I'm a straight middle-aged white man. I didn't know I owed RBG too. (the great Kyle Whitmire/al.com)

[eppur_se_muova]

Updated Sep 22, 2020; Posted Sep 22, 2020

By Kyle Whitmire | [e-mail]

This is an opinion column.

For more than 30 years, I’ve owed Ruth Bader Ginsburg my gratitude, but I only learned why after it was too late to say thank you.

I was 10 years old when my mom died in a car wreck, and my memory of what followed is a catalog of adaptations a family makes when going from two parents to one.

My father packing my lunchbox for the first time. There was a lot of Chef Boyardee ravioli. I mean, a lot.

My dad helping me shop for school clothes. How do you explain to your father that nothing from Walmart can be cool?

Doctor appointments, afterschool activities and time with friends. Before you become a parent, you never appreciate how much of it is being a livery service for children.

And one memory I’d almost forgotten until this week — a check that arrived in the mail, my survivor’s benefit from the Social Security Administration.
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more: https://www.al.com/news/2020/09/im-a-straight-middle-aged-white-man-i-didnt-know-i-owed-rbg-too.html

[LakeArenal]

1. Just turned a Trumpers wife on to her.

She’s now a hero to my friend. Up there with Malala.

Thanks RBG for a life well lived.

[FakeNoose]

2. Wow, this was published in Alabama, too

This is a great opinion piece! Here's another excerpt:

Ginsburg, then a law professor at Rutgers, took Wiesenfeld’s case to the Supreme Court, where she argued that the survivor’s benefit violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. But for one justice who was ill and not present, she won with a unanimous decision.

In the early years of her legal work, Ginsburg used those sorts of unexpected cases to pry the doors open for bigger ones later.

This week, much attention will be paid, rightfully, to Ginsburg’s battles for women’s rights, but her preferred term was gender equality. She waged her legal campaigns attacking discrimination from both fronts.

Ginsburg understood a truth about inequality many miss — that an unequal society harms all who live in it, not merely those it deliberately oppresses.

She made the law better by making it better for everyone — for women and men, moms and dads, widows and widowers.

Thank you Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and thanks to Kyle Whitmire for a nice write-up!

[Karadeniz]

3. What a pleasure to read...thanks so much for posting !