OT Opinion: Why I felt trapped by violent misogyny at the Wally Awards

[bodyman5000 and 1]

Nobody said it, she made it up, surprise!

That can't be

 

[LameR]

As a coach, former faculty rep for SAAC and former-student member of SAAC, this is disappointing. This guy is an idiot and as has been mentioned this wasn't the right venue for this. Don't really care if he was "trying to do a Jimmy Kimmel impersonation" or whatever, that type of a night is supposed to be a means of celebrating efforts, achievements and camaraderie within athletics and his intention was to try and draw attention to himself. Don't really see how you can defend someone trying to brag about sexual exploits (even if it is a normal aspect of college) at a formal(ish) night that's supposed to be about athletics.

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

As a coach, former faculty rep for SAAC and former-student member of SAAC, this is disappointing. This guy is an idiot and as has been mentioned this wasn't the right venue for this. Don't really care if he was "trying to do a Jimmy Kimmel impersonation" or whatever, that type of a night is supposed to be a means of celebrating efforts, achievements and camaraderie within athletics and his intention was to try and draw attention to himself. Don't really see how you can defend someone trying to brag about sexual exploits (even if it is a normal aspect of college) at a formal(ish) night that's supposed to be about athletics.

Nobody defending him. Defending the English language and people using the term violence where it isn't appropriate.

 

[Cippy91]

As a coach, former faculty rep for SAAC and former-student member of SAAC, this is disappointing. This guy is an idiot and as has been mentioned this wasn't the right venue for this. Don't really care if he was "trying to do a Jimmy Kimmel impersonation" or whatever, that type of a night is supposed to be a means of celebrating efforts, achievements and camaraderie within athletics and his intention was to try and draw attention to himself. Don't really see how you can defend someone trying to brag about sexual exploits (even if it is a normal aspect of college) at a formal(ish) night that's supposed to be about athletics.

I’m not defending him. I don’t think it’s the stage for those jokes. As I said the only reason he’s a moron is because he tried these jokes at this venue at the university of Portland. However I believe if we had video of the monologue and his tone, it would probably be apparent he was trying to tell dumb jokes. I don’t find those jokes funny but they are jokes. Nothing was violent about it and if these are the things in life this student shakes over and considers violent and violating, she’s gonna have a hard time in life.

 

[Cippy91]

Nobody defending him. Defending the English language and people using the term violence where it isn't appropriate.

By reading what she said you would think he physically cornered her and groped her or some wild shit. It’s insane

 

[BonesJones]

Nobody defending him. Defending the English language and people using the term violence where it isn't appropriate.

Yup. The proper term is "sexist". Didn't see where the "violence" was in his statement.

I do see how he perpetuated rapr culture though.. I feel like the guys who rape women view them as objects they can take. This guy talked about women as if they were objects he could take. He objectified them for sure..

 

[stampedehero]

My name is Olivia Sanchez, and I am a senior at the University of Portland. I have been a student-athlete on The Bluff for three years, and in less than three weeks, I will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Last night, Sunday, April 15, I had the most disturbing experience of my time here during the Athletic Department’s fifth annual Wally Awards.

The event, normally an end-of-year awards banquet that celebrates the community within Athletics, was tainted by the violent, misogynistic speech of senior men’s tennis player Goutham Sundaram. Sundaram, the emcee, introduced himself with a speech in which he said he was going to open up, get real and “make the stage (his) locker room.”

Sundaram’s speech detailed his sexual pursuits during the last four years and explicitly stated that his main goal throughout college was not academic or even athletic, but sexual: to get white women to sleep with brown men.

Many student-athletes, including myself and several men’s basketball players, along with head basketball coach Terry Porter walked out of the event. University President Fr. Mark Poorman remained seated in the front of the room.

“Go brown and turn your frown upside down,” Sundaram said repeatedly.

Most of the audience laughed.

