A Good Chance Gone Bad

With the celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s life this week, we all look back at one he gave to this country and how his courage broke down barriers that kept human beings apart.
So it’s sad that forty years since his death that there are still incidences where people separate themselves from each other when they had the chance to come together.
There were two cases in the past couple of weeks in these United States where people with power or influence abused those privileges to divide people. The AP reported on January 16th a story of young high school track star in Washington D.C. The girl’s name was Juashaunna Kelly and she was senior at Theodore Roosevelt High School. Kelly is Muslim and her faith requires her to cover all her skin except for her face and hands. So for three years she would wear a full body suit and then were her track uniform over that. But when she arrived at the Montgomery Invitational as one of the fastest girls in the D.C. area in the 1,600 and 3,200 meter the meet director told her that her body suit violated meet rules. That young girl was disqualified because she was honoring her faith despite the fact that the clothes she was wearing gave her no competitive advantage. Kelly then missed her last chance to qualify for the New Balance Collegiate New Balance Invitational where college scouts are everywhere.
There are plenty of angles to look at this story were a girl was punished for discipline to what she believed in. First of all, some meet director with a power trip cost this girl a chance at a college scholarship. But on a greater scale, this guy caused division between the Muslim community and the rest of society. He basically said “I don’t care what your faith his and how much you care about it, you can’t run in this race unless do as exactly as I say.” It pretty much sends a message to the whole Muslim community saying “you’re different and were going to punish you for it.”
About the same time as these events in Washington D.C. Golfweek magazine were creating their own fires. In case you haven’t heard the story it goes something like this. Kelly Tilghman of the Golf Channel was interviewing Tiger Woods and made the comment that for the other players to have a chance against Woods they should “lynch him in a back alley.” Yes, not a very smart thing to say. But get this, a potential controversy was handled well by everyone involved and seemed to be heading towards a peaceful conclusion. Tilghman realized her mistake and apologized. Okay so far. The Golf Channel suspended her for a couple weeks as punishment. Still doing okay. Woods who has known and respected Tilghman for a long time knew she made a mistake and forgave her. Alright, everything turned out okay. Right? Wrong. Golfweek then blows up the entire situation by putting a picture of a noose on their cover with the headline “Caught in a noose.”
Good job Golfweek, in your bid to create some buzz about your magazine, and create news instead of reporting it, you made the whole situation worse. It’s a good thing the magazine’s publisher fired the editor, well deserved. Who died and made that person public opinion god? A situation that everyone was handling perfectly was ruined because some attention-seeking magazine.
The morale for both of these stories is the same it is very clear: Don’t make a bad situation worse, make it better. In the case of the Muslim girl, the meet director had a great chance to do just that. He could have let the girl run her body suit. Everyone would have been happy. The girl would have got to run, the college scouts would have got a new signee and the Muslim community would appreciate that people respect their faith. For the Woods story, everyone did exactly as they should have. They were kind, apologetic, forgiving. Everything was there. Until someone wanted to make the situation worse by being bigger than the story itself.
Both these incidents could have been wonderful situations. People could have taken something bad and made it really good. But no, they didn’t, they decided to polarize. They had a chance to bring people together, yet they pushed them apart. They could have taught people about respecting and learning about other people’s cultures and how to apologize and forgive when a mistake is made. But no, they decided to alienate an entire group of people and get in other people’s business and cause drama.
People cultures and mistakes are always going to clash. That’s just part of being different, we have to accept it. But it’s how we handle it is what is important. We have to take these bad situations, we have to be bold and we have to come together to make them right. That what Dr. King did. He didn’t bring on the Civil Right movement by separating himself, he brought it on by bringing people together.