C2 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, JULY 31 , 2019
injustice. In response to a
question during his unsuccessful
Texas senatorial campaign last
August, O’Rourke said at a rally,
“I can think of nothing more
American than to peacefully
stand up, or take a knee, for your
rights any time, anywhere in any
place.”
Trump had helped stoke a
national debate over the topic in
2017, when he called for any “son
of a bitch” who protested during
the anthem to be fired. Protests
moved from the NFL that season
to other sports and leagues,
including on the high school
level.
O’Rourke’s response during
that rally last summer went viral
and prompted the family of one
of the four Michigan men to
donate to his Senate campaign.
That’s what brought the four
players to O’Rourke’s attention.
The three men, now of voting
age, will meet O’Rourke for the
first time Tuesday night. Lynn
said he has not yet decided for
whom he will vote.
“People on the other side of it
make us feel like we’re not as
American as them,” Lynn told
the AP, speaking of O’Rourke’s
2018 comment. “The fact that he
said that and feels that way, from
his heart, that was really
powerful. That’s what put Mr.
O’Rourke on my radar.”
— Cindy BorenThree former high school
football players who took a knee
during the national anthem in
an expression of solidarity with
Colin Kaepernick planned to
attend the Democratic primary
debate Tuesday night at the
invitation of candidate Beto
O’Rourke.
Michael Lynn III, Matthew
Abdullah and RoJe Williams,
who played at Lansing Catholic
High School in Michigan,
accepted the invitation to the
debate in Detroit when O’Rourke
phoned them last week. Their
former teammate Kabbalah
Richards cannot attend because
he is at college.
All four players, who knelt
during the anthem at games in
2017, either didn’t start or
appeared to have their playing
time reduced. Lynn and
Abdullah later transferred to
other schools.
O’Rourke said in a statement
to the Associated Press that the
four “have served their
community in one of the most
American ways possible.”
The ties of player-protesters to
the candidate date to his forceful
2018 defense of NFL players
when they were attacked by
President Trump for following
Kaepernick’s example and taking
a knee during the national
anthem to raise awareness of
police brutality and socialsister, only for her mother to
explain that brothers are
amazing, too. Or the ones where
a couple carries a helium
balloon into the backyard and
presents it to their dogs. The
dogs are supposed to tear the
balloon open and reveal boy-or-
girl confetti inside. Instead, they
bop their noses against it a few
times and then back away,
leaving the unpopped balloon to
float away into the summer sky.
[email protected]Monica Hesse is a columnist writing
about gender and its impact on
society. For more visit wapo.st/
hesse.exhaust pipes, only to have
nature inform them that there
are no carefully concocted
moments when it comes to
raising children.
Maybe your balloons will
release pink confetti, only for
your kid to later inform you
they’re a boy. Pre-birth is as
good a time as any to figure out
the limits of binary color
choices.
These parties can be fun, and
moving, and celebratory for all
involved.
But I can’t help rooting for
the ones that go wonky. The
ones where a toddler bursts into
tears because she wanted aheart of the matter: “Who cares
what gender the baby is?” she
wrote. “I did at the time because
we didn’t live in 2019 and didn’t
know what we know now — that
assigning focus on gender at
birth leaves out so much of their
potential and talents that have
nothing to do with what’s
between their legs.”
The wry poignancy of the
gender-reveal fail does not come
from watching a sedan shoot
flames down an Australian
countryside. It comes from the
fact that the entire event is
based on remarkable hubris:
Parents try to concoct a
memorable moment out ofAn off-duty Border Patrol agent
caused a 47,000-acre forest fire,
after he shot a blue-dust-filled
target that exploded more
thoroughly than planned. A
fireworks-based gender reveal in
Philadelphia turned into exactly
what you might expect: “A few
adults got hit but no serious
injuries,” one guest reported
after footage was released of the
mayhem. “Just minor burns.”
Anyway, I was going to write
about that, all of that: the
audacity, the Americana, the
vanity and consumer excess
descending into schadenfreude.
But then I saw Karvunudis’s
post, which got to the actualor blue dust.
My favorite reveal of all time
is the tasteful, soft-focus photo
shoot of a couple sitting
together on a beach blanket.
She, dressed in a peasant-style
dress, holds her rotund belly.
