|
|
Windex Junkie (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} windex_junkie) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif){kind=small} unfunnybusiness,@ 2010-10-21 01:02:00 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
Mrs. Clarence Thomas reaches out to Prof. Anita Hill... to demand an apology.
Thomas's Wife Reaches Out to Anita Hill Clarence Thomas’s Wife Asks Anita Hill for Apology
In a voice mail message left at 7:31 a.m. on Oct. 9, a Saturday, Virginia Thomas asked her husband’s former aide-turned-adversary to make amends. Ms. Hill played the recording, from her voice mail at Brandeis University, for The New York Times.
“Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas,” it said. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”
Ms. Thomas went on: “So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day.”
ACT II:
Hill didn’t think the call was real.
“I initially thought it was a prank,” Hill told ABC News. “And if it was, I thought the authorities should know about it.”
[...]
Mark Matthews of our affiliate KGO learned about this and reached out to Virginia Thomas.
Thomas e-mailed him, saying: “I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get past what happened so long ago. That offer still stands, I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”
As a header to the comments section, but not attached to the main post, there is this:
Editor's Note: In the statement issued by Ms. Thomas, the word that she rendered was "passed" as opposed to "past."
Thomas is currently quoted as saying "past" in the main body of the article; it apparently showed her wording as she wrote it, (sic) and all, in an earlier incarnation. A great many articles are quoting her as having actually written "past", instead of "passed (sic)", as the NYT maintains. (Sort of. Discreetly.) This gets mentioned fairly often by posters.
The title seems to have originally been "Thomas's Wife Reaches Out to Anita Hill"; this is isn't mentioned in the editor's note, but some of the comments hint at the change. (Confirmation/refutation on this point welcomed.)
Comments on the NYT thread are locked, at 723.
A few posters on this article make an observation:
I see that a few of the posters here picked up on Virginia Thomas' wording "with him", insinuating that Anita Hill did something "with", not "to" her husband. Virginia may have opened up a can of worms that she won't want to deal with. Whatever her motivation for calling Ms. Hill, I think that it has backfired on her - it makes her look like a delusional, jealous nut case.
(The misogyny in so many of the threads cuts with a double-edged sword. You could play vicious stereotype bingo. So far, I've got the squares for "Anita was just jelus because he married a white woman", "women who complain about sexual harassment are victimizing men", and "Ginni is brainwashed by her husband and isn't really in control of anything she says".)
There's even snark.
Richard wrote: Asking for an apology doesn’t really sound like an olive branch to me. I’ll try that with my wife next time we have an argument, see if I live to tell about it.
But, generally, there is more stupidity/ignorance/malice/weapons-grade misogyny/just plain WTF. Be warned.
In a voice mail message left at 7:31 a.m. on Oct. 9, a Saturday, Virginia Thomas asked her husband’s former aide-turned-adversary to make amends. Ms. Hill played the recording, from her voice mail at Brandeis University, for The New York Times.
“Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas,” it said. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”
Ms. Thomas went on: “So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day.”
ACT II:
Hill didn’t think the call was real.
“I initially thought it was a prank,” Hill told ABC News. “And if it was, I thought the authorities should know about it.”
[...]
Mark Matthews of our affiliate KGO learned about this and reached out to Virginia Thomas.
Thomas e-mailed him, saying: “I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get past what happened so long ago. That offer still stands, I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”
As a header to the comments section, but not attached to the main post, there is this:
Editor's Note: In the statement issued by Ms. Thomas, the word that she rendered was "passed" as opposed to "past."
Thomas is currently quoted as saying "past" in the main body of the article; it apparently showed her wording as she wrote it, (sic) and all, in an earlier incarnation. A great many articles are quoting her as having actually written "past", instead of "passed (sic)", as the NYT maintains. (Sort of. Discreetly.) This gets mentioned fairly often by posters.
The title seems to have originally been "Thomas's Wife Reaches Out to Anita Hill"; this is isn't mentioned in the editor's note, but some of the comments hint at the change. (Confirmation/refutation on this point welcomed.)
Comments on the NYT thread are locked, at 723.
A few posters on this article make an observation:
I see that a few of the posters here picked up on Virginia Thomas' wording "with him", insinuating that Anita Hill did something "with", not "to" her husband. Virginia may have opened up a can of worms that she won't want to deal with. Whatever her motivation for calling Ms. Hill, I think that it has backfired on her - it makes her look like a delusional, jealous nut case.
(The misogyny in so many of the threads cuts with a double-edged sword. You could play vicious stereotype bingo. So far, I've got the squares for "Anita was just jelus because he married a white woman", "women who complain about sexual harassment are victimizing men", and "Ginni is brainwashed by her husband and isn't really in control of anything she says".)
There's even snark.
Richard wrote: Asking for an apology doesn’t really sound like an olive branch to me. I’ll try that with my wife next time we have an argument, see if I live to tell about it.
But, generally, there is more stupidity/ignorance/malice/weapons-grade misogyny/just plain WTF. Be warned.
Post a comment in response:
