As a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the rude girls who made fun of one of my teammates during the Rochester Half Marathon on Sunday, I heard back from the race director last night. Here’s what he had to say:
I have forwarded this to my volunteer coordinator who knows who was captain for that table.I’m sorry and I hope this type of disrespect isn’t an indicator of where our younger generation is headed.
Sadly, I don’t think is just a “younger generation” issue. We have adults who make fun of Lady Gaga’s apparent weight gain and mock celebrity moms who don’t drop the baby weight “fast enough.” We have parents, medical professionals, and politicians who think that belittling and bullying fat people (including children) will inspire us to lose weight.
I do feel that the “younger generation” is a lot less polite (and a lot more arrogant) than previous generations, but fat shaming is, sadly, something that people of all ages feel is appropriate and – worse – funny.
More to come on this, hopefully.
UPDATE! Just heard from the volunteer coordinator. Here’s what she had to say:
It greatly saddens me to hear that our volunteers were being disrespectful to runners along the course. We understand how hard our runners work to be in the Rochester Marathon, and agree that it is completely unacceptable behavior.I appreciate you bringing this to our attention and thank you very much for your suggestions. Previously we have not offered a volunteer training program before the race, but we will certainly work on implementing one for our volunteers for next year.I am sorry that this moment was part of your Rochester Marathon experience this year. We will be taking measures to ensure that this does not happen again. Again, thank you for alerting us to this issue.
I feel like I accomplished something today!
