There are as many types of courage as there are personalities and human struggles. There isn’t


There are as many types of courage as there are personalities and human struggles. There isn’t a blueprint with bullet points to follow, although I think we’d all agree that soldiers, police officers and firefighters are entitled to an automatic assumption of heroism (until and unless they contradict it by their own actions.)

But basically, courage comes in many colors, cadences and creeds. The teenager afflicted with an inoperable brain cancer who continues to play basketball until she can no longer hold the ball is the epitome of courage, more so than the young woman who, afflicted with a similar form of cancer, chooses to commit suicide and avoid the pain.

There is no courage in seeking an end to pain, even though many called Brittany Maynard heroic. It is a human impulse, and mere humanity is not courageous. On the other hand, Lauren Hill, who by her insistence on living the last moments of a cruelly shortened life with joy and purpose, raising millions of dollars for cancer research and turning her small candle into a towering flame that cursed the darkness, transcended mere humanity, and became immortal. That is courage.

These thoughts were triggered by ESPN’s decision to give this year’s “courage” award, named in honor of Arthur Ashe, to Caitlyn Jenner.

According to his website, ArthurAshe.org, the athlete was a “top ranked tennis player in the 1960s and 1970s” at a time when racism, never absent from the sports world, was more overt than it is today. He was raised in the segregated South, becoming the first African-American male tennis player to win a Grand Slam tournament. He was a humanitarian, an educator and a role model. Ashe died in 1993 after contracting AIDS through a tainted blood transfusion.

PAST PURE WINNERS

And while the winners haven’t always been sportsmen, they have always been exceptional for the contributions that they made to society, and not because of any politically convenient agenda. They are a pure reflection of Arthur Ashe and do honor to the award that bears his name.

But when I see Caitlyn (nee Bruce) Jenner, the reflection I see is far from purity. Jenner, an admittedly transcendent and historic athlete, could have been given the award years ago for winning the decathlon at a moment in time when the United States was still locked in a psychological and philosophical battle with the Soviet Union. When he raised that American flag and ran around the Olympic track with the wind of Mercury at his feet, he gave this country a reason to celebrate. Ironically, he now says that this was the moment in his life when he felt the most fear and most like a fraud. So perhaps the courage it took to overcome his doubts is the type that deserves a trophy and adulation.

Except that they’re not giving him an award for that. Jenner has been chosen because he has come out as a woman, has transitioned quite publicly, has laid it all out for us on the cover of a popular magazine. This is audacious, but in a society where we vilify those who support traditional values, it is hardly a courageous act to exhibit your newly acquired identity. Courage implies something less egotistical and more transcendent, like giving your life for your country, or showing the world that 28 years in prison can break your body but not your spirit.

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer and columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News.

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