Previously: Amy Tan, misandrist hero.
I did not intend to come before you today speaking of basketball; this week basketball has broken my heart. Yet the words of Michele Roberts, the new executive director of the NBA players union, have led me to love again.
She said she was all too aware that if she was selected, she would represent several hundred male athletes in the N.B.A.; she would deal with league officials and agents who were nearly all men; she would negotiate with team owners who were almost all men; and she would stand before reporters who were predominantly men.
She did not flinch. “My past,” she told the room, “is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.”
And see! she stirs!
She starts,–she moves,–she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel–
Children, I was sleeping; children, I am awake now.
After attending public schools in the Bronx, Roberts earned a scholarship before her sophomore year of high school to attend the Masters School, a boarding school for girls in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. Roberts was one of two black students in her grade, and for the first time, she felt like an outsider.
“It was actually some of the best training for my professional life,” Roberts said. “Once I realized that being different does not mean being inferior — I scoff at that nonsense if I see it.”
One of her first nights in school, Roberts and a small group of classmates were brushing their teeth before bed. One of the girls asked Roberts if she could touch her hair, and Roberts, though somewhat puzzled, agreed. Within moments, there were four girls around her, running their fingers through her Afro.
“I remember I asked Michele if she ever had to comb her hair or if it just stayed that way,” said Anne Gibson Wnorowski, a classmate. “She made it very clear to me that was a stupid question, and I think after that I didn’t talk to her for months.”
Roberts did not maintain any high school friendships after graduation. In her senior yearbook, she quoted Malcolm X and Nikki Giovanni: “Joy is finding a pregnant roach and squashing it.”
I seek only one thing now in my life — a quiet retirement from the cares of the working world, and the chance to cut my hair and rend my garments and disfigure my face, and garb myself in ashes and sackcloth, and to sit at the feet of Michele Roberts, in perfect silence and perfect trust.
She volunteered at the law office at San Quentin State Prison, where she defended men on death row in disciplinary hearings. The men often had privileges like conjugal visits taken away over minor infractions, and Roberts would argue on their behalf to get the privileges back.
“All they wanted was to be able to have sex with their girlfriends,” Roberts said. “You’d do a hearing with them, and they’d be crying like you’d gotten them their freedom.”
…Roberts defended people accused of murder and rape, weaving biblical metaphors into her arguments. She became so good, so quickly, that some other lawyers filled the benches just to watch her work.
“It was like watching a major sporting event,” said Barbara Van Gelder, a former prosecutor who went up against Roberts in a couple of trials.
Michele Roberts is the latest incarnation of Levi Yitzchak the Berdichever. It is related that one Shabbat, R. Levi Yitzchak met a Jew smoking in the street. The rabbi asked the young man if he’d forgotten that such an act is forbidden on Shabbat. The young man replied that no, he hadn’t forgotten. R. Levi Yitzchak asked if there was some circumstance causing him to sin. The young man replied that no, he was knowingly and voluntarily sinning. R. Levi Yitzchak looked up to the sky and said, “L‑rd of the Universe, see the holiness of your people! They’d rather declare themselves sinners than utter a lie!”
Standing near a window at the end of the interview, Roberts apologized to a photographer. “I don’t smile much,” she said.
Roberts can be a private person, and many of her friends were unaware that she was interviewing for the N.B.A. position.
Michele Roberts does not have friends, as mortals do. Michele Roberts has instead a soul of fire and a lime-green pencil skirt and power over the lives of men. She keeps her secrets in the skins of rabbits, which she releases in the highlands of the Orkney Islands, where they are hunted by bands of wild Picts. She will smile when this sorrowing world gives her a reason to. We have not yet earned her smiles.
[Image via the NYT and I probably don’t have the rights to reuse it idk]
Tags: for the love of god don’t ask to touch a black woman’s hair, michele roberts, misandrist heroes, misandry, nba, the bones of men, union organizers
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Michele Roberts, Esq., BAMF.
That is actually on her business cards.
That’s all that’s on her business cards.
There isn’t even a phone number or an e-mail address. Her next goal is to make the “BAMF” so universally obvious that it is unnecessary.
SHE LIVES IN THE TALLEST SKYSCRAPER IN THE WORLD
IN THE PENTHOUSE, A FLOOR SUSPENDED FAR ABOVE THE OTHER FLOORS WITH HELIUM BALLOONS.
Why would there be any need for contact information? You do not contact her. If she desires your presence, she will contact you.
She is not going to contact you.
Maybe if you made really excellent cream puffs, she’d summon you to deliver them to her occasionally. On days when she needed self care. Or maybe you’re a tailor who understands the topology of pencil skirts acceptably well. Otherwise, no. No, she will not.
WHY have I not devoted my life to learning skills that would make me useful to this woman?
Ms. Roberts(we are not worthy to call her Michele) is my new Role Model, just from this statement alone: “my past is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.”
THIS is my new life goal: to be able to say the same thing.
Someone is going to make this into a sampler, correct? Suitable for framing or embellishing a throw pillow?
You just inspired me. This may have to become my next project. ON IT!
A pillow would be the perfect ironic location.
Cover it in spikes.
Definitely add it to the toast needlepoint pillow kits.
It’s perfection. I want to sit at her feet and learn her ways.
“My past,” she told the room, “is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.”
I think I need that on a cross-stitch sampler on my office wall, pronto.
There are tears of joy in my eyes right now. Lead us, o fearsome one.
She is not the hero this Monday deserves, but she is the one we need right now.
Does anyone follow the NBA closely enough to keep us updated on her doings if she gets the job?
