When I was in elementary school, there was a banner in my classroom that read, "What is right is not always popular; what is popular is not always right." There have been several situations in sports and media in recent weeks, however, in which the popular reaction to an action was appropriate and well-warranted.
March 30, CBS college basketball analyst Billy Packer, while being interviewed by Charlie Rose, said Rose would "fag out" if he were Packer's runner during the Final Four. A CBS spokeswoman tried to clean up Packer's mess, saying she believed that Packer would "agree that it was a bad choice of words."
Packer did not; he said he would "use that phrase again... and won't think twice about it."
A portion of the population came to Packer's rescue, excusing the comment because "fag" means "to tire or weary by labor." And, as a runner at the Final Four, Rose would presumably get tired and thus "fag out," fulfilling Packer's prophecy.
Jim Rome and others adopted this cute explanation, excusing Packer for having an incredible vocabulary, being colloquially-deaf and using "fag" as a verb for fatigue, like "gay" means happy.
You see, there is no way that Packer could hold such a prejudice. In fact, you are the prejudiced one, because you were the one that equated such a conventional term to homophobic sentiment.
Please.
I don't want to come out and say that Billy Packer is intolerant, but I almost do. In my book, you get one shot; once you've made a prejudicial or racist comment, you are either A) stupid or B) intolerant if you don't watch your comments from that point on.
Packer's first shot came when he called Allen Iverson a "tough monkey" in 1996. His second came when making comments detrimental to women as his press pass was checked by females when entering a Duke men's basketball game in 2000. And now this. Facing the third strike down the heart of the plate, half the world is trying to find a reason that his comment wasn't as bad as others have tried to make it.
Stupid or intolerant? You decide.
Sadly, the lineup of recent ill-advised comments on nationally syndicated mediums does not end there.
One week ago, Don Imus referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." Once again, that alarm in the Bureau of Dumb Comments screamed afoul. And instead of helping Rutgers celebrate a team that finished as the runner-up in the NCAA Tournament, we are waiting for punishments and apologies deemed adequate.
Back in high school, when we were going to do something we weren't supposed to, friends of mine used to reason that "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission." Events like these prove the futility of this advice. In no way is it easier to ask for forgiveness when you have offended people on such a level.
Imus has done a better clean-up job than Packer -- at least he apologized. The skeptic in me wonders if Imus just couldn't find a different definition for "nappy" or "ho" on Dictionary.com. Either way, in the midst of the apology parade we are left wondering exactly what they really think.
Will we ever know? Probably not. All we have are reactions most often catalyzed by popular outrage.
Sadly, it is events like these that continue to keep us from moving forward toward tolerance.
What if, apologies aside, they really meant it?
The journey toward tolerance for race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation is certainly a long one. Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever actually get there. But that doesn't mean that we should give up on the fight.
The best resolution to such actions is to become tolerant from top-to-bottom, individually and as a society. That way, these comments would never be uttered. That way, people would realize that words do, every once in a while, hurt as much as sticks and stones. But we've seen throughout history that, unfortunately, the journey toward that kind of resolution is longer and more difficult than we ever thought it would be.
On a narrower level, though, public figures, including media members, must realize the power and scope of the modern media. In the 24-hour news era, no statement goes unnoticed. Frenzies will ensue whenever a controversial comment is uttered.
And they should. The public is right to be outraged when they hear and see intolerance espoused by national syndicated mediums. We've started moving toward tolerance, yet people like Packer and Imus continue to send us backward.
How are we ever to deem ourselves as tolerant when we continue to find excuses for guys like this?
Packer was wrong.
Imus was wrong.
Michael Richards was wrong.
There's a long list.
But the public, in each of these instances, has largely been in the right. Progress towards tolerance will never be made unless we hold people accountable for their controversial statements.
They are the ones that stand in the way of the rest of us on the arduous journey toward tolerance.
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