Monday, December 30

Sorry but This is a Piss Poor Article.

If the sport world seriously had made such progress in gender equity -- and for all of Megan Rapinoe's trash talk and equal-pay demands, she hasn't had any impact there yet; they just don't bring in as much as the mens' game -- (then why would you put the coverage of the WNBA championship in parentheses, and not mention the top athletes on THAT team?)

Megan Rapinoe is a distraction.
And as a (drunken) spokeswoman, she's trite too.
Like a "grown" Greta Thunberg.

‘We Have to Be Better’: Megan Rapinoe and the Year of Victory and Advocacy

By Liz Robbins


Of all the brilliant fireworks of the 2019 sports season, the color purple — and the woman who wore it — defined the year.

Megan Rapinoe brazenly led the United States women’s national soccer team to a World Cup victory in France in July, her purple hair a banner for the right to be different but equal. In a polarized political climate, the championship reminded us of the growing power of athletes and their voices.
...
On the steps of New York’s City Hall for the ticker-tape parade, Rapinoe used her platform with the same precision and unabashed style she showed as the top goal scorer in the World Cup.

This is my charge to everyone: We have to be better. We have to love more and hate less. Listen more and talk less,” she said, adding, “It is our responsibility to make this world a better place.”*
...
Rapinoe and her teammates led the charge for equal pay with their men’s team counterparts, suing the national soccer federation for gender discrimination in March. With their case pending and the team marching through the World Cup, Rapinoe then sparred with President Trump over his stance on racial justice. She promised (in salty language) not to visit the White House if the team won. Trump told her to win first.

A month after the team won the World Cup, mediation talks between the soccer federation and the women broke down. A judge set a May 2020 trial date, two months before the Olympics in Tokyo.

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The Washington Nationals became the darling of the baseball world after starting the season 19-31, with a 1.5 percent chance to win the World Series. But the 1 percent did what no team had ever done: captured a World Series in which the visiting team won every game. Against the Houston Astros, the Nationals brought home Washington’s first title since 1924. (Just three weeks before the Nationals won, the Washington Mystics set the city stage in capturing the franchise’s first W.N.B.A title.)

For all of the Nationals’ late-night heroics — “Stay in the Fight” was their motto — the team will also be remembered for what happened around and off the field. During Game 5, the celebrity activist chef José Andrés threw out the first pitch, not Trump. The president did attend the game, and fans greeted him mostly with boos.

Just five days after winning the World Series, the home team found itself embroiled in backlash by accepting a White House invitation.

The catcher Kurt Suzuki wore a “Make America Great Again” hat. The pitcher Sean Doolittle conspicuously stayed away. Doolittle, an activist who has worked with refugees, told The Washington Post that he could not support the president because he uses divisive rhetoric, mocks the disabled, does not respect gay rights and has a poor record on racial justice.

To win the N.B.A. title, Toronto ended the Golden State Warriors’ dynasty with an eclectic group: Pascal Siakam of Cameroon, Marc Gasol of Spain, Serge Ibaka of Congo and Los Angeles-born Kawhi Leonard, all assembled by Masai Ujiri, the Raptors general manager, who is a Briton of Nigerian heritage.

One moment of dissonance that threatened the N.B.A.’s reputation and underscored the disruptive power of sports began when Daryl Morey, the general manager of the Houston Rockets, sent a tweet in support of Hong Kong protesters on Oct. 4, on the eve of the Rockets playing a preseason game in China: “Fight for Freedom, Stand With Hong Kong.”

The Chinese government was furious and demanded that the N.B.A. fire Morey. After a tepid first response, Adam Silver, the N.B.A. commissioner, asserted Morey’s right to free speech and said he would not even discipline him. Chinese companies pulled their sponsorship from the N.B.A. and refused until late in the year to broadcast games.
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Blah blah blah...
See that one bolded paragraph for WNBA coverage, compared to several for each of the American men's sports?


2019 was the year we made a big deal out of paying lip service to gender equity (fixed it for ya!) in sports pay and coverage. (Your own newspaper doesn't practice it, for good reason, I suspect.)

Don't bother reading the whole thing. It's but a puff piece, by a girl, baby! Maybe that's progress to them... the fellas who inherited the family leadership of the paper. Heh. We see right through you. (How stupid do you think we really are?)
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* That's drunken deep, man!
A real ... Call to Action.
(Not.)

Pull out your wallets, and compensate the women who are the real winners out here. We produce, we create, we don't get compensated for OUR work, nor acknowledged much of the time. That's okay, but don't (fucking!) pretend that It's Getting Better for real women -- not superstars -- who are holding their own out here, and getting ripped off still daily.

You want to change the world, NYT fellas?
Pull out your OWN wallet and start letting the redistribution of the wealth come from YOU, who have inherited so much more than you have earned, not the government (= working taxpayers with few deductions). That's how you end inequality, VOLUNTARILY relinquishing some of your white jewish dollars...

Hire the best. Period. Even if they are not like you. Pay us well(and learn to recognize that you need editors to call out this buried-in-the-parentheses nonsense, if you are going to plug pay equity and equal sports coverage for the genders.)

Hope this helps.
Be Better in 2020.
Go Team Trite.