"Because she's a girl"

While we still have much to do to recognize the extent of gender-based discrimination in this country, you’d think that we would have at least moved past this. Inevitably, a major part of the discourse surrounding this case will be the difference between “public” institutions and “private” institutions. Even many folks who disagree with kicking this girl off the football team will concede that, as a private institution, the school has the right to do as it wishes. That was part of the debate over lack of female membership at Augusta National Golf Club a few years ago, it was part of how Lou Dobbs framed discussion of English-only policies that I wrote about last week, and it plays a significant role in many other cases that involve discrimination based on gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, nation of origin, etc. I have thought for some time that we may need to rethink the ways that the United States conceptualizes public and private, including both our cultural conceptualizations and our legal conceptualizations of this split. This instance just reconfirms that thought.

The Road to Hell ...

… is paved with good intentions. So the old adage goes. I’m not really big on adages like that. If taken as literal truth, they usually oversimplify whatever they are describing. Still, sometimes they are useful for raising some kind of concern. I think this one applies to the following:

Two weeks ago, while flipping around television stations, I caught a few moments of Lou Dobbs’ program on CNN. During the segment that I saw, his guest was William Donohue, the President of the Catholic League. The topic was, as CNN’s caption at the bottom of the screen put it, “English Only: Fight over Language in School.” More specifically, Dobbs and Donohue were discussing a legal case in which a Catholic school in Wichita, Kansas, was being sued by three sets of parents whose children were kicked out of the school for refusing to sign a document stating that they would abide with the school’s policy by which only English could be spoken in the school. Here is a local news story from Wichita that covers the lawsuit (along with numerous comments by readers that are of interest as well). Here is another story that explains the ruling that U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten made in the case, which I think is also interesting on various levels.

Video of the exchange between Dobbs and Donohue can be seen here (and a transcript is available here). In watching this segment of Dobbs’ program, it seems fairly obvious that Mr. Donohue is disturbed by the case against the school. He sounds quite upset about it, judging by his tone and body language. Particularly when Donohue discusses his own personal experience helping a Hispanic woman and how that was “facilitated” by the fact that the woman spoke English, I think he truly believes that his desire for everyone in the United States to learn and speak English is out of genuine concern for the well-being of individuals who might otherwise not speak English—in this case, specifically, Hispanics. He appears to think that this is the appropriate path to fostering democracy and providing these people with opportunities in the United States.

At one point, Donohue indignantly declares “People ought to get their head straight,” seemingly out of frustration. I would indignantly declare back at Donohue … and Dobbs as well, particularly given the ways that he frames this issue … that if there is anyone who needs to “get their heads straight,” it is them. Specifically, their heads could do with a dose of American history, cultural theory, and communication and linguistic theory.

First there is the historical inadequacy of the positions being taken by individuals like Dobbs and Donohue. These positions are framed by the retelling of a version of American history that leaves out significant aspects of that history. Leaving aside for now the issues involving immigration to which their positions are connected, these individuals’ framing of American history would have us believe that English has been the native language of all native-born United States citizens. This is most explicitly suggested when Dobbs states that the individuals bringing the suit against the school “want … us to change the language of this nation, change our laws, change our rule, and completely forget 200 years of history and ideals and values that have made this liberal society available to them.” This representation of the United States is historically inaccurate. Notably, many Hawaiians and Alaskans were speaking languages other than English when these territories became states. Additionally, many of the inhabitants of Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of California, Texas, and Colorado were Spanish-speaking citizens of Mexico before suddenly becoming U.S. citizens after the United States gained these lands through war with Mexico. And let us not, of course, forget the many Native Americans who spoke various languages before Europeans claimed this land as America. So, to suggest that English is so monolithically the basis for the development of United States communities is flat out inaccurate.

