LeVar and LiAngelo Ball find themselves in Trump’s crosshairs. Image via SLAM.
It’s the season in which we give thanks for our blessings as a nation and as individuals. But that’s not what prevails in certain quarters.
Here we must begin at the top. Usually, American presidents use the Thanksgiving holiday as an opportunity to express how grateful we all are. Instead, El Presidente Trumpet, issuing a decree from his cell phone at the Winter White House (Mar a Lago) in Florida, is using the holiday to complain about how ungrateful certain people are toward him. Namely LaVar Ball, father of LiAngelo Ball, the UCLA basketball player picked up for shoplifting in China. Trump himself secured his release – not the State Department or anyone else, as he keeps reminding us – and feels Ball has disrespected his role in his son’s freedom.
OK, remember what Jesus said: When you do good, you aren’t supposed to go around bragging about it. And it negates a good deed to remind someone constantly how beholden they are to you. But Trump doesn’t see it that way. It’s all “me, me, me, me, me,” all of the time.
Basketball players aren’t alone on his radar. Trump criticized the NFL for deciding that players will remain in the locker room during the National Anthem. Granted, it seems like a copout not to take the field for the Anthem, even if before 2009, teams weren’t on the field for it. Now that they are out of the locker room, so to speak, why not respond to the Anthem the way your conscience dictates and let the chips fall where they may?
But it’s not just Trump who’s miffed. Online, men are huddling to see how they should respond to the sexual harassment crisis and the #MeToo movement. Some have decided that they are going to keep all the toys in the sandbox or move to another sandbox. They just won’t mentor women or collaborate with them. Or they’ll take the Pence approach: I can’t be alone in a room with any woman who isn’t my wife, er, Mother.
Dudes, we get it. You’re hurt and angry. But consider this: Women now dominate colleges and professional schools. White men will be a minority by the middle of this century. Who do you think is going to be the upper class and the underclass here?
Shut women out of the boardrooms and you may find yourselves shut out of employment.
Oh, and have a Happy Thanksgiving.