“..whites
talk about minorities in public even in somewhat formal venue of an interview
sponsored by a major research university. But I also showed they talk in a very
careful, indirect, hesitant manner and, occasionally, even through coded
language.”
-
Bonilla-Silva
This past semester the athletic
department brought in a guest speaker to basically talk about the Bonilla-Silva
quote above. Because our athletes are very diverse, they figured the speaker
would be appropriate and applicable. We had to get into groups and discuss
using slang and racial terms. What the presenters discovered was that teams are
a lot different than a majority of society. Instead of being hesitant or shy,
everyone was upfront and didn’t hide anything. No coded language is used when
discussing races. At least that I can see. Mainly because everyone is close enough
to discuss the topic and no one thinks they are different than anyone else.
I’ve played soccer with about every
race I can think of. It doesn’t matter what race you are, if you can dribble a
back line to its knees you’re good in my book! In my personal experiences, people
laugh at discrimination. Teams are like families, and we can joke around, make
fun of each other, and accept each other. One of my black teammates in the past
commented about how she laughs when she plays against a team and they picture
the other team thinking about her speed when in reality that’s her weakness.
She laughs at it, and we laugh with it. Stereotypes are never really a positive
thing, but if you can’t laugh at yourself or are too offended, then you’re
going to have a hard time enjoying life. To me, race is just a huge word for
insecurity. People are going to discriminate based on everything and anything.
The more a person feels comfortable in their skin, the more little things won’t
matter.
While reading Bonilla-Silva one
thing in particular caught my eye and grabbed my attention. Silva asks the question: “How can whites
develop empathy and gain an understanding of blacks if so few of them develop
meaningful interactions with them?” This question can go the other way. Discrimination
happens against everyone and multiple races can ask themselves the same
question. It depends on the situations you were raised in and the opportunities
you’ve had that shape your opinion. Maybe it just stirred me up because I don’t
believe that quote reflects me personally. Author of An Unsung Coach, Tony Price states, “On the playing fields
diversity is what helps a team come together, the successful teams adopt the
philosophy of inclusion and appreciation of variety and they figure out how to
make those differences work together for a common goal, “winning.”
I just read an article from BBC
sports about a referee not calming down a crowd’s racist chants. “The referee
for Manchester City's Champions League match against CSKA Moscow should not
officiate again after failing to deal with racist abuse, says Kick It Out
chairman Lord Ouseley.” What I got out of the article, beside the main point,
was that the players weren’t the problem, it was the crowd. The players weren’t
yelling chants or discriminating, it was random people in the stands who aren’t
even on the team!
This class has been eye-opening me
to see how much racism is actually discussed and how it’s used in every day
society. Part of the reason I wanted to take it was to see what others’
opinions were on everything. Growing up and being an athlete, being exposed to
different races, I never judged someone based on skin color, I judged them if
they sucked at soccer!
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