Time To Own Up About Me2...especially for White Male Boomers

I am an unrepentant over-thinker, not at any high tier of academic thought...my problem is how I bought into every truism I ever heard, and I am still stymied at an elementary school level definition of "equality" ...in terms of race, privilege, gender, etc. I am not just whining on the sidelines, I truly am invested in how this world gets re-righted for every young person, who, at the very least, deserves best efforts from those of us who have had a bigger hand in shaping, and also, misshaping the world in which we live, and since the entertainment industry has had an enormous influence on the evolution of our culture and values, perhaps it's time for those of us who have had more opportunity, based on the inverse profiling of women and minorities, that for decades had delivered less opportunity, to bare more of the burden to re-write the rules of the game.

It's time for every white male powerbroker to take a cue from Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, who had the courage and wisdom to challenge Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg in public, because Cook was singularly qualified to call out Zuckerberg for his bad behavior, albeit by default, for not investing in the most minimal security precautions that would have prevented the Russians from hacking away at our last Presidential election via Facebook. There was little upside for Cook to do this other than the greater good, no advantage in terms of profit, no press "bump," in fact, he may have diminished his low key standing as someone who does the job without putting on a show, but he also disproved a myth sustained by power brokers of all kinds... doing the right thing isn't at odds with turning a profit, and perhaps it is actually the moral equivalent of being rewarded a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, when one considers that Apple soon after became the first trillion dollar company in the history of the U.S and the world.

Yesterday morning I listened to Ileanna Douglas on the New Yorker Radio Hour on NPR, and hearing her own account of what had transpired with Les Moonves, in her own voice, and at a robust length of substance, was a lesson in media and empathy, at a time in which we are bombarded with so much disturbing information, it's almost like sniper fire, and generates a stunned form of apathy. She made reference to Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe, as having been gender shamed throughout their careers, and the press must own its own share of culpability as enablers for decades in how the industry has portrayed them and other women, by making under the table deals in exchange for access, and for baiting cat fights between women, as venal displays of rampant sexism in our culture, examples of which include:

Mia Farrow vs Diane Keaton

Judy Garland vs Grace Kelly

Jennifer Anniston vs Angelina Jolie

Marilyn Monroe vs Jackie Kennedy

Olivia DeHavilland vs Joan Fontaine

Audrey Hepburn & Julie Andrews

We now are fully in a post-McCain era, in which few members of Congress are crossing the aisle and there seems to be no end to what divides this country, and why there is such clamoring from all sides, inclusive of inside the GOP party, for leaders to take a more vocal stand against transgressions that exceed partisan politics. It may not be cricket to challenge one of your own party or boys club, but how many people play cricket in today's world versus how many people are crooking the books? It's time for new rules for everyone, not just as a TV segment for Bill Maher.

Time to watch the Emmys AND for every white man of a certain age and clout in the entertainment industry to come out from the shadows of Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves and make amends as "him2" surrogates, influencers and agents of change.