaning words leveled against their bodies, their looks, their abilities and their God-given female attributes.
They spoke as individuals and as a team. And they aimed their comments at all of us.
They said it's time for our country to collectively reject the off-the-cuff manner in which young women are disparaged through words, labels and images in the cultural media.
They said what we all know to be true: Stereotypes hurt. Racist and sexist slaps hurt.
The assault can come in the form of music lyrics, "jokes" on comedy shows, thoughtless public commentary or talk radio banter.
No matter. The outcome - the pain - is the same.
The words of team captain Essence Carson were especially moving to me. Here is an excerpt from her comments, captured by the university's news service:
"I believe there are a lot of positives that can come from this," Carson said. "One thing is that we finally speak up for women, not only African-American women, but all women.
"That's just going to be a major step forward in society, just to finally understand that there isn't that equality that we all wish was there. It's something we all hope for, but until we make those great strides to achieve that, we're going to continue to fall short.
"I'm glad we're speaking up. I feel like we can achieve that (equality)."
As a middle-aged woman, I feel very fortunate to have seen this day. I wasn't even a year old when Rosa Parks took her stand.
But on this day, I saw a group of young women do something just as bold.
They stood up to a mighty media celebrity, a broadcast industry icon who rubs elbows with the A-list people in our country the rich, the famous, the powerful.
On this day, they said, "Enough."
By mustering that collective strength, by declining to wilt in the national spotlight forced upon them, they did more than they will ever know.
They took a stand for their self-respect. They took a stand for other young women in this nation.
And they took a stand for a future of change, compassion and equality.
Did we hear them? Will we heed their words? Can we do what needs to be done?
For their sake, and for ours, I certainly hope so.
Jeannine Guttman is editor and vice president of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. Send e-mail to jguttman@pressherald.com or write to 390 Congress St., Portland, ME 04101.
Questions/Comments
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Yeah. Let's make a list. Just like Joseph McCarthy did in the 1950s. Let's make a list to black ball. That'll show those commie bastards!
This is America. We don't make lists. We use our own brains to decide for ourself.
This is what this whole story is about, however. Making a list. Who's going to be next. This is the whole reason for keeping the outrage alive. This is going to be interesting when they start going after the rest of talk radio.
America, we're currently in the middle of a revolution and nobody seems to care. We are losing our country to a bunch of evil-minded people. It's been going on for several years now, and soon it will be too late to turn back the clock and reclaim our country.report abuse
Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission." The media has given permission for all of these women.
This is all sticks and stones.
No, I wouldn't want some radio talk show host calling my daughter what Imus called these women. The last I checked, however, none of them seem to be any the worse for wear. If they are, then they have given their permission.
The reason this is a story at all is because CNN pounded it to death a week after they found out it happened. Want to know why? Because as bad as Imus' rating were on MSNBC, CNN's were worse. Guess who just rose up a notch in the ratings. Guess who can now charge just a little bit more for their advertising spots. Guess who just eliminated some of their competition.
report abuse
Rosa Parks took the initiative.
The Rutgers women reacted.
That is the important difference between what Rosa Parks did, and the experience of the Rutgers women's basketball team.report abuse
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