Awards Have Lost Their Luster Thanks to Political Correctness

In one, Sports Illustrated honored USA Women’s Soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe, by naming her its Sportsperson of the Year. But while accepting the award, she couldn’t help biting the hand that honored her.

“Is it truth that I’m only the fourth woman deserving of this award? I don’t think so,” Rapinoe said.

“Is it true so few writers of color deserve to be featured in this publication? No. Is it true so few women’s voices deserve to be heard and deserve to be read in this publication? I don’t think so.”

As Sportsperson of the Year, Rapinoe joined the ranks of other luminaries, including NBA sensation Lebron James and tennis superstar Serena Williams.

But she’s always lacked grace in victory. In late June when she was asked whether she would accept a White House visit, Rapinoe replied, "I'm not going to the f***ing White House," adding, "We're not gonna be invited…. I doubt it."

After she was invited, she still refused to go.

There’s no question but that Rapinoe has talent, but there were far more talented athletes Sports Illustrated could have honored, like U.S. gymnast Simone Biles. She became the winningest female gymnast in world competition history this year.

Biles took home her fifth all-around world gymnastics title in Stuttgart, Germany, in October, despite being deducted points for performing routines that her competitors could not — she’s that good.

In another instance, last week Time magazine named climate activist Greta Thunberg its 2019 Person of the Year.

“We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow,” she told the publication. “That is all we are saying.”

Thunberg made waves in September by dressing down world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly.

“We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth,” she said. “How dare you.”

The 16-year-old refuses to return to school until the rest of the world bows to her wishes.

No one doubts her sincerity, but she’s long on talk and short on actual action — "all show and no go" as the saying went back in the day.

If Time wanted to stick to an environmental theme, it might have named as its Person of the Year Irish teen Fionn Ferreira, who invented a method to clean microplastics from the world’s oceans.

Microplastics are plastic particles less than 5 millimeters in diameter.

Better yet, Time could have named the young people risking their lives each night by demonstrating for their own freedom in Hong Kong and Iran.

You can also throw Glamour into the mix. It named Caitlyn Jenner its Woman of the Year in 2015.

Its decision prompted the widower of 9/11 victim Moira Smith to return his wife’s own 2001 posthumous Glamour Woman of the Year accolade to the magazine. He said he was “shocked and saddened” by Glamour’s decision, adding that the Jenner accolade was an “insult” to his wife’s legacy.

“Was there no woman in America, or the rest of the world, more deserving,” asked James Smith, who referred to Jenner by the previous name “Bruce.”

As far as that goes, then-President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 — the first year of his presidency. The committee didn’t actually honor him for anything he’d actually done, but rather for what they thought he might accomplish.

Before the end of Obama’s second term, the Nobel Committee’s secretary, Geir Lundestad, regretted their decision.

"Even many of Obama's supporters believed that the prize was a mistake," he told the BBC. "In that sense the committee didn't achieve what it had hoped for"

This odd journey down the rabbit hole by rewarding popularity over accomplishment began decades ago, innocently enough and with good intentions. It was an attempt to make everyone feel important by giving every participant a trophy.

It’s since morphed into basing our highest accolades on whatever is politically correct at the moment — Rapinoe’s lesbianism, Thunberg’s extreme climate views, Jenner’s transgenderism — over excellence. Given that, why should anyone bother to excel?

We’ve finally found ourselves in a world where bad is good, left is right and, to quote the Jefferson Airplane classic “White Rabbit,” where “logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead.”

Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to BizPac Review and Liberty Unyielding. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter, who can often be found honing his skills at the range. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.