Sundaram continued on, explaining that his teammates have had more luck in engaging in sexual intercourse than he has. “Go French and your panties get drenched,” he said of his French teammates.

He weaved in the story of how his parents met in India, his father’s pursuit of his mother and their immigration to the United States. He suggested that his parents’ immigration would be worth it if he could “hook up with a white girl.”

It was after this comment that I could not physically handle to be in the room anymore. I quickly expressed my horror to my coach, Pasha Spencer, and left the room. Men’s basketball players Franklin Porter, Malcolm Porter and JoJo Walker also left the room. Former Trail Blazer Porter followed them.

I was standing in the hallway shaking when Walker came out of the gym. When I asked him why he left, he said what Sundaram was suggesting was not OK. I’m not a touchy-feely person, but in that moment I so wanted to want to give him a hug.

Spencer and Assistant Athletic Director of Compliance and Student Services Ryan McAlvey approached the stage from their table in the back of the room, and Sundaram was soon off the stage.

McAlvey and Spencer then both left the room.

Sundaram was appointed emcee for the event by the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, or SAAC, which organizes the event. Several SAAC members said he did not consult anyone before delivering this horrendous speech.

Sundaram repeatedly made sports innuendos, taking quick breaks from his violent speech to roast other sports teams, and eventually blamed his lack of sexual “success” on an “unfair referee,” or PSAFE shutting down parties before 11 p.m., suggesting that he was going out at night on the weekends to parties looking for girls to sleep with.

Several other athletes left the room after Sundaram said “Gandhi didn’t fast for twenty days so that I could get to America and not sleep with white women.”

Men’s tennis head coach Aaron Gross got behind the podium later in the evening to apologize for his athlete, Sundaram, and said that Sundaram’s comments did not reflect the views of the tennis team. Multiple other athletes reported that Gross said “I love you Goutham, I love you, and I know that you tried your best, but that doesn’t reflect the views of the tennis team.”

After the opening speech, cross country coach Rob Conner was awarded “Coach of the Year”. As he came up on stage to accept his award, he had the opportunity to change the narrative. He could’ve condemned the violent words against women and the perpetuation of rape culture. What he did instead was keep the peace, stating more or less to anyone who might have been offended that evening, “let’s move on and have a good time.”

While it was wonderful that he could move on and have a good time, I, as a woman, could not.

Tonight, I had two options. I could stand by and listen to Sundaram perpetuate rape culture and violence against women, or I could stand up and walk out, and risk coming off as a “crazy lady” who “can’t take a joke.”

I felt trapped. This event was mandatory. I had friends who were being honored. I have woken up at 5:00 in the morning nearly every day of my college career. I have pushed myself physically, mentally and emotionally to achieve success. This night was supposed to be about me. About all of us.

Instead, it was a “locker room”: one that I was excluded from since I couldn’t get the joke. The “joke” was never meant for me.

Sundaram’s words were actively marginalizing all the women who have worked hard all year for this. And Conner and Gross let it happen, deepening the divides. It’s been a long road, paved with Title IX regulations and sexism, to create a place for women in athletics. And tonight proved that that place is not even promised to feel safe. They might let us in the room, but they don’t have to acknowledge that we’re there and that maybe we don’t need to hear about how as women, we owe an immigrant sex, because Gandhi starved for that very purpose.

Forget being an athlete for a moment. As a student at the University of Portland, and as a journalist compelled to hold power to account, I am deeply disappointed in our university president, our senior associate athletic director and senior woman administrator.

They sat in the front row. And did nothing.

This is what we talk about when we say “bystander.” This is what we don’t mean, when we talk about being a “green dot.” Sundaram may not have been physically violating someone, but I felt violated. I felt unsafe. I was physically shaking. And what made it worse was that our top leaders of this campus, not to mention Sundaram’s teammates (the tennis team laughed the whole time), couldn’t understand the magnitude of the violence and harm that those words reverberate. Inaction and silence are equal acts of violence.

