Toya Graham vs Audrey Dimitrew – A Stark Ethical Difference

So close but yet so far.  Different perspectives and worlds apart separate the parental roles comparing Audrey Dimitrew whose family is suing the Chesapeake Regional Volleyball Association vs the mother, Toya Graham, in Baltimore who pulled her son from getting involved in inner city riots.  Ethically I can’t seem to shake the stark difference between Toya Graham and Audrey Dimitrew, both taking action for their child, yet both setting starkly different examples.

For a point of reference, Fairfax, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland are about 60 miles from one another (as the car drives). As someone who speaks on ethics nationwide, I am always curious about ethical parallels and how people handle the challenges in their lives in different ways – and what it says about our society. This tale occurs in an hour’s distance.

In Fairfax, Virginia, Audrey Dimitrew and her family are suing the Chesapeake Region Volleyball Association because she was not getting enough playing time. According to a Fox News article (April 2, 2015):

“Coaches allegedly told her that she had the potential to play college volleyball and she would get ‘significant tournament game experience’ as one of the two setters on the team.

However, things changed once the season began, attorney Robert J. Cunningham said. The team allegedly told the 10^th grader she was not as skilled as other members of the team. The lawsuit claims coaches told Audrey she could transfer to another team. However, once she found another team, the league allegedly blocked the transfer even after several appeals.”

That is correct. A teenaged player and (obviously) her parents, are suing because she is seeing more of the bench than the court. The league does not allow transfers from team to team and so she is not being allowed to take her marbles to another playground.

This story is bigger than Audrey Dimitrew. As if kids are not over-scheduled, over-supervised and over-pampered enough, across our great land, parents of means are pushing their kids to play club sports. This is another aspect of the helicopter-parent phenomenon. Why is this happening? To make their kids bigger, stronger, more skillful and possibly, to put them into contention for college scholarships – and who knows what beyond that?

It never occurs to some of the parents that their children are missing childhoods, social skill development, and other aspects of their education and (gasp) despite their best efforts, their kids may just not be Division 1 or professional material.

I know the arguments

I write about Sports Ethics and speak on the topic. The club phenomenon, where kids are being pushed to excel in the hope of grabbing at a little piece of the pot of gold, may be having its limited success, but I am very concerned that at the same time public and even private school programs are suffering for lack of funding.

I hear terrible tales of cutbacks in the arts, music courses, after-school tutoring and language programs in addition to reductions in athletic funding, science funding and mathematics instruction. There is little outrage. There is little accountability.

Apparently, parents suing a league because their child is not getting enough playing time is quite an important pursuit. It is a tragedy beyond all proportion to these people. Poor Audrey has been told by her coaches she is not yet good enough. It is enough to make a helicopter spin out of control.

Now let’s make our way to Baltimore and to the inner-city. As of this date, Baltimore is entering its second day of riots. The riots have broken out because a 25 year-old black man who was arrested by police died while in police custody of a spinal cord injury. I don’t know what happened, only that the city has exploded in anger.

I do not defend the destructive rioters nor in this case, the police department. I will defend peaceful protest. I will defend a community wanting to know how a man suffered a spinal cord injury after being arrested.

I will also say this because it needs to be said in an ethical sense. A third of the kids in inner-city Baltimore live in poverty. They go to substandard schools where programs have been cut to nothing. We seem to be able to find all kinds of money for government programs that lead nowhere and for benefits to members of congress and the multi-layered, alphabet-soup bureaucracy, but very little for the children who supposedly represent our future.

Have you heard the name Toya Graham? You should know her and her spirit and her sense of dignity. Her son, also a teenager, was out on the streets throwing rocks at the police. He was all covered up in a hoodie and mask, but she is a parent and knew her baby. She grabbed her son, pulled him out of the crowd and began to wail on him and yell at him.

Later, Ms. Graham said she did not want her son to end up in police custody and possibly suffer a spinal cord injury. I deeply respect that. However, in the moment, when she first acted, it was enough to bring tears to my eyes. It was a mother saying, “You will not shame me, you will not shame your family.”

Dignity

Toya Graham does not have a lot of money. She struggles. Yet she knew what was important in the moment. Her dignity is intact and I find that her spirit in the heart of everything else, beautifully ethical. Her son was shamed, but only for a minute. He will remember his mother’s compassion long into old age.

As to the volleyball player I feel only sadness. She is still a little girl and her family is making sure she stays that way.