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.
Links to external sources:
No comments:
Post a Comment