I do want to acknowledge rowing head coach Pasha Spencer, Porter, Women’s Head Basketball coach Cheryl Sorenson, and McAlvey, all four of whom got up from their table in the back of the room and approached the stage where Sundaram was still spouting off sexist jokes and objectifying sports innuendos in attempts to cut the speech short.

Other athletes reported that Sundaram seemed to return to his scripted duties upon the coaches’ intervention. These athletics leaders did what many others in positions of power should have done. But it all came too late.

I left. I walked home in the rain, my best dress drenched by the time I got home. This was my final Wallys, and I didn’t even make it to see any awards.

As news and managing editor of The Beacon, I am often cautious of putting my opinions out into the world. But this time, I can’t stay silent. We need to talk about this.

The fact that “locker room talk” seeped its way into a place where as a woman, I should have felt safe, should be a lesson for us all. Sundaram’s idea of locker room talk shouldn’t be acceptable in any locker room, let alone a public event honoring his peers. I understand that the Wallys can be a place for athletes to let loose and make jokes, but this is something different.

Whether you’re a white man or a man of color, women never owe you sex. No one owes you sex. Nobody died so you can have sex. Nobody starved so you can have sex. To belittle the work of others as a way of bolstering your own sexual entitlement is nauseating. The fact that I had to listen to it with little impediment though, was much much worse.

Our university formed an ad hoc committee to address Title IX and concerns about sexual assault on this campus. We are literally coming off the heels of a sexual assault awareness week put on by student advocates, in conjunction with National Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Across the country and around the world, women are challenging rape culture and bravely stepping forward with their #MeToo stories. Sitting in that room, I felt like all of the words about protecting the women on our campus from attack had washed away.

Athletics should never be an exception, particularly when a recent study demonstrated that of the 46 percent of participants who engaged in sexually coercive behaviors on campus, more than half were intercollegiate and recreational athletes.

We can’t allow this to be the culture of our Athletics Department. As I looked around at several of my fellow athletes laughing and doing nothing, I had never been more disappointed.

This piece is already too long, but just in case anyone is reading and scratching their head as to what about Sundaram’s words were violent and unacceptable, I want to take the time to break it down for you.

One, as I stated before, women never owe men sex. To imply that you deserve sex for any reason completely dehumanizes the body at the other end of that statement. Women are not vehicles for your sexual gratification, and when we spout this narrative, we normalize unwanted sexual attacks on women. Because if you’re owed something, your natural inclination is to take it, whether there is consent or not.

Two, the way in which Sundaram glorified “white women” as the ultimate prize was not only grossly sexist but bent towards a common racist culture of holding up white women as the standard, and women of color as second rung, even among men of color.

Lastly, my particular predicament is representative of a sexist culture we don’t talk enough about. After I walked out, I was told that people asked my friends what was wrong with me. Why was I so upset? As a woman, it’s hard to stand up, or simply remove yourself, from situations where you feel unsafe. You are pegged as dramatic or overreacting. You lose the label of “fun,” “easygoing,” “one of the guys” when you speak out or even fail to hide your dismay about this type of injustice.

I walked out last night and immediately started writing this piece. I am not silent, and for that, I will likely never be the “cool athlete girl who’s in on the joke.” But I never want another female athlete to feel objectified like that again. To feel her skin crawl and knees buckle on a night when her strength should be celebrated.

Sundaram, this night was about you, about the women you couldn’t conquer. But it shouldn’t have been. Your sexual struggles should never trump my safety.

This was abhorrent. Athletics can do better.

http://www.upbeacon.com/article/2018/04/wally-awards-critique

She is emotionally distraught. It would have been better for her to speak up right there and have support from her other female compadres.

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

Yup. The proper term is "sexist". Didn't see where the "violence" was in his statement.

I do see how he perpetuated rapr culture though.. I feel like the guys who rape women view them as objects they can take. This guy talked about women as if they were objects he could take. He objectified them for sure..