For what it’s worth, I’ll certainly try to keep us up to date on her when I mention sportsssssss in the FOT.
“My past is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on”. Excuse me, I need to go and lie down in a dark room with a cool washcloth on my forehead to recover from the sheer awesomeness of this. (“Awesome” in its original sense, of course.)
“My past,” she told the room, “is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.”
BOOM. If I could only live a life worthy of having this on my tombstone, I would die a happy Lovecraftian nightmare creature.
I really wanna know how you got into the Berditchever. He’s dope but if Michele Roberts is the incarnation of any Hasidic hero it’s obviously the baddest of badasses, the Maiden of Ludmir (and I promise this is the only time I will ever link to the Jerusalem Post): http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Judaism/His-Sto…
That’s a marvelous story. Thank you for sharing it.
I just thought because he was the defense attorney of Israel and they talked about her BIBLICAL COURTROOM STYLE it was a natural fit! Also, I KNOW FROM HASIDS.
Some of my best friends are Hasids let’s talk about Hasids!
That should really be a toast. It should be a toast among women when they celebrate together with drink. “May your past be littered with the bones of the men who were once foolish enough to think you were someone they could sleep on, and the men to come who will make the same mistake.”
A toast? How about an email signature?
May your past be littered with the bones of the men who were foolish enough to think you were someone they could sleep on,
Samburgers
Brb, imagining this as a Hey Ladies email signature and dying.
~*~*~*may your past be littered with the bones of the men who were foolish enough to think you were someone they could sleep on *~*~*~ – the step up 3 trailer
And the chorus from all gathered should be: “We don’t fucking care if you like it.”
Welp. There is the official call-and-response toast for all future Toast Meetups. Someone write it down. Record it in the minutes. Who’s keeping minutes?
*flings stacks of papers about*
It’s the new “So say we all.”
We are wholly unworthy.
My past,” she told the room, “is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.” HOLY SHIT, I am putting that on my resume.
*heavy breathing*
She is so ready to get out of that chair and crush us all. And, wisely, we will welcome her dominion.
*Bows before her new god.*
“My past,” she told the room, “is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.”
I would say “God help the NBA owners now,” except, (a) fuck those rich assholes and (b) if there is a God, He is probably scared shitless of crossing Roberts.
Alternately, he looks with great pride and fondness on his avenging angel, the Woman He has created to bring righteousness into the world, and fear and trembling to the hearts of foolish men.
Can you legally make t-shirts of somebody else’s quote?
now that you’ve said it, oh god oh god I would pay like $25 for this shirt and I don’t own a single shirt that cost over $15. I WOULD PAY GOOD CASH MONEY FOR A SHIRT THAT SAID THIS.
I would like to know this, because I want to make a poster SO BAD.
I don’t smile much
This gets me almost as much as the bones-of-men thing.
I’m going to embroider this on something. My queen.
my jaw actually dropped open with delight upon reading that first quote. i mean, damn.
Oh my god, she is too much perfection for this world.
God did I need that this morning. Bless you, Mallory; we are not worthy, Ms. Roberts.
“It was clearly run by Hunter without much input from other people,” she said during a long interview at her office in Washington. “It’s completely inconsistent with the way any entity, let alone any union, should be run.”
First runner-up for top misandrist observation by Ms. Roberts.
Michele Roberts has instead a soul of fire and a lime-green pencil skirt and power over the lives of men.
I want all of these things, including the lime-green pencil skirt.
OMG YOU GUYS I just realized I saw Michele Roberts speak a few months ago at a charity dinner. SHE WAS SO AWESOME. In the literal sense of the word, yes.
I think I own that pencil skirt (or at least a very similar one). Now every time I wear it I will try to channel Michele Roberts and imagine leaving the bones of inferior men in my wake.
My god, I am in actual awe right now.
“My past,” she told the room, “is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.”
I aspire to have my life be worthy of this quote.
I aspire to have the courage to say this line in a room with men in it.
You and me both sis, you and me both.
You say things like this, and men start getting all weird and twitchy, and you experience that horrible moment of disappointment in people you thought were cool. So it’s easier not to push men too far, lest they reveal that they’re all kind of disappointing, deep down.
Yep. I think you nailed it on the head. When I think about saying something like that in the presence of men, even in the spirit of a joke, my stomach bottoms out a bit. Because even though I know I shouldn’t care, something deep inside me is scared shitless that expressing something like that would make them hate me/resent my candor and brashness. What a fucked up world we live in . . .
My god, I am in actual awe right now.
“My past,” she told the room, “is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think I was someone they could sleep on.”
I aspire to have my life be worthy of this quote.
Tried to read about this yesterday and my browser crashed in a dead faint. Apparently breaking through is my reward for enduring medieval dentistry today. “Awestruck” feels like a really puny word right about now. <3
Tried to read about this yesterday and my browser crashed in a dead faint. Apparently breaking through is my reward for enduring medieval dentistry today. "Awestruck" feels like a really puny word right about now. <3
You and me both sis, you and me both.
Yep. I think you nailed it on the head. When I think about saying something like that in the presence of men, even in the spirit of a joke, my stomach bottoms out a bit. Because even though I know I shouldn't care, something deep inside me is scared shitless that expressing something like that would make them hate me/resent my candor and brashness. What a fucked up world we live in . . .
YOU GUYS. It has been brought to my attention that Ms. Roberts came to one of my classes in my first year of law school and gave a guest lecture! She demonstrated the same give-no-shits attitude then as she does in this profile.
Yeah, I thought of The Toast as soon as I saw that line.