Obligation of Athletes

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/basketball/news;_ylt=Al7S8QYQzBPij6pPVGHczC68vLYF?slug=dw-darfur080708&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

I think this is extremely interesting. Should athletes speak about issues such as Darfur? The olympics is about cross cultural cooperation and peace so isn't kind of antithetical to the idea of the games to ignore issues of international importance? In 1980 the US boycotted the games due to protest of a war, which I think shows that politics and human rights should be part of the olympics. For those of you that know me, you know that I also think that American athletes should also address issues of inequality because they are such public figures and carry weight in communities that are often oppressed. Do you think that there is a difference between the olympics and regular American sports in terms of having an obligation to discuss and bring fourth important societal issues? Or do you think they are the same? My friend had an essay question on the GRE which asked whether athletes have an obligation to give back to their communities- she said they were looking for you to say no, looks like I'm going to fail my GRE's.

I will respond to Coos's post soon.

To Label

Below are two articles ... the first is about how to measure gender for the olympics, the second is about John McCain's treatment of Barack Obama as the Black candidate. Both articles are somewhat provocative, considering the ideas floating around these days, and for the record i agree with the sentiments of both articles. Two articles that seemingly have nothing to do with each other on the surface, are in fact dealing with the same issue. It is the issue of the label, or the name. 

Barack Obama is the Black candidate--that is for sure. His presumptuous trip abroad where he may not know his place comes from a white supremacist mindset.  The mainstream media is one step shy of calling him boy. His campaign is referred to as historic, which is a constant reminder of his blackness. We must keep in mind that everything is historic, for it turns into history in the blink of an eye. Let not the label of history hide the intentions of white supremacist beliefs. They run deep amongst us. And so we name him the black candidate, conscious or un-conscious. 

Gender testing at the Olympics is very practical on the one hand, if we are to have fair competition. Right?  Sports have been separated by gender as each gender couldn't compete with each other because that would be unfair to either of the given genders. Each is better at some stuff and worse at others. And thus separate but equal conditions ensue. But we are too smart to know what leads to separate but equal situations (Hint: it's a mindset of domination) and we are too smart to know what occurs with separate but equal (Hint: it's not equal). And so we have Men's sports and Woman's sports, and one of them gets unprecedented media attention, and thus our attention (Hint: it's not the woman). 

Men are supposed to be competitive and in some sports, brutal. While woman are supposed to act like ladies. Just as blacks are not supposed to be in a position of control that goes with confidence. White confidence equals black presumptuousness. Male brutality equals female dykiness. And so we are all left with "black" and "female" are lesser than "white" and "male." 

None of this is new--people have been saying this for years. I only wish to show how widespread this male dominated white supremacist ideology continues to be.  No matter how small it shows itself, it exists. And it is all related! 

The two articles deal with the issue of how we label...we think that labels exist to separate and create ease of recognition. But what are we recognizing in a label but a preconceived notion of whatever it is we are labeling? So do we not label anything? How would we define anything? To go to a "Label-free" society might have a similar oppressive feel as a "color-blind" society. Color-blindness is a neo-conservative political tool to undermine issue of race. A similar disaster could occur for gender and class and the physically and mentally "disabled." 

So i don't know what we can do. But I ask us all to keep in the back of our head the oppression that is inherent in a label. Because who is it that is doing the labeling? 

  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/opinion/02herbert.html

  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/opinion/03boylan.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&_ref=opinion