Last year, I felt the year through important people, but 2019 felt different. Individuals stepped up, stepped out, and inspired me as true heroes. Here's my top 10 people of the year:
10. Megan Rapinoe
Megan Rapinoe is a mirror.
How people react to her success is revealing. The people who criticized her for celebrating after her goals, who didn’t apply the same standards revealed their sexism. Those who tried to argue against her efforts to get equitable pay, showed how much do not understand the presence and effects of systems of oppression in our society. Those who don’t like the fact that she’s “political,” are putting on display their vain efforts to justify supporting a president who is corrupt, amoral, racist and sexist.
By sharing with America all that she is, Rapinoe has forced a conversation, given voice to those who were afraid to speak up, and reminded Americans who feel unseen, and are oppressed by others that there are American heroes who look like them and see them.
Rapinoe is an “and.” She is one of the greatest athletes of the year, and she is a great leader, and she is a woman, and she is Gay, and she understands the power and her platform and the influence of her words. She is part of the great American tradition of athletes pushing for justice, and using their power and influence to bring social change to America.
What happens during a match or a game is a result of the best and worst of America. All that we are, and all that we fail to be, are on display when people fall into tribes fighting for a morally inconsequential contest that pits citizens against each other for something is often frivolous, but has the potential to be something so much more. Rapinoe and the US Women's soccer team transformed a game about kicking a ball into a movement of hope, in a society that sees women in sports as far less than they see themselves.
Megan Rapinoe and the US Women’s Soccer Team has transformed their soccer games into a movement, and a cultural event. For the first time in my life I saw men walking around with the jersey of a female athlete, and the name on that jersey I saw most often was Rapinoe.
Sportsperson of the year? For sure, and an inspiration to me to be bold and love more.
“The feeling of not standing up when I know something is wrong is so much worse than whatever happens if I stand up.”
9. Bruce Springsteen
Springsteen showed us in 2019 that being a man meant that you were reflective, vulnerable, honest, and hard working.
With his Netflix special Springsteen On Broadway late in 2018, and his album Western Stars, Springsteen used his art and his voice to reveal the struggles of being Bruce Springsteen, giving voice to the insecurities that haunt American men who suffer from damaging ideas masculinity.
Bruce in the 1980s was all man, electric guitar strumming, bicep-bulging, and hard rocking. As the decades past, he showed different facets of himself. Now entering the seventh decade of his life, Bruce is pushing further into himself, and showing more of who he is, and who he wants to be.
Springsteen On Broadway featured hauntingly beautiful stories and contemplation on life. Profound ideas filled this special like how our choices make us ghosts to our children haunting them, or make us ancestors supporting them. These ideas challenges all of us as men, fathers, and sons, to think deeper about our lives, relationships, and to share more of who we are, not as a flaw, but as a feature of masculinity.
Western Stars, one of his greatest works, continues this journey. The storytelling feel simple, but has layers of depth. Songs that seem to be about one thing change their meaning as ending lyrics transform the story. In the music of Western Stars regret and nostalgia, and sadness and optimism, co-exist.
It’s hard to know what it means to be a man in a more diverse, egalitarian, and inclusive society. Springsteen is showing us the way, and if we listen closely, we will find the parts of us, we do not recognize but we must face. As he teaches, “You can run away from a lot for a little while, but you can’t run away from it all forever, you can’t certainty can’t outrun yourself.” Once like all of us, he saw himself as being “born to run,” and with his help, we can stop running, and take a look in that mirror.
In a world where men continue to flail against progress and express insecurities through harming others, Springsteen showed me a way this year to do the work, honor ourselves, and in the eyes of our fathers and our children see a path forward that brings us all together.
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