It was fantabulous news. A Filipino (or the child of two Filipinos) was appointed as Chair of the Human Rights Commission of New York City. How exciting. What an achievement. Yet wait, where are the marching bands and majorettes?
We usually take instant pride in the international achievements of our countrymen, that even if they are only half, a quarter, or even a fifth Filipino (Nicole Scherzinger of Pussy Cat Dolls), we lay claim to them like they were born right next door when we were kids playing tin cans.
Remember Phoebe Cates and Lou Diamond Phillips? What about Tia Carrere and Enrique Iglesias? Surely you know Vanessa Hudgens and Bruno Mars? So long as they have a little bit of Pinoy blood, even if they have never stepped on to Philippine shores, they're us. We are them.
Yet the appointment of Carmelyn Malalis as Chairperson of the Commission by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio wasn't greeted with excitement or fanfare. The local press was sober and factual. It's as if they weren't too excited.
Yet, this is surely something to beat our drums over. Carmelyn Malalis is a 40-year-old lawyer who used to be a partner at employment law firm Outten & Golden LLP. After college at Yale University and law school at Northeastern University, she clerked for a judge and then went to international law firm Sullivan and Cromwell. At Outten & Golden, she was an advocate for LGBT and differently abled citizens. And guess what? She has an Ethiopian wife, and is the mother of two children with her wife.
Did that just rock your world? To many LGBT youth, that news would have been almost magical. It's another of those poster moments when you can tell troubled or confused youth that it's ok, there's another life waiting up ahead. Acceptance awaits, and not just that, even success! Glorious success. It does get better.
What's even more crucial is that this isn't just success in the traditional fields where LGBT success is commonplace, or accepted. (Think beauty salons or fashion designing). Ms. Malalis was able to shine in an area traditionally dominated by machismo and heteros, the legal and political fields. Her appointment (even though it deflects criticism from de Blasio) is a recognition that LGBT's will be recognized for their abilities, acumen, backgrounds, strengths, and what have yous, in other fields.
(It doesn't hurt that de Blasio is able to point to Malalis as being a woman, a lesbian, a woman of color, and the child of immigrants rolled up neatly into one package. Quite a coup.)
So maybe there should be more coverage of her. Television features. Spreads on broadsheets. In-depth interviews. It shouldn't be just about tinseltown and glamour girls. Local press should be more focused on substance, on remarkable feats in the intellectual sphere, so citizens aren't dumbed down.
I mean, have you seen the kind of low brow gossip that gets headlines in legitimate press? Like which actor is a closet case, or which newbie is the sugar baby of a gay director? And every week it's just the same recycled excrement that has no function except to titillate and cement the gay stereotype that's fed by news hounds to avid readers. (Ok, that's fodder for another kind of rant).
So here's Ms. Malalis. Prime material. A rare opportunity. What will the press do? Hopefully, the fourth estate can rise up to the challenge.