20181221.0430

On 15 December 2018, Maria Anglin's "A Remark that Went Viral and Wouldn't Have Been Asked of Male Stars" appeared in the online San Antonio Express-News. The article reports on an impertinent question posed to footballer Ada Hegerberg and her terse response to it before laying out what makes Hegerberg stand out in her field. The broader context of women pushing for parity in soccer, generally, receives attention, with the difficulties faced by professional female--but not male--footballers articulated before a closing comment connecting back to the school-age leagues and their players who recognize Heberberg's achievement for the marker that it is.
The headline is somewhat deceptive; the remark mentioned in it receives relatively little attention in the article. But that lack of attention seems fitting; it is a thing that happened, it was addressed, and more important things are receiving treatment. Giving it more attention (and I am not unaware of the irony) only serves to do more to normalize what is unfortunately all too common as it is, while passing over it in favor of other, more interesting things diminishes it--and such things should be diminished, both in terms of frequency and in terms of the regard given them. Perhaps, at some point, they will be diminished enough that they no longer rise to attention, no longer rise into the levels of the mind whence they can proceed to mouth.
I say so knowing that I have said such things at inopportune moments--not so inopportune as the remark reported upon, admittedly, but still far from politic. There are moments to say them, certainly, but not at an award ceremony. Even were the award being given for twerking, the receipt of it should be enough of an indication that the person so distinguished could do so; it would not support the question. Even less so does a situation like that in the report.
The thing is, while I and many others know that the fact of such a question in such a place and time is but one more iteration of systemic issues that have been too long indulged, others will look at the iteration and decry it as but a single utterance of a single person. They look at men--and it is somehow always only men, and almost always white men--as being Donne's islands to the continents of women and people of color. They will not hear that the bell tolls for them--nor that it does not toll for such behavior and such thought nearly as soon as it ought to do. But I will look forward to hearing its tintinnabulation sound long and echo longer, even if I have too often been deaf to its tones in the past and still do not hear as well as I should what notes it plays.