What Vivian Stringer and Kathy Griffin Can Teach Us About Tolerance

Yesterday, I was watching the SportsCetner wrap up of the basketball highlights, and I caught a preview for the next story. "Stringer still angry with Imus" was the teaser, and I must admit, I was intrigued, so I waited the three and a half minuted for the commercials to finish, then I listened to what one C. Vivian Stringer had to say. She is the coach of the Women's Basketball Team from Rutgers, the ones who Don Imus so famously called 'nappy headed hos'. Stringer is quote "still very angry" with the way Imus described her team. For her, I offer some simple, free advice, that should help her deal with this better: Get over it. Seriously.

I mean, what is the tragedy here? She and her team got called 'hos'. By all accounts, yes, they are not hos. Do they deserve to be called hos? No. But guess what? In this crazy little democracy we have here, we have a little something called free speech. I listen to the radio and hear Tom Cruise called a, quote, 'faggot' and a 'homo' all the time. Is he one? Probably not. But you don't see him clamoring to get 'shock jocks' fired (though to be fair, there are probably too many of them for him to fight). Coach Stringer, we get it, you were insulted. That was six months ago, get over it. And if you're sitting there saying to yourself, "but the Imus thing is different, they're black, Tom Cruise is white", guess what that is? You know, the thing where people are treated differently because of the color of their skin, racism?

In all fairness, how exactly have Coach Stringer and her team suffered? They got a ton of national press, the team won the Wilma Rudolph Courage award, what is there to be angry about? How many girls have broken up with their boyfriend, only to be called 'a dirty ho' on the way out the door? At least two of my ex-girlfriends, I can tell you that.

What really got to me in Coach Stringer's interview, was her thoughts towards the end. This is a direct quote: