Special to The Windham Eagle
Reading Billie Jean King’s autobiography, which was published this past summer, brings thoughts of Mount Rushmore to my mind.
The colossal mountainside rock sculpture of four American
presidents’ profiles took 14 years for sculptor Gutzon Borglum and his son to
complete. It was intended as a tribute to America’s birth (thus George
Washington’s image), growth (Thomas Jefferson’s), development (Abraham
Lincoln’s), and preservation (Theodore Roosevelt’s).
But since the memorial’s completion in 1941, historians more
interested in uncovering truth than perpetuating unquestioning deification have
pointed out some inconvenient facts. Washington and Jefferson owned (and traded
in) human chattel. Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves was motivated more by
political expediency than by any particular moral objection he had to “The
Peculiar Institution.” And Roosevelt’s well-documented views regarding the
capabilities and worthiness of peoples more darkly complected than himself are
the very embodiment of white supremacy.
But should historical figures be condemned for holding views
which were, in their day, just as commonplace amongst their contemporaries as
open-mindedness, tolerance, and understanding are amongst the more enlightened,
better-informed people of today?
If racism, sexism, misogyny, colonialism, ethnic cleansing,
drug use, and/or being unfaithful to one’s spouse were retroactive disqualifiers,
the massive sculpture in South Dakota’s Black Hills memorializing America’s
eligible presidents would, if it existed at all, likely be known as Mount Jimmy
Carter.
But back to Billie Jean: appropriately titled All In, her
memoir is inspiring, frank, and often astonishing for its blunt depiction of
some of the author’s less flattering qualities. It’s reasonable to assume that
at least part of a writer’s motivation for producing a memoir would be to cast
its protagonist in a flattering light, but Ms. King doesn’t pull any punches
regarding a few notable missteps she’s taken in her life, some of which were,
to her everlasting regret, hurtful to her family and others she truly cares
about.
But aside from her dedicated commitment to fighting injustice
based on race, gender, sexuality, nationality, or any other artificial dividing
line, what comes through about the admittedly headstrong, uber-competitive Ms.
King is her magnanimity. She possesses the ability to see the good in every
human being she’s encountered over her six-plus decades in the spotlight,
including those who were her bitter rivals on or off the tennis court. She
ultimately befriended Bobby Riggs, the self-promoting “male chauvinist pig” who
provided her opposition in the epic “Battle of the Sexes” winner-take-all
$100,000 tennis match of 1973, and expresses respect for Margaret Court,
arguably her greatest professional tennis adversary whose politics are, to put
it mildly, the polar opposite of Ms. King’s.
This week the former tennis star and lifelong passionate
advocate for equal rights turns 78 years old, but she and her wife Ilana Kloss
will probably mark the occasion quietly. Ms. King has observed birthdays in
subdued fashion ever since her 20th, which unfortunately fell on the day John
F. Kennedy (whose subsequently revealed philandering makes him ineligible, by
21st century standards, for any future presidential memorials), was
assassinated.
Were there a Mount Rushmore for American athletes who used
their fame, even at great personal sacrifice, to selflessly advocate for
fairness and the betterment of society, there’s little doubt Billie Jean King’s
face would be one of those carved into the imaginary stone, right alongside
Jackie Robinson’s, Muhammad Ali’s, and someone else’s.
But then, if infidelity were a disqualifier for the socially
conscious athlete Mount Rushmore, Ali and Ms. King would both need replacing.
But with whom? Bill Russell? Roberto Clemente? Colin Kaepernick?
Let the discussion begin, and the ongoing search for a flawless
human being (living or dead) continue. <
No comments:
Post a Comment