Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Nomination Goes to Obama but Don't Hate on Your Mama!


Sixty-two years after the date (June 3, 1946) the U.S. Supreme Court banned segregated interstate bus travel leading to the African-American Civil Rights Movement, the very first black man has received a nomination for presidential candidate. Not only did he receive the nomination, but he won it against an opponent who happens to be the first woman to furvently campaign for the position, and who just may end up running alongside him as his VP (His very loving remarks in his acceptance speech last night may begin to justify those rumors.)



In further coincidental moments in history, today (June 4) marks the anniversary of the approval of the 19th Amendment in 1919. Also on this day, I received a sad email from the Hunter College listserv regarding the infamously brash (and sexist) Chris Matthews speaking at the college's commencement ceremony today. The email is below:

HUNTER COMMENCEMENT DEGRADED BY THE INCLUSION OF INVITED SPEAKER CHRIS MATTHEWS

June 1, 2008

Dear Hunter College Community,

As you may know, MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews has been invited to speak at Hunter’s graduation day ceremony on Wednesday, June 4th. Administrative staff at Hunter looked for a speaker who could address political issues in this election year and decided to invite MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. After agreeing to speak, Olbermann then backed out of his commitment and instead of returning to the drawing board, a Hunter staff member called MSNBC to see who they could send in Olbermann’s place. Matthews was offered and accepted. There was no formal vetting or real consideration given to the selection of this particular graduation speaker.

Mr. Matthews has gained notoriety throughout the country for years of insensitive, sexist comments on his show “Hardball” and his insulting treatment of women—not only, most visibly, Senator Clinton but also his television colleagues who happen to be female.
Matthews referred to Clinton as a "she devil," called her a "strip-teaser" and "witchy." He has referred to men who support her as "castratos in the eunuch chorus." He has commented on the physical appearance of women including his CNBC colleague Erin Burnett, calling her “beautiful” and “a knockout” during a discussion of economic news. In an interview with John and Elizabeth Edwards, Matthews asked the former Senator, “Does she bite your balls like this when you go home?” He then went on to ask, “What is this with the equal marriages? Why do people marry their equals? It used to be different. What happened to the Stepford wives? The good old days?” These are but a small sample of Matthews’s on-air sexist comments.

It is, in our view, disgraceful for Hunter College, for all of us who love this institution and most of all for our present and future students who look to Hunter as a bastion of women’s empowerment, to confer this honor on someone whose words in public so contradict the most basic feminist and civic values. Inviting him to be our speaker is asking him to represent Hunter College on this important occasion, and this should never have happened. We are outraged.

We urge President Jennifer Raab to adopt a process in the future that would prevent such mistakes. We hope you’ll join us in this call to improve the process by which the college selects commencement speakers. Write to President Raab to encourage her to establish a more careful, transparent, and democratic process. Her email address is: jennifer.raab@hunter.cuny.edu.

Sincerely,
Students, Adjunct Faculty, Policy Committee of the
Women and Gender Studies Program


While many of the quotes in this letter are not word for word, I did find the correct ones, and they are pretty damn close. (i.e. Does she bust your balls like this when you come home?, and more!)











Some people take Matthews as an innocent blowhard-- a comedian or entertainer of sorts-- but when he is delivering comedic "news" commentary, perhaps he should be on Comedy Central right between The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Regardless of his intentions, I agree he is not the appropriate choice for a college graduation.

This is not to say I hate chauvinistic comedians. So, here's Andrew Dice Clay talking about how much he likes Bush (I can't tell if this is political commentary or not.)



OOOOOoooooh!

2 comments:

brendan donnelly said...

how do i get tickets to the graduation!!!!
he's amazing

Patricia S. Rudden said...

I just returned from the Hunter College commencement and I found his speech--featuring a snake story and examples of (all male) successful immigrants--rather generic and standard off-the-shelf encouraging.

He was not given an honorary degree, as some commencement speakers are. (Two alumni did receive honorary doctorates in recognition of their professional achievements, and their speeches were very personal and encouraging as well.)

Matthews quoted a number of men, and only one woman, Senator Clinton, about whom he also had one nice thing to say about how she is dedicated to America. This got almost as much applause as his two or three mentions of Barack Obama.

What struck me about the Matthews speech was his tone-deafness to where he was. Hunter is historically a women's college, yet he could only find examples of male success stories to regale us with. This bespeaks a boys-first orientation that was unfortunate. There are schools where this would be unremarkable, but not Hunter.

There are endless numbers of female immigrant success stories among alumnae of Hunter, from 1870 when it opened up til the present day, and he could have done a second or two of research and mentioned at least one of them. But no.

Ah well . . .

Pat Rudden
President
Alumni Association of Hunter College