I don't know, if he thought he could just take them he wouldn't have complained that he didn't get as much as his French buddies.

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

Is this perpetuating murder culture?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sf...rris-ellen-degeneres-trump-pence-12809674.php

 

[crandc]

So the same white dudes who whitesplain to dviss "there is no racism" mansplain "there is no misogyny". Big surprise (not).

Do any of you know any women? Because any women, OK, 99% of women, would hear a threat.

A man says over and over you owe me sex. You are obligated to be fucked by me. It is required that I fuck you. What if she says no? What if she doesn't want it? And he says she is required? Do I really have to fucking spell it out in words of one syllable? OK, word of one syllable.

Rape.

Because if she is obligated to be fucked by him she can't say no. If she is required to be fucked by him he can do it by force if she says no. And every woman, OK, 99% of women, would hear a threat there.

Ask any woman how she felt when a man said she was required to be fucked by him. 99% heard a threat.

I can see why Terry Porter and other black men left, aside from being decent human beings, because this pathetic excuse for a man fed into the old racist SHIT about how all men of color, especially black men, want in life is to fuck/rape white women. You know, Mexico "sends rapists" to the US. Not to rape Latina women or Black women, Mexico is "sending rapists" to rape pristine little white girls.

Most of you are too young to remember Mary Bacon. She was a jockey. Although small stature is an advantage in that sport, most jockeys are still men, so she had quite a following. Until she revealed she was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, whom she described as "good Christian white people". (Some "very good people" as Trump later said.) When sportswriters castigated her for her Klan membership she told them, in these exact words, "when one of your wives or daughters gets raped by a n----r, you'll consider joining the Klan".

That the University allowed this fuckhead to continue is a disgrace. Someone in authority needed to take the stage and take the microphone away, then tell him to leave and apologize. Not let this shit go on and then say "have fun".

And neither the brave woman who wrote the article, nor I, nor any other woman, needs bodyman, maris, cippy, or anyone else to mansplain that gee we are just too sensitive. As Emma Gonzalez says, I call bullshit.

 

[santeesioux]

That was probably not the venue to be telling edgy jokes.

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

You know how hard it is for Indians to get white girls? It's an uphill battle for oriental asians, but Indians....man.

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

So the same white dudes who whitesplain to dviss "there is no racism" mansplain "there is no misogyny". Big surprise (not).

Do any of you know any women? Because any women, OK, 99% of women, would hear a threat.

A man says over and over you owe me sex. You are obligated to be fucked by me. It is required that I fuck you. What if she says no? What if she doesn't want it? And he says she is required? Do I really have to fucking spell it out in words of one syllable? OK, word of one syllable.

Rape.

Because if she is obligated to be fucked by him she can't say no. If she is required to be fucked by him he can do it by force if she says no. And every woman, OK, 99% of women, would hear a threat there.

Ask any woman how she felt when a man said she was required to be fucked by him. 99% heard a threat.

I can see why Terry Porter and other black men left, aside from being decent human beings, because this pathetic excuse for a man fed into the old racist SHIT about how all men of color, especially black men, want in life is to fuck/rape white women. You know, Mexico "sends rapists" to the US. Not to rape Latina women or Black women, Mexico is "sending rapists" to rape pristine little white girls.

Most of you are too young to remember Mary Bacon. She was a jockey. Although small stature is an advantage in that sport, most jockeys are still men, so she had quite a following. Until she revealed she was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, whom she described as "good Christian white people". (Some "very good people" as Trump later said.) When sportswriters castigated her for her Klan membership she told them, in these exact words, "when one of your wives or daughters gets raped by a n----r, you'll consider joining the Klan".

That the University allowed this fuckhead to continue is a disgrace. Someone in authority needed to take the stage and take the microphone away, then tell him to leave and apologize. Not let this shit go on and then say "have fun".

