Sports and Patriotism -- A Rant in Bb Minor
Bb Minor Scale
First, an update on reading. Among all the other rhetorical stuff I'm pushing through, I decided to throw my schedule to the wind and read Devon W. Carbado and Mitu Gulati's Acting White: Rethinking Race in 'Post-Racial' America. Table of Contents:
A brief response to Kevin's comments about the US Men's team's performance in the World Cup thus far. I have no bones about other Americans' ignorance about futbol and its world-wide popularity. Some folks just don't like certain sports (I'm really not a fan of competitive fly fishing, for example, though I have relatives who can watch that all day; of course, they're stuck in the Ontario snow for six months a year, so they'll watch anything that reminds them of anything other than ice, ice, and ice). We recall that for some reason the Far Right hates anything not born and bred in the US, including soccer. Our white friend Glenn Beck said:
That's fine. I don't care what Beck or Coulter say aboutmuch anything, so this is a non-issue.
My problem with sports and Americans is not their fandom inconsistency, but that too many Americans conflate their enthusiasm for a sport or a sports event for their own sense of patriotism. Now, before I go further, I know every sports fan on the planet has pride in his country [using the third person neuter]. I know the French love their team, the English love all their teams, and even athletes with complicated relationships with their totalitarian governments love their flags and colors. But these relationships are -- really -- superficial, even though the fan may claim otherwise.
We have to recall what patriotism means -- love of [that complicated English word meaning both possessive and attributive] the fathers. A real love for one's countrymen -- all of them -- not just the ones sweating on the court. It's frankly embarrassing to see Americans attend Olympic games in other countries where most spectators politely cheer as every nation's flag is brought into the stadium, but Americans feel somehow possessed to chant, "USA! USA! USA!" when the red, white, and blue is brought in near the end. But this "love" is far different than, say, what Erika Salumae felt when she saw her country's flag hoisted in 1992 in Barcelona -- upside down [note her shaking head and the white bar on top instead of the the blue at 6:05] -- and she wept. Not just because she had won Estonia's first medal since 1936, but because no one -- no one alive in Barcelona that year -- had ever seen the Estonian flag flown before. It had been buried under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic's flag for over sixty years and Salumae was the first Estonian to win a medal under her country's own flag in all that time. The flag was raised upside down because no one knew what an Estonian flag looked like until the Wall came down. Her love for her flag, her love for her country, is something that Americans cannot really feel with their enthusiastic yet monotonous mantra, "USA! USA! USA!"
It is, after all, the same mantra Americans use when bad guys are killed:
It's also the same and apparently only retort the Tea Party can use when one of their heroes is interrupted with a verbal challenge for clarity:
When Americans show up in Brazil by the tens of thousands, we should remember how much tickets cost and what kind of privilege it is to leave one's work and home, fly to Brasilia, find a reasonable hotel, eat out morning, lunch, and dinner. And not all Americans can do this, of course. But more so, millions and millions of fans from the other Cup contenders could never even consider dropping that kind of cash to cheer their team on in person. They have to settle to watching the game with friends and family and stranger-cum-friends in their homes, their village squares, perhaps dozens of neighbors surrounding the only television for a block, aching to see their country's colors on the field for 90 minutes, enjoying the game, hoping for a win, but not conflating their whole sense of worth on a sport. It's telling that the chant Americans defer to is "USA! USA! USA!" and not something actually with the word "United" in it. Because once these sports fans come home -- winning in the stands or the field -- they will go back to a country more divided now than at any time since the War Between the States.
If Marx was right and religion is the opium of the people, and America is now a post-religious state, then the only opiate left has to be that other sacred cow -- its commercialized sports industry.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BruceJMartin
Twitter @comstone
First, an update on reading. Among all the other rhetorical stuff I'm pushing through, I decided to throw my schedule to the wind and read Devon W. Carbado and Mitu Gulati's Acting White: Rethinking Race in 'Post-Racial' America. Table of Contents:
Prologue : Acting out the racial double bind --1. Why act white? --2. Talking white --3. Acting like a black woman --4. Acting like a (white) woman --5. (Not) acting criminal --6. Acting diverse --7. Acting within the law --8. Acting white to help other blacks --Epilogue : Acting beyond black and white.Am on chapter 2, and although the authors are not presenting any new material that I have read or spoken with blacks about before, their argument is concise and bold. This is a text I would love to use in a course to show how literature, rhetoric, writing, and all of material and behavioral culture in the US revolves so much around invisible assumptions of race.
