…. That tennis legend John McEnroe took time during his retirement to inexplicably mitigate Serena Williams’ standing as the top-rated women’s tennis player in the world — and possibly the best in history — by creating a new standard: comparing her to players from the men’s division …
… That the insult appears to be a growing work in progress, as evidenced by the journalist who ignored the 12 grand slam titles that Williams, an American citizen, won since 2009, when he asked tennis great Andy Murray how it felt to be the first American to reach the semifinals for a Grand Slam title — since 2009.
… That Jasmine Shepard couldn’t enjoy her achievement of becoming valedictorian of a Cleveland, Mississippi high school without the school (allegedly) doing something it had not done in 110 years: appoint a co-valedictorian with a lower grade point average to share the honor with Shepard.
… That when Jasmine’s family publicly complained abiut this academic rendering, she became the target of racist attacks from perfect strangers — one of whom commented that “Black lives don’t mean s***.”
… That the documented views of many White Americans regarding race drove them to erect the highest standard they could imagine in 2008 for someone to be elected President of the United States, where even the mere rumor of a pussy-grabbing fantasy on candidate Barack Obama’s part would have relegated him to the recurring “He’s not a a first-stringer” commentary — only to see those standards dismantled in 2016 to elect someone who brags harder about snatching women’s crotches than he does about his self-described God-fearing ways …
… That the same demolished standard overlooked how the current President of the United States arrived at the NATO and G20 meetings so abysmally unprepared that some members of the mainstream media took the rare step of calling out his dull performance.
… That police officers, without guns drawn, found 18-year old Vermont native Logan Huysman sleeping in a running car with her friends; treated obtaining information from Huysman as if it were a negotiation-turned-earnest appeal — with no guns drawn; offered a weaponless response when Huysman lunged at them; responded to Huysman’s kick in the groin with “Oh my God, she kicked me” — and still no weapons drawn. No barrel roll. No body slam …
That the CEO of JPMorgan can say being an American in 2017 is “almost an embarrassment” without the same backlash First Lady Michelle Obama received when she said “For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”
You can sometimes travel through life too quickly to catalog the instances of shifting standards. Those are my quick seven…
song currently stuck in my head: “red clay” – charlotte dos santos
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