And neither the brave woman who wrote the article, nor I, nor any other woman, needs bodyman, maris, cippy, or anyone else to mansplain that gee we are just too sensitive. As Emma Gonzalez says, I call bullshit.

You aren't too sensitive. You are too wrong. Show me one quote where the moron said "women owe me sex"

Where? Where? Where?

Olivia Sanchez is the one who said something about women owing him sex.

If I missed the tennis guy saying it please for the love of God quote it.

Come on, I know you can do it?

Otherwise we just have the same lesbian woman saying the same brainwashed bullshit.

If you have your way you'll soon change the name of the fucking dictionary to "mansplainer"

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

Lol at people telling Dviss there isn't racism.

Some guys here inexplicably deny white privilege but I can't make them see it.

 

[MarAzul]

I can't make them see it.

Don't own too much fault. Some jobs are just too difficult.

 

[MarAzul]

Show me one quote where the moron said "women owe me sex"

Ah! You have a bone for an ear! But you can read what the lady heard in speech that should have not been heard.

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

Ah! You have a bone for an ear! But you can read what the lady heard in speech that should have not been heard.

If what crandc heard is true all of us racist white guys should kill this Indian boy who's talking about raping white women. We should also be proud that white women are the ultimate hotties.

I'm SOOOOOOO CONFLICTED!!!!!

 

[MarAzul]

If what crandc heard is true all of us racist white guys should kill this Indian boy who's talking about raping white women. We should also be proud thay white women are the ultimate hotties.

I'm SOOOOOOO CONFLICTED!!!!!

Oh well, it is all exciting! But I did not hear the tell tale scream that women have. My wife can demo it perfectly, it is a what I call the Lock n Load call.
Any man will recognize it as the call to action, it's like an instant injection of adrenaline after which your hair won't lay down and your eyes can't blink.

Naw none of that, a lady was offended, needlessly because a fool spoke when handed a mic, and his daddy never taught him any manners. My wife probably would say, Oh my! Some lady will have to tame that fool!

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

Oh well, it is all exciting! But I did not hear the tell tale scream that women have. My wife can demo it perfectly, it is a what I call the Lock n Load call.
Any man will recognize it as the call to action, it's like an instant injection of adrenaline after which your hair won't lay down and your eyes can't blink.

Naw none of that, a lady was offended, needlessly because a fool spoke when handed a mic, and his daddy never taught him any manners. My wife probably would say, Oh my! Some lady will have to tame that fool!

Don't know what he actually said or anything about him. Would be hilarious if he knew this woman was there and did this specifically for her.

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

Poutrageous

 

[MarAzul]

Would be hilarious if he knew this woman was there and did this specifically for her.

Ha!
I have visions of him performing for Mazzuca!

 

[SlyPokerDog]

Don't know what he actually said or anything about him. Would be hilarious if he knew this woman was there and did this specifically for her.

Why would that be hilarious? I'd be pretty embarrassed if I said something to make Terry Porter and his family get up and leave. Now when people google his name this is what he's going to be known for. It's going to hurt future job prospects.

 

[MarAzul]

It's going to hurt future job prospects.

You mean a lesson too late? Even without meeting Mazzuca!

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

Literally shaking

 

[Natebishop3]

So the same white dudes who whitesplain to dviss "there is no racism" mansplain "there is no misogyny". Big surprise (not).

Cool. Another crandc troll post that I guarantee she won't actually respond to.

Show me one person in here who said his speech wasn't fucked up? We took issue with the girl claiming it was about violence and rape though, but you just seemed to skim right over that because in your head anyone who didn't immediately jump to "FUCK ALL THE MEN!" is clearly mansplaining that there is no misogyny.

And the most fucked part is that you don't even see what's happening around you, because I see a whole generation of men who are coming up in a society that tells them that their opinions are less. Men who are living in fear that if they say the wrong thing, they could ruin their lives.

