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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not one of you remembers Tonya's lousy start of her routine and then her fake claim that her "laces broke"?  Or Tonya's involvement  in "America's Dumbest ___"?  This is not a person to praise.[/quote]

I actually vividly remember this. I was just a little kid, maybe 7, and I have a lasting lifelong impression of how horrible it was to watch someone that everyone hated come out and try only to have that happen and have to start over. I remember looking at her face and seeing real genuine agony and as a result my entire life I have always had more sympathy for Tonya Harding than anyone thought was appropriate.

No one wants to do a real thoughtful examination of this of course, it is easy to label her trailer trash. But someone can be a not-very-good-person and you can still have empathy for why they are who they are. Tonya grew up abused and her only ticket out was skating. If you back an abused dog into a corner they are going to lash out when they try to escape. I think the whole thing also showed how insanely classist figure skating was (is?). Tonya was 'athletic' and not 'graceful'. She didn't have the prettiest costumes because she couldn't afford them, she didn't have the grace of a girl raised in a wealthy family in new england. Those things were not her fault but resulted in the whole skating industry/country rooting for Nancy because she was prettier and more graceful and more what people wanted their daughters to be.

I think Tonya probably knew something. I think she isn't particularly good about accepting responsibility for her mistakes. I also think she was treated terribly long before the Kerrigan incident. Tonya Harding is a product of her circumstances, and so while I think she acted poorly, I think she's entitled to a redemption and I think perhaps we as a country should look back on that incident in a new light considering the growing economic divides in this country and the way it is causing us to stereotype and pigeonhole people. I don't think we ever need to create another Tonya Harding. But I'm grateful that she taught me such a serious lesson in empathy at such a young age, it has made me  a better person I think.[/quote]
Interesting. Nancy Kerrigan’s face of agony—the look of shattered dreams—after she was hit taught me a lesson in empathy. The fact that Tonya Harding is capitalizing on a crime does not indicate remorse or redemption[/quote]

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