There is so much wrong with Sports Illustrated’s decision to have Christine Blasey Ford present its 2018 Inspiration of the Year award, it is hard to know where to begin.
For starters, there’s the issue that the magazine’s treatment of Ford is more befitting a celebrity athlete than a 52-year-old woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted nearly 40 years ago in high school.
In her first public statement since September, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford presents Sports Illustrated’s Inspiration of the Year Award to Rachael Denhollander https://t.co/2lBOB9nVDk pic.twitter.com/AjRYVYfOmS
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) December 12, 2018
Ford was not chosen for having any sort of meaningful affiliation with the award recipient, former gymnast Rachael Denhollander, whose testimony eventually led to the downfall of convicted sexual predator Larry Nassar. Ford was not chosen for any professional or personal achievements. Ford was chosen because she claims she was sexually abused by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a claim that she came nowhere close to proving.
Sexual assault is obviously a serious matter. But by selecting Ford for no other reason than she has accused Kavanaugh of misconduct, thereby treating the California professor as some sort of celebrity abuse victim, the magazine has devalued the circumstances surrounding its own honor as well as the reason for its awarding. Ford may as well have introduced herself in the video by saying, “Hi, I’m Christine Blasey Ford. You may remember me from the time I told Congress Kavanaugh tried to rape me.” That may seem silly, but it’s 100 percent why Ford was chosen and that’s what’s truly silly.
You know who they could’ve asked to honor the honoree? Any of the other gymnasts who were also abused by Nassar — who, by the way, was proven to have done what they said he did beyond a reasonable doubt.
Next, there’s the issue of what Ford says in the endorsement video. To put it simply, it’s awkwardly self-indulgent.
“I am in awe of you, and I will always be inspired by you,” Ford says. “In stepping forward, you took a huge risk, and you galvanized future generations to come forward even when the odds are seemingly stacked against you.”
She adds, “The lasting lesson is what we all have the power to create real change, and we cannot allow ourselves to be defined by the acts of others.”
Ford is definitely talking about Denhollander and not herself. I promise.
Lastly, there’s the problem that Sports Illustrated chose to honor the victim of a convicted sexual predator by honoring a woman who has yet to provide any sort of contemporaneous corroborating evidence to back her own allegation — which, by the way, Kavanaugh has outright and credibly denied repeatedly. Sports Illustrated has cheapened the seriousness of the Nassar nightmare by tying it to Ford’s own flimsy and unverified story. Worse still, Sports Illustrated has overshadowed the recipient of its own damned award by politicizing it with the woman at the center of one of the ugliest and most contentious partisan fights in the last 30 years.
Do you know what people are talking about this week in newsrooms and on social media? They’re not talking so much about Denhollander or the fact that her testimony led to Nassar’s downfall. They’re talking about the fact that the Sports Illustrated video marks Ford’s first public appearance since her Sept. 27 congressional testimony.
The magazine even marketed its award by highlighting Ford’s appearance.
“In her first public statement since September, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford presents Sports Illustrated’s Inspiration of the Year Award to Rachael Denhollander,” it tweeted excitedly this week.
All of this is to lead up to the simple question: What is wrong with you, Sports Illustrated?
