Dear Governor Justice, like you I am a graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School who no longer lives in Beckley. Like you I appreciate the power of team sports to foster self-discipline and build community. Like you I am-- wait, we have literally nothing else in common. No, that's not quite true. Like you I am white. But that's where the similiarities end, I do believe, because unlike you I am pretty concerned about the impact of angry words thrown around by white people in positions of power. Unlike you, I think it's pretty foul to label a community of young people -- one of the most diverse communities of young people in your overly homogenized state -- "a bunch of thugs." And also unlike you, apparently, I know how to apologize when I've put my foot in my mouth.
Here's the story as I understand it: a spectator rooting for the girls' basketball team you coach had caused problems at previous games. When the WWHS assistant coach went over to speak to him, some of the WWHS girls left the bench. Sure, they shouldn't have done that. But maybe, just possibly, your security detail shouldn't have knocked the assistant coach flat on the ground in the absence of any aggression on his part. Maybe, just maybe, you could show the merest soupçon of concern about the issues we've been having in this country with armed police officers causing bodily harm to unarmed black men. Maybe -- I'm just spitballing here -- you could acknowledge that it would be a preposterously poor use of the state's time to pursue the criminal citation pending against that assistant coach.
Instead, you announced on the record that the WWHS folks are "a bunch of thugs." When you were informed that "thug" is a racially charged word these days, you doubled down instead of apologizing. And when the pressure mounted, you only managed to issue a sad mealy-mouthed non-apology: you were sorry if anyone might have been offended.
Here's the thing, Governor Justice: back in the years when we were at WWHS, people in southern West Virginia used to talk about racism as if it were a binary phenomenon. Did someone know better than to use That One Offensive Word? Not a racist. This is woefully insufficient here in the third millennium, though, where we know (or should know) that bias falls on a continuum. Where we know (or should know) that the absence of malicious intent doesn't necessarily rule out the presence of harmful impact. Where we know (or should know) that life for girls in poverty-stricken racist pollution-befouled southern West Virginia is hard enough without the GOVERNOR of the entire damn state calling them a bunch of thugs.
Do better, Governor Justice. You're allegedly a Flying Eagle, but you're acting more like a turkey.
In solidarity with the WWHSers awaiting an actual apology,
Jamie Gladly
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