Saturday, December 7, 2013

Sports Talk: Racist Remark





Sports Talk: Racist Remarks

           Sports are America’s biggest pastime. There are various sports to watch and participate in. There are a diverse number of athletes that play on these sports. Although sports may seem inclusive of all races there is still a lot of discrimination and racism in the sports industry. football and basketball for example are dominated by African American athletes one would think that there would be no discrimination against these athletes based on their race. Unfortunately in a recent incident that sparked great media attention opens our eyes to these forms of racism that go on in the sports world today.
           
The incident I am refereeing is the one about the Miami Dolphin player, Jonathan Martin, a biracial player, who is black and white, who filed a harassment incident against his teammate Richie Incognito. Richie left him voicemails that said racist remarks such as:

"Hey, wassup, you half (expletive) piece of (expletive). "I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. I'll (expletive) in your (expletive) mouth. I'm gonna slap your (expletive) mouth, I'm gonna slap your real mother across the face (laughter). (Expletive) you, you're still a rookie. I'll kill you."

            Although the Dolphin’s coach said they took immediate action and suspended Incognito, I still believe that there are many more incidents of racism that occur in the sports world that goes untold. Especially because there seems to be normalization that athletes’ make jokes and fun of each other which is just part of the nature and culture of their interaction with one another. That it should not be taken seriously. That could be my own stereotype of the athletic world because I am not well versed in it. I personally do not watch a lot of sports, with the exception of soccer and basketball, and do not keep up with the trends.
           
The most obvious form of racist incidents that comes from sports, which has recently gotten a lot of attention, is the discrimination against Native Americans. There are many team names and mascots that depict and reinforce negative stereotypes of Native Americans. They range from team names across all sports like the Blackhawks, Redskins, Kansas Chiefs ect. There are also mascots that portray caricature images of indigenous people. How can someone make another human a mascot? As if Native Americans are not people and can be used as these sorts of “puppets” to entertain people. That is so degrading to Native American people. Team mascots like the “chief” from the University of Illinois, which has now been removed, according to my understanding. These mascots also show images of Indigenous people having red skin, big eyes, and big noses; often feeding into stereotypes that already exist about Native Americans giving people a false notion and sense of their culture.
            As much as I’d like to think we have come a long way and far from racism, it is very prevalent in our society still, especially in the sports industry. A place where there is a diverse group of people represented, all from various races, yet it is far from being inclusive and accepting to all. That just demonstrates what a long way we have to go to change the way we treat each other because there still exist this great divide among people of different races. I believe the change needs to come from society as whole yet it needs to come from within each individual.
          I also think that the whole sports culture needs to be redefined. I am not sure how it can be refined but I recently read of an incident that involved the 16 year old, African American Olympic winner, Simone Biles, and an athlete from Italy, who commented in an interview:  
"I told (teammate Vanessa Ferrari) that next time we should also paint our skin black so then we can win, too."
          This is a scary and alarming comment, especially because these children are making racist remarks against one another. The girl who made the racial comment was not American which demonstrates what a crisis and issue racism is in the sports world all-around not just in America. I think the girl made the comment because she lost. We need to teach professional athletes who are children how to be good sportsman and to not be so competitive which, I know makes no sense since competition is part of the playing a sport but perhaps there is a different approach. I long for the day when we can be accepting of people's differences, but I am a hopeful optimist that this goal can be achieved. 

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