There is a story on the front page, Little League star Mo'ne Davis asks university to reinstate college athlete who crudely insulted her and I reacted badly, like, woh, knee jerk, I was wrong in many ways in my comment on this story.
I said she was wrong. I said she was wrong to ask for his reinstatement. I did not say she was wrong for forgiving him, but that asking for him to be reinstated was wrong. I judged harshly and quickly. She was right to speak up, it was her choice and I support her for speaking out and I should not have questioned her motives. Undermining this young woman does not help the situation.
Mo'ne Davis is a class act, she is showing good sportsmanship by forgiving and by seeing the bigger picture here. This story will follow him wherever he goes. He will forever be the guy who tweeted this about a 13-year-old girl:
I still have mixed feelings about this though because this young guy is "chasing his dream" of becoming a major league player and as an article states, this could dampen his dreams.
”While I admit I was pretty hurt when I read his comments, I felt sad that he was dismissed from the team…,” the Philadelphia pitcher wrote. “I am sure Joey Casselberry has worked very hard to get where he is and dreams of playing in the major leagues. For this reason, I'm asking you to please allow him back on the team so that he can continue to chase his dream. He made one dumb mistake. I'm sure he would go back and change it if he could.”
But shouldn't it? I mean, don't we want to hold potential players up to higher standards? Don't we want them to think before they act? Don't we want to change our culture for the better and not let behavior like this be seen as passable? Should he be reinstated?
As a parent of an 11-year-old girl who plays sports, I found his tweet beyond offensive because it shows that many, especially in sports, all is possible if it's in the name of the game.
Ashley Judd proved that to be true with the controversy she stirred up with her tweet last week about her beloved University of Kentucky Wildcats. The vitriol that was pointed her way because she dared speak her mind was beyond ugly, it was misogyny and showed how we still believe it's okay to treat women differently and then when they actually call you out for the behavior, belittle and shame even more.
Ashley Judd's call to arms was brave. She was right, Forget Your Team: Your Online Violence Toward Girls and Women Is What Can Kiss My Ass and what she described is what the harmless tweet from Casselberry reminded me. Of where it starts.
Instead, I must, as a woman who was once a girl, as someone who uses the Internet, as a citizen of the world, address personally, spiritually, publicly and even legally, the ripe dangers that invariably accompany being a woman and having an opinion about sports or, frankly, anything else.
What happened to me is the devastating social norm experienced by millions of girls and women on the Internet. Online harassers use the slightest excuse (or no excuse at all) to dismember our personhood. My tweet was simply the convenient delivery system for a rage toward women that lurks perpetually. I know this experience is universal, though I'll describe specifically what happened to me.
I read in vivid language the various ways, humiliating and violent, in which my genitals, vaginal and anal, should be violated, shamed, exploited and dominated. Either the writer was going to do these things to me, or they were what I deserved. My intellect was insulted: I was called stupid, an idiot. My age, appearance and body were attacked. Even my family was thrown into the mix: Someone wrote that my "grandmother is creepy."
Mo'ne Davis is merely a young woman playing a sport to the best of her ability and Disney wants to make a movie about her. It made Casselberry so incensed he felt it necessary to take to a public forum and call her a "slut".
slut (slŭt)
n.
1. Often Offensive A person considered to be sexually promiscuous.
2. Archaic
a. A woman prostitute.
b. An untidy, dirty woman; a slattern.
The Free Dictonary
A thirteen year old girl.
Let that sink in.
This is my outrage.
Where does it stop? When do we say, enough is enough? When do we start to protect our girls from language, from the anger, from the overwhelming amount of misogyny that is EVERYWHERE. And when do we tell men that there are consequences to their language, that what they do does actually matter and can have a lasting effect?
The only person who can forgive Cassleberry is Mo'ne Davis. I support her right to do so and applaud her for doing so. I also hope that she will understand someday, that as a public figure and a potential big leaguer, a potential pro-sports figure, there are higher standards to live up to for Cassleberry. That we should expect more, that we should hope that things like this happen less often and that we want more for our young women, everywhere.
If he truly wants to show he regrets what he's done, he could actually offer a better apology, offer to talk about why speaking about young women in public like this is wrong and set an actual example. Maybe he could show why he should be reinstated rather than just rely on the forgiveness of Mo'ne Davis.
And for those of you who have been harassed on Twitter and online, Ashely Judd has asked for you to share your stories in her original essay and some are publicly joining her,
Enlisting in Ashley Judd's war on Twitter trolls.
Indeed, male sports fans are the reason foam bricks were invented. Yet, we are allowed to scream for the home team without being called vile names, much less threatened. So I was glad to see you use your Twitter account and media access to highlight this misogyny — and your intention to press charges.
I have to tell you, this hits close to home. Three times in the last year or so, I've had the difficult experience of learning that female colleagues had been threatened with rape because of something they wrote. I had not realized such things happened.
Leonard Pitts Jr. of the Miami Herald has joined in, knowing personally that colleagues have faced threats of physical harm.
Again.
Let that sink in.
This is what women face everyday for merely having opinions. Hey, people didn't agree with me and I was kind of shocked by the responses I GOT here. Such as "fuckyouverymuch", shitty of me to say, and how stupid my comment was. They didn't even bother to read my other comments where I had actually said I was wrong and had judged rather harshly. I kind of wondered where my forgiveness was? Nah. See, it's easier to just jump on strangers than to read further and maybe, just maybe, hope for the best, give people the benefit of the doubt?
I was wrong. I admit that. She was right to forgive. But I still hope that there are consequences for Cassleberry, that he does feel this because in the end, WE ALL FEEL THIS KIND OF BEHAVIOR collectively. It says something about our culture. We can do better than this.