A brief response to Kevin's comments about the US Men's team's performance in the World Cup thus far. I have no bones about other Americans' ignorance about futbol and its world-wide popularity. Some folks just don't like certain sports (I'm really not a fan of competitive fly fishing, for example, though I have relatives who can watch that all day; of course, they're stuck in the Ontario snow for six months a year, so they'll watch anything that reminds them of anything other than ice, ice, and ice). We recall that for some reason the Far Right hates anything not born and bred in the US, including soccer. Our white friend Glenn Beck said:
"It doesn't matter how you try to sell it to us," yipped the Prom King of new right, Glenn Beck. "It doesn't matter how many celebrities you get, it doesn't matter how many bars open early, it doesn't matter how many beer commercials they run, we don't want the World Cup, we don't like the World Cup, we don't like soccer, we want nothing to do with it." (from NPR, 2010)With his nothing-close-to-an-apology:
That's fine. I don't care what Beck or Coulter say about
My problem with sports and Americans is not their fandom inconsistency, but that too many Americans conflate their enthusiasm for a sport or a sports event for their own sense of patriotism. Now, before I go further, I know every sports fan on the planet has pride in his country [using the third person neuter]. I know the French love their team, the English love all their teams, and even athletes with complicated relationships with their totalitarian governments love their flags and colors. But these relationships are -- really -- superficial, even though the fan may claim otherwise.
We have to recall what patriotism means -- love of [that complicated English word meaning both possessive and attributive] the fathers. A real love for one's countrymen -- all of them -- not just the ones sweating on the court. It's frankly embarrassing to see Americans attend Olympic games in other countries where most spectators politely cheer as every nation's flag is brought into the stadium, but Americans feel somehow possessed to chant, "USA! USA! USA!" when the red, white, and blue is brought in near the end. But this "love" is far different than, say, what Erika Salumae felt when she saw her country's flag hoisted in 1992 in Barcelona -- upside down [note her shaking head and the white bar on top instead of the the blue at 6:05] -- and she wept. Not just because she had won Estonia's first medal since 1936, but because no one -- no one alive in Barcelona that year -- had ever seen the Estonian flag flown before. It had been buried under the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic's flag for over sixty years and Salumae was the first Estonian to win a medal under her country's own flag in all that time. The flag was raised upside down because no one knew what an Estonian flag looked like until the Wall came down. Her love for her flag, her love for her country, is something that Americans cannot really feel with their enthusiastic yet monotonous mantra, "USA! USA! USA!"
It is, after all, the same mantra Americans use when bad guys are killed:
It's also the same and apparently only retort the Tea Party can use when one of their heroes is interrupted with a verbal challenge for clarity:
When Americans show up in Brazil by the tens of thousands, we should remember how much tickets cost and what kind of privilege it is to leave one's work and home, fly to Brasilia, find a reasonable hotel, eat out morning, lunch, and dinner. And not all Americans can do this, of course. But more so, millions and millions of fans from the other Cup contenders could never even consider dropping that kind of cash to cheer their team on in person. They have to settle to watching the game with friends and family and stranger-cum-friends in their homes, their village squares, perhaps dozens of neighbors surrounding the only television for a block, aching to see their country's colors on the field for 90 minutes, enjoying the game, hoping for a win, but not conflating their whole sense of worth on a sport. It's telling that the chant Americans defer to is "USA! USA! USA!" and not something actually with the word "United" in it. Because once these sports fans come home -- winning in the stands or the field -- they will go back to a country more divided now than at any time since the War Between the States.
If Marx was right and religion is the opium of the people, and America is now a post-religious state, then the only opiate left has to be that other sacred cow -- its commercialized sports industry.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+BruceJMartin
Twitter @comstone