You're white? You don't know anything about discrimination or bigotry. Doesn't matter what your background is, or what experiences you have had.

You're a straight man? You don't know anything about sexual assault, or abuse, or discrimination. Doesn't matter what your background is or what experiences you have had.

I see men who are afraid to pay a compliment to a female coworker because they're worried they'll get turned in to HR. I see male teachers who are leaving the profession because they're afraid of a student accusing them of inappropriate behavior. I see men who are threatened by women with accusations of assault or rape if they don't bend to the will of that woman. Men who are convicted of domestic abuse because the wife is pissed at them. If a man calls 911 because his wife is hitting him, he is more likely to be the one who ends up in handcuffs when the police show up. I have seen it happen.

But hey, why don't you just keep hatesplaining to us how evil we are, because you have that luxury. You can openly hate men because that's en vogue. Almost nobody will call you on it. I'm sorry if you had some bad experiences, but to hold that against all men is just as fucked as the opinions that you seem to hold against men. When you diminish someone's opinion to "mansplaining" or "whitesplaining," you are using hate speech to tell someone that their opinion doesn't matter. There's a perfectly good word in the dictionary that doesn't put down a person's gender or their race, it's "condescending" and I have seen you talk to people on here in a condescending tone as well.

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

Cool. Another crandc troll post that I guarantee she won't actually respond to.

Show me one person in here who said his speech wasn't fucked up? We took issue with the girl claiming it was about violence and rape though, but you just seemed to skim right over that because in your head anyone who didn't immediately jump to "FUCK ALL THE MEN!" is clearly mansplaining that there is no misogyny.

And the most fucked part is that you don't even see what's happening around you, because I see a whole generation of men who are coming up in a society that tells them that their opinions are less. Men who are living in fear that if they say the wrong thing, they could ruin their lives.

You're white? You don't know anything about discrimination or bigotry. Doesn't matter what your background is, or what experiences you have had.

You're a straight man? You don't know anything about sexual assault, or abuse, or discrimination. Doesn't matter what your background is or what experiences you have had.

I see men who are afraid to pay a compliment to a female coworker because they're worried they'll get turned in to HR. I see male teachers who are leaving the profession because they're afraid of a student accusing them of inappropriate behavior. I see men who are threatened by women with accusations of assault or rape if they don't bend to the will of that woman. Men who are convicted of domestic abuse because the wife is pissed at them. If a man calls 911 because his wife is hitting him, he is more likely to be the one who ends up in handcuffs when the police show up. I have seen it happen.

But hey, why don't you just keep hatesplaining to us how evil we are, because you have that luxury. You can openly hate men because that's en vogue. Almost nobody will call you on it. I'm sorry if you had some bad experiences, but to hold that against all men is just as fucked as the opinions that you seem to hold against men. When you diminish someone's opinion to "mansplaining" or "whitesplaining," you are using hate speech to tell someone that their opinion doesn't matter. There's a perfectly good word in the dictionary that doesn't put down a person's gender or their race, it's "condescending" and I have seen you talk to people on here in a condescending tone as well.

PIV IS RAPE YOU RAPIST!!!!!

 

[bodyman5000 and 1]

Why would that be hilarious? I'd be pretty embarrassed if I said something to make Terry Porter and his family get up and leave. Now when people google his name this is what he's going to be known for. It's going to hurt future job prospects.

If it was a political statement then I wouldn't be embarrassed. If he just thought he was being funny he should be embarrassed.

 

[barfo]

Complaining at length that the woman's reaction is an overreaction seems to me to be an overreaction itself.

barfo

 

[Natebishop3]

Complaining at length that the woman's reaction is an overreaction seems to me to be an overreaction itself.

barfo

But what about overreacting to our perceived overreaction about a woman's overreaction?

 

[barfo]

But what about overreacting to our perceived overreaction about a woman's overreaction?

That would be totally fine, of course.

barfo