For years, sports have been the unifying force amongst communities, states, countries and the world itself. Regardless of their philosophy in life, many have managed to put those aside and come together as one to root for their favorite teams.
Forward to and politics, socio-economic activism and even racial division has officially entered the game. The times when athletes, team owners and sports were all separate from what was going on in the world has now faded away. Athletes, owners, athletic franchises and the fans have all stepped up and taken strong stances that have brought politics and activism to the field or court.
To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.
In , the Golden State Warriors as a team stated they would not be accepting an invitation from the White House.
Stephen Curry is hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn! And, of course, Kurt Suzuki wearing the notorious red cap, a symbol of President Trump and his base.
That, to some, is the symbol of regression in race issues, equality and human rights. My point? Times have changed! While sports have been the one place where we can get along, the current climate of our times in our country has dramatically changed the tone. Some accuse athletes for crossing the line and demand that they stay in their lanes and leave politics to those who know better.
Others, in contrast, have applauded the efforts of those athletes who have not only used their platform as a way to denounce certain actions and behaviors by political figures and or laws, but have also put their careers at risk of major backlash.
Some of our most important social commentary has come in the form of sportswriting. I would never place myself in the company of those writers, but my conception of myself as a sports fan has always come alongside my conception of myself as a New Yorker, as a woman, as a person of color and as an American. It's difficult for me to separate those sides of myself. And it seems to become increasingly difficult for many other sportswriters to separate their sports sides from their human sides, to separate their journalism from their morality.
Sure, this paradigm shift seems sudden; as both journalists and human beings, it seems impossible not to question attacks on freedom of the press, not to wonder what an immigration ban means for Mo Farah, not to throw Tom Brady into every conversation possible. But that's what has always made sports compelling -- as art, as spectacle and, yes, as politics.
Sports can reflect the best, and at times the worst, of our collective humanity, and it allows us to experience both ends of that spectrum while studying the fine line that separates the two. Skip to main content Skip to navigation. Olympic marathoner Molly Seidel found a way to run again. Greatness beckoned me back to the stands; fate took it from there.
Indiana Fever. Mental Health Awareness month Highlighting experiences, voices in sport. Augusta National Women's Amateur preview. To a boy growing up in a Britain in which racism was vicious and visceral to a degree almost unthinkable now, Ali was a soul-affirming symbol of defiance and pride. And, inevitably, he was condemned. All of which brings us back to taking the knee.
Those obsessed by its maleficence are equally anti-virtue signalling. And that they win their next six games, too sorry, Scotland and Wales , which would see them crowned as European champions. For, yes, it is quite possible to separate sporting tribalism from political posturing, even as we recognise the relationship between politics and sport.
This article is more than 4 months old. Kenan Malik. Stefan is right that the IOC is struggling with this balance. It happily accepts UN Observer Status on the one hand, whilst then claiming sport and politics shouldn't mix on the other.
It claims the Olympics are all about the athletes then we witness Thomas Bach parroting the line about a "new Russia" emerging in his closing speech. My own feeling is international sporting organisations could be a force great good if they insist on minimum requirements for workers rights and on things like equality laws being a pre-requisite for a nation to host.
They could have a bigger influence than preaching from other nations who might be easier to ignore. I also feel we've realised boycotts - unless they're a concerted and co-ordinated international effort like freezing out South Africa - only harm athletes. I'm pleased there's a consensus that athletes should be allowed to live in their own bubble and shouldn't be dragged into these things.
They don't have a choice where to compete and unless we're confident we'd give up four years of our lives to support a cause, we shouldn't be asking the same of athletes. And of course, whilst there's the negative side - Qatar , Russia and its anti-gay laws - there is also the postive side. Who here would object to a South African Olympics which celebrates its post-Apartheid success, even if only implicitly because the Games are there.
How many here, if Turkey rids itself of Erdogan and moves back towards the secular blueprint modern Turkey was founded on, wouldn't be pleased to see a different culture - a Muslim majority - hosting the Games even if, once again, this message was only implicit? Hell, most people here are happy for Rio to be hosting, for a newly emergent Brazil to show itself on the world stage.
But all three of these are political aren't they? Can we only select hosts that offer positive political messages only or is arrogant of us to assume that? It's a question of where you draw the line. Utter hypocricy should be easily pointed out and there's enough of that within the IOC.
But everything else is a grey area. The least we can expect from the IOC of FIFA is, if they do pick somewhere like Qatar for them to have their eyes open and realise the reaction they're going to get. And in this sense, Sochi has been a watershed. Everything in Sochi was in its own Truman-show bubble, and yet these have been the most political Games I can remember. Things are only going to get more interesting in future We can't separate sport from politics because every act anyone plays in society is a political act in a broader sense.
When you help an old lady cross the street, this, by itself, promotes an effect inside the polis and it is part of the sociopolitical phenomena. Sport as we know it is a product of rules and laws of civilization.
Before that, sport, just as art, belonged to the realm of ritual and magic practices. In fact, any field of play work as a contained temporary imaginary ground governed by special rules affecting only those inside of it while people outside of it are forbid to enter or violate it. Any breach of the rules either suspends the entire competition or results in punishment for any of the competing parts.
Thus, the arena is a kind of political agreement between two competing parts and also between them and we non-competing parts. Ancient cities, states and nations organized sport as a competition between two equal parts and this alone is a political move to ensure a level of fairness that other kinds of competition - such as war - don't have. Sport isn't and never was politically neutral.
Heck, countries and peoples compete under national flags! What we can do and probably what we should ask ourselves is if we can separate sport from the many ideologies that entrap our points of view and ultimately makes us engage in other kinds of competition - be it diplomatic or even war - that denies the special political act that is sport.
A boycott, for example, is closer to a ideological move than a political move. Sports should never be an ideological theater for nations and organizations. We have UN, Universities, our legislative bodies and the streets to use as better platforms for that. Thank Rob. I feel that this has to be discussed, so I created this so that we can separate this highly spoken discussion from other threads.
You just know how much rumours and discussion was flooding media with the Ukraine crisis and Russia's anti-gay law etc. The prime example as Rob pointed out correctly is South Africa with the post-Apartheid era, South Africa has improved so much and deserves an Olympic Games. Russia and the Middle East haven't cleared their act up, showing how corrupt Fifa is, but I won't go into a discussion about that. Sport and Politics will only be separated IMO if we ALL work to separate it, including the members of the public like us who use social media, politicians and sports men and women.
It's got to have a fair balance. Of course, somehow, someone can pick out that something has a sign of political propaganda contained. I'm not naive, I know Sport and Politics will never be completely separated, but the World can make a big improvement with moving them apart slowly if you get what I mean. Obviously, the money that's used to build the facilities comes under Politics, with Tax payers money etc. The most important is safety of the public and workers etc.
London was safe, but as I live in London I would say that.
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