He, sprawled on his stomach,
holds a semiautomatic weapon.
In the next image, they gaze into
the distance at an exploded
mushroom cloud of blue dust.
We understand, gentlemen.
Fatherhood will not domesticate
you.
We understand, ladies. You
are a fertile moon goddess.
But increased stagecraft also
leads to increased risk of failure.gender-reveal trend began about
a decade ago, popularized by
mom bloggers who concocted
increasingly elaborate affairs:
pyrotechnic events that looked
like the offspring of a Pinterest
board and an episode of
“American Chopper.”
One of the original party-
throwers, Jenna Karvunidis, has
recently been in the news again.
In 2008, the Californian
arranged what would now be
considered a quaint gimmick:
After learning she was having a
girl, Karvunidis threw a party to
share the news, via a cake
covered in pink icing. She wrote
a post about it, which went viral,
which launched insanity.
This weekend, she composed
a follow-up post about the child
whose gender she’d celebrated.
“PLOT TWIST,” she wrote on
Facebook. “The world’s first
gender-reveal party baby is a girl
who wears suits!”
She included family photo of
Bee, sporting a suit and an
androgynous haircut, and linked
to other pictures in which the
10-year-old wore a mix of “girl”
and “boy” clothes.
I spotted Karvunidis’s
Facebook post, as it happens,
because I was already buried in
gender-reveal footage, planning
to write a column about the
perverse pleasure of watching
the ones that fail.
There’s the Australian car
explosion, for one. Or, another
in which a man attempts to hit a
pink-powder-filled balloon off a
golf tee, and instead thwacks his
buddy in the groin. Or another,
of a guy accidentally hitting a
softball into his wife’s face.
I’m not entirely sure what it
says about the state of
heterosexual matrimony in
America, but gender-reveal
parties are often a
hypermasculine affair. There are
a lot of footballs involved, an
occasional ax. A certain cohort
of straight American men have
suddenly decided they need to
learn the sex of their babies via
chain saw, splitting open
hollowed-out logs to reveal pink
HESSE FROM C1
The Reliable Source
Helena Andrews-Dyer and Emily HeilGOT A TIP? EMAIL US AT [email protected]. FOR THE LATEST SCOOPS, VISIT WASHINGTONPOST.COM/RELIABLESOURCE @helena_andrews @emilyaheil
see how he will fight for economic,
racial, and social justice for all.
Together, let’s build a movement of
young people to transform this
country.”
Sanders told CNN that their
conversation was for a yet-to-debut
video that he hoped would appeal to
young voters. “We [are] working on a
way to involve more young people in
the political process,” Sanders said.
“The future of America depends on
young people. They are voting in
large numbers, but not large enough
numbers.”
The “Money” artist has more than
dabbled in politics: She’s previously
expressed support for Sanders, and
her straight-talking (albeit profane)
political videos prompted comedian
Stephen Colbert to suggest that she
be the one to deliver the Democratic
rebuttal to Trump’s previous State of
the Union address. Alas, she was
passed over in favor of Georgia
politician Stacey Abrams.Rapper Cardi B is taking her
support for Democratic presidential
candidate Bernie Sanders to the next
level: After publicly giving him props,
the “I Like It” singer has made a video
featuring the senator from Vermont.
Cardi B posted a picture Monday
on Instagram showing the two of
them sitting down together to talk,
presumably about the issues on the
minds of her fans. She had previously
reached out to her 48 million ’gram
followers asking them what
questions they had for the challenger
to President Trump in 2020. “I got a
lot of submission[s] and selected the
most popular questions to get
answered,” she wrote. “Stay tuned toCardi B gives Bernie another boost
Players who took a knee go to debate
ENNIO LEANZA/EPA-EFECARLOS OSORIO/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beto O’Rourke invited former football players to Tuesday’s debate.MONICA HESSE
What watching hours of gender-reveal party footage tells you about parenting
MILORAD KRAVIC/ISTOCK
Gender-reveal parties can be a memorable moment, but the ones that fail are a reminder that there are no carefully concocted moments when it comes to raising children.PATRICK SEMANSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cardi B asked her 48 million
Instagram fans what questions they
had for Bernie Sanders, a 2020
challenger to President Trump.The singer and senator are
making a 2020 campaign
video aimed at young voters