Additionally—and this where we learn from cultural studies—such a suggestion is flat out racist. It denies the legitimacy of non-European American experiences, contributions, and perspectives, which have been significant elements of U.S. history and remain significant elements of U.S. culture. Additionally, the suggestion that others should be forced to learn someone’s language so that the two individuals can communicate—the very thing that Donohue sees as so unilaterally beneficial—places the status of one group above another. It suggests that one group needs to accommodate the other group and that the second group should have to do none of the work to make democracy happen. It’s akin to the various ways in which white Americans have systematically claimed that their ways of doing things are better than everyone else’s or simply that their ways of doing things are just “standard” for everyone and not a matter of race or culture. (See, for instance, the case of Thomas Benya, for a good example of how white practices of acceptable attire were characterized as a standard not based in cultural heritage (even though, in reality, they are), while non-white practices—in this case Native American practices—were seen as “cultural heritage.”) This connection to things being characterized as “culture” and not “culture” is most apparent in the clip from Dobbs’ show when Donohue, with a sense of disgust in his voice, calls some critics of what he’s defending “the multicultural left.” I’d be quite willing to assume that Donohue does not really know the goals and projects of multiculturalism, given the way he is referencing it here. The really disgusting aspect of this case, then, is that Donohue dares reference multiculturalism like he knows what it’s about when it seems apparent that he does not.

In the end, Donohue provides what is a typical racist response. As a member of the racially empowered group, he sees it as the responsibility of disempowered groups to take up the culture of the empowered group and he does not appear to see the practice of the empowered group—in this case, the practice of speaking English—as a culturally or racially based practice. He cites his good intentions as if these seem to absolve him from racism or from the need to examine his own assumptions about race. He may think he has good intentions; however, good intentions do not absolve us from our responsibilities to democracy. The unwillingness to examine one’s own race-based assumptions makes one complicit with the continuation of racism and, thus, at odds with the ongoing project of democracy.

Additionally, communication and linguistic studies show us that languages offer not just alternative means of expression, but also means of expression that sometimes are not available in other languages. Some expressions in Spanish or Chinese or Arabic do not have direct translations in English, and vice versa. So, when the speaking of a language is banned or punished, ways of expressing things and, thus, the potential for insightful perspectives go unheard. That would seem to be, by definition, at odds with democracy. What makes this even more reprehensible in the case of this school in Wichita is that the school has literally equated use of a language other than English with bullying, as if it is English that is threatened here and, as a corollary of that, it is English speakers (i.e., those who are already privileged in this country) who would be victims if the policy was not adopted. When Donohue starts talking about this aspect of his argument, I even start to wonder if he has the “good intentions” he claims to have.

For now, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and characterize him as uninformed instead of viewing him as just flat out mean. Still, being informed does not absolve him either. Donohue, Dobbs, and others of a similar mindset would do well to heed the words of Barack Obama when he said that “you need to make sure that your child can speak Spanish,” rather than characterize Obama’s statement as “an elitist mindset,” as is the case within a piece that appears on one website to which Dobbs’ own website offers a link. Indeed, if anyone is being elitist, it's English-speaking people who are demanding that others conform to their mindset.

This fall, I am taking Spanish 101 along with my wife because, for years (indeed, well before either of us knew who Barack Obama is), we have been saying that we think it would be good to know and we're finally getting a good chance to do it. Yet even as I’m doing this, I’m seeing a number of instances like this case in Wichita in which English-only is being adopted as policy … most recently in the LPGA. Rather than English-speaking folks getting disgusted by the use of other languages in the United States and subsequently banning the use of languages other than English, wouldn’t a much better approach—and a much more democratic approach—promote all of us learning multiple languages? I’d much rather see a curriculum that says all students will learn Spanish, English, and at least one other language (perhaps even some choice for a third) throughout their education than see the implementation of English-only policies.

In Memory of Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones

Yesterday, Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio passed away at the age of 58, after suffering a brain aneurysm while driving in Cleveland Heights the previous evening. I am saddened by the loss of a legislator for whom I had