Lilly Ledbetter Needs to Hit the Gym

This past Thursday, gender equality scored a significant victory but was also made to realize that it has a long way to go.



That morning, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, reversing one of the most asinine, ideologically-based Supreme Court decisions I'd heard in awhile. According to said Court, anybody victimized by wage discrimination had 180 days from the time of their wage being set to file a complaint. That ruling effectively shut down all wage discrimination law suits (which was pretty much the point, wasn't it?). After all, unless you cut your company's checks yourself, sat around constantly asking all your co-workers how much they made, sued your company on a quarterly basis to find out how much everybody at your company made, or your company's wages are published on the internet, who would know they were being discriminated against? And if they ever did find out, it would definitely have been too late thanks to the Roberts' court decision. Fortunately, the new Ledbetter Bill changes all that.

Now, all workers have the right to file suit up to six months after they've received any paycheck from a discriminating employer. Sure, Republicans and business leaders will complain about "frivolous lawsuits," but isn't it better to have those bogus lawsuits than to exclude the legitimate ones from ever going to court?


That very same day in the sports arena, where so many of our civil rights battles have been symbolically and actually fought (Jackie Robinson integrating baseball, Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs, Curt Flood unionizing MLB players, Title 9), Serena Williams advanced to the Australian Open finals (which she won yesterday), catapulting herself to the top of the female athlete prize money list. It was a great day for sistah gal. Her prize money total of $22,753,575 moved her past retired tennis player Lindsay Davenport ($22,144,735) and LPGA wunderkind, Annika Sorenstam ($22,573,192). Obviously, Serena was ebullient:

"I'm thrilled with the news! I remember earning my first cheque of $240 at Quebec City in 1995 and while I knew that I could have a great career in tennis, I could not have imagined or dreamed of all of this. It's amazing how much women's tennis has grown since I joined the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour fourteen years ago. I am very proud to have reached this milestone for me, my family and all women athletes out there. This achievement really shows that if you put your mind to it, you can achieve anything."

As well she should've been. Her $22,753,575 take for a 14-year career is a great accomplishment for Serena, the Williamses, and female athletes the world round. And that 14-year, $22,753,575 take is only $1.5 million shy of Tiger Woods's $22.9 take for 2008!

Hmm.

Do you think Ms. Ledbetter has a 100mph serve?

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Racial Justice, You Been Served!!!

On February 19, 1942, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which eventually led to the internment of Japanese-Americans to what should be called concentration camps.



On September 22, 1992, US President George H.W. Bush signed the Civil Liberties Act Amendments of 1992, which appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars, guaranteeing each victim of the internment received $20,000.



Anti-miscegenation, race-mixing being one of the loves that "dare not speak its name" (seriously, even Moses got shit for having an Ethiopian wife), was dealt a fatal blow in 1967. That was when the US Supreme Court struck down all such laws in the Loving v. Virginia case, stating:

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law.

This law cleared the way for mixed-race couples to become legally married as well as the making of the 1995 Jefferson in Paris. Now, TJ and Sally's love can finally be out in the open. Now, if we can only clear that last marriage obstacle. After all, civil rights should never be left up to plebiscite.




March 25, 1991, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences atone for their sin of snubbing Whoopi Goldberg for her performance in The Color Purple by awarding her the Oscar for her supporting role in Ghost. A bit of a travesty, but what were they going to do? Give it to her for Burglar?



The same holds true for Denzel Washington's Oscar for Training Day, atonement for his being screwed out of one for his portrayal of Malcolm X. Not bad for a brother whose film career started with Carbon Copy, where he calls his white father "Mr. Charlie" throughout the whole damned flick.




Though talked of being a premier candidate for a head-coaching position in the NFL as far back as 1987, it wasn't until January 22, 1996, that Tony Dungy was hired as a head coach, for the hapless Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Despite phenomenal success there, he was later replaced by John Gruden, who took Dungy's team onto a Super Bowl victory in 2002. On February 4, 2007, Tony Dungy became the first African-American head coach to win a Super Bowl, ironically beating another African-American, Lovie Smith.

The stellar and a-stereotypical careers of:


Tiger Woods


Venus Williams


Serena Williams


Jarome Iginla


Ben Carson


Dirk Nowitzki

and


Yao Ming



In February 2008, future Hall of Fame pitcher, Roger Clemens, testifies before Congress about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. He is soon vilified, turning the bête noir of baseball, Barry Bonds, into a double-headed bête gris.



On December 25, 2008, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, conservative commentator Armstrong Williams, and celebrated race-traitor Ward Connerly were found slain alongside Alaska governor Sarah Palin in what police officials are describing as "one weird-ass circle jerk."

Well, a brother can dream, can't he? After all, millions of white people got their dream last night:



Friday, December 5, 2008, Orenthal James Simpson was sentenced to as much as 33 years behind bars, with eligibility for parole after nine, for a robbery caper in Las Vegas last year.
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