What Vivian Stringer and Kathy Griffin Can Teach Us About Tolerance

Yesterday, I was watching the SportsCetner wrap up of the basketball highlights, and I caught a preview for the next story. "Stringer still angry with Imus" was the teaser, and I must admit, I was intrigued, so I waited the three and a half minuted for the commercials to finish, then I listened to what one C. Vivian Stringer had to say. She is the coach of the Women's Basketball Team from Rutgers, the ones who Don Imus so famously called 'nappy headed hos'. Stringer is quote "still very angry" with the way Imus described her team. For her, I offer some simple, free advice, that should help her deal with this better: Get over it. Seriously.

I mean, what is the tragedy here? She and her team got called 'hos'. By all accounts, yes, they are not hos. Do they deserve to be called hos? No. But guess what? In this crazy little democracy we have here, we have a little something called free speech. I listen to the radio and hear Tom Cruise called a, quote, 'faggot' and a 'homo' all the time. Is he one? Probably not. But you don't see him clamoring to get 'shock jocks' fired (though to be fair, there are probably too many of them for him to fight). Coach Stringer, we get it, you were insulted. That was six months ago, get over it. And if you're sitting there saying to yourself, "but the Imus thing is different, they're black, Tom Cruise is white", guess what that is? You know, the thing where people are treated differently because of the color of their skin, racism?

In all fairness, how exactly have Coach Stringer and her team suffered? They got a ton of national press, the team won the Wilma Rudolph Courage award, what is there to be angry about? How many girls have broken up with their boyfriend, only to be called 'a dirty ho' on the way out the door? At least two of my ex-girlfriends, I can tell you that.

What really got to me in Coach Stringer's interview, was her thoughts towards the end. This is a direct quote:

"Let me tell you how serious this is ... God knows that I would love to win the national championship, and I have been in pursuit of this all of my life," Stringer
said. "But, if I were given the choice -- do you wish to speak to the world and really have an effect or a change and make people feel better, or to win a national
championship, if I have to choose between the two -- I would take what happened this year because far more people paid attention and far more people were really and truly affected than a basketball game could ever have been."

First, what message have you gotten to the world? What change, other than the slow, painful death of free speech, have you started? Who have you made feel better? Second, she says she would take what happened this year over a national championship. Hello? If I was the Athletic Director of Rutgers, I would say the following: "Listen Viv, can I call you Viv? If you want to be a social activist, thats just super, but, uh, well, we hired you to win a national championship. That's what you're getting paid for. So good luck with the changing the world thing, we want a banner." Also, notice the phrase "far more people paid attention". Paid attention to what, you? Is that the message you're conveying? She is in the wrong business if she doesn't want to win, but rather make a very loud and obnoxious point.

So congratulations, Coach Stringer, you made your point. Imus was fired. While you were making your point about what words we can't say, a war is going on, we're a year away from electing a new leader of the free world, and oh yes, Britney and K-Fed have to take joint counseling sessions. But while Imus can't say 'hos', shrill, ugly Kathy Griffin is laughed at for saying 'suck it, Jesus' on national TV, with absolutely no repercussions. Its not even mentioned on her wikipedia
page, that's how little a deal this is. In fact, the only mention I heard about it was some columnist online responding to the Christian League's disapproval. Now, I usually don't agree with the Christian League, they disapprove of drugs and pornography, my raison d'etre, but they made an absolutely rational point.

Why does no one get mad when she says 'Suck it, Jesus', but if she had said "Suck it Jews" or "Suck it, Mohammed", there would have been a firestorm of titanic proportions. They are exactly right. As a Christian, I was more offended by that idea that what Griffin actually said. Let me make one more point on this Kathy Griffin tangent. You might be saying "You can't say 'suck it Mohammed', or 'suck it Jews' because you're not a Muslim or a Jew, its offensive to them. Well, guess what? Kathy Griffin is a self-described atheist. So she's not a Christian, yet it's okay for her to trash talk a fundamental part of their religion. DING DONG, who's at the door? Oh, hello Mr. Double Standard, come on in.

So thank you media, you've done your part to make the world a more intolerant place. Simple throwaway comments aren't that anymore, just ask Halle Berry. Wait, that's not your point is it? You just can't make throwaway comments about minorities. God help me if someone were to call me a "fluffy-headed cracker" I might just have to cause a massive media circus. Oh wait, as a white Christian male, I'm allowed, nay, expected to be insulted. But I can also listen to my own advice, and get over it.