Wednesday Cannon Fodder: Madam Vice President

For those of us here in the U.S., today is a big day. In a few hours, Joe Biden will become the 46th President. More remarkable, however, is that Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, will become the first female and person of color to be Vice President.

There have been many, many encouraging, uplifting, joyful posts making the rounds about it. One that came across my radar went something like, “this morning is the last time you’ll wake up where a woman had never been Vice President of the U.S.” There has been a lot of great stuff written, pieces much more poignant and personal than anything I can write, about what Madam Harris’ accomplishment means. I’d encourage you to Google it, do something, and get an idea of how important of a milestone this is.

Her accomplishment stands in sharp relief to a disgusting piece of sports news from earlier this week — the Jared Porter story (former GM of the Mets - the club fired him the morning after the news broke). TL;DR — he sent explicit, unwanted, and unsolicited text messages and pictures, including at one point 62 texts without response, to a foreign, female baseball reporter. She has since left journalism as a result and only spoke to ESPN on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal in her home country. The article is hard to read and rage-inducing.

We have so, so far still to go towards full, real equality in society. So here’s something all of our male readers should do today: ask an important woman in your life how she feels and what she thinks about either or both pieces of news — your mother, your sister, your partner, a close friend — someone with whom you are comfortable enough to have an open, honest conversation. Listen and learn. Let her do most of the talking and make your focus taking in and understanding what she is saying.

As always, remember that we like to stay away from politics in the comments here at TSF. I’m trusting you to be measured, respectful, and responsible what your discussion below. If you have any question about whether you should post something, the correct decision is, no, don’t do it.

Also — you don’t have to discuss the subject matter of my post. It’s just something that was on my mind yesterday and today. CF is meant to be a place where we can chat about the sports news of the day, Arsenal-related or not, the stuff not “big” enough for a standalone post, and / or whatever OT stuff catches our eye.