Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

“Baby, everything is going to be OK.”

Antoinette Tuff is my hero.

Just watched her interview with Anderson Cooper. Yes, she deserves all the praise she has just begun to get. I can’t imagine it will go to her head, which is something in itself that speaks to who she is.

And while she very much is special, part of it is that she is not. She is very much like many people we all know, just as generally decent as she seems.

She saved every one of those 800 children in that elementary school. It is quite literally almost impossible to top that, ever, as an act of sheer goodness. The trauma she saved their families and community is exponentially broader than even that. But even beyond something of that scale she saved us all – hundreds of millions of us – the pain of something far worse than even what happened in Newtown.

Each level of her accomplishment is so large that it is almost impossible to see the whole picture at once. I think it will take us all a long time to process just what she did and what it means in so many ways.

Each of us personally owes her more than we will ever be able to pay. Supporting her idea for a charity until it is a permanent part of the American experience seems like the least we can do as a start.

Donate to Antoinette’s Charity to Provide Under Priveliged Children the Chance to Travel

Proceeds will be used to provide travel for underprivileged children. We will provide inner city kids the opportunity to see the world. If you change their vision, you can change their lives.


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/ 7 Comments

7 comments

  1. Adept2u

    One of the people I follow on twitter noted that George Zimmerman saw an UNARMED Trayvon Martin as a threat. Antoinette saw an ARMED Michael Hill as a human being.

    I think it’s fitting this incident happened so close to the March on Washington’s commemoration.  Antoinette was channeling the spirit and discipline of the movement so many want to wear like a fashion statement without understanding the commitment it takes.

  2. DeniseVelez

    have been talking about this with my spouse since it happened.

    “Each level of her accomplishment is so large that it is almost impossible to see the whole picture at once. I think it will take us all a long time to process just what she did and what it means in so many ways.”

    Yes.

  3. Diana in NoVa

    When I heard her words to the would-be shooter during the evening news, I thought, “Finally, someone is listening to a woman’s voice.”  Not just the shooter–all of us were listening.

    I thought about all the women, especially the women of color, who spoke up and were ignored.  The women in that awful cannibal’s apartment house (Kevin? Can’t remember his horrible name), whose warnings were ignored by the police. The next-door neighbors in Cleveland next to that house of horror where the three women were kept, whose suspicions were also ignored by the police.

    Tuff is at once great–and ordinary. Great because of what she accomplished, which was the surrender of the would-be shooter without a drop of innocent blood being shed. As the you pointed out, adept2u, the lives of 800 children were saved. Ordinary because there are many heroic women like her, working hard to earn a living, caring for loved ones with special needs, full of compassion and love for their fellow human beings.  If only we would listen to them more often!

    Thanks for this excellent diary!

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