Sometimes we do things right, too.
Rather than spend time exploring the political discrimination and the asinine statements made today by almost-ex-US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, I thought it appropriate to instead spend some time on something and someone Americans should be proud of. The US Tennis Association honored Althea Gibson today, at their opening ceremony of the US Open. 50 years ago, she was the first African American woman to win the US Open (then called the US Nationals). She broke into tennis only three years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, and she won, and won, and won – 17 championship titles in all.
Althea’s story is inspiring, and her influence on the sport undeniable. But her story, indeed our country’s story, does not begin and end with her court statistics.
When the officials of the US Tennis Nationals chose to allow her into the competition, many people’s minds had to change about African Americans, and the role race would place in social relations. And though these days we know that race has no genetic basis and often equate racism with ignorance and backward-thinking, many respected and well-thinking individuals 50 years ago believed that African Americans were genetically inferior. They believed that it was rational for them to hold a different station in society. They believed segregation was rational, and that inter-racial marriage and procreation was as against natural law as a partnership between a fruit fly and a toucan.
In this case, minds have changed; not all minds, mind you, but enough minds so that there is today a legitimate, African American candidate for president. Welcome out of Plato’s cave. Watching the many women who were honored as ‘African American women firsts,’ today, during the Open’s opening ceremony reminded me of this. It reminded me that sometimes Americans do things right, and despite how far we may feel today from the changes we advocate, whether accepting people of a different sexuality or abandoning the habits of materialism that are dooming this planet, that change can and does happen, sometimes in a lifetime. This is good, because a lifetime in this case is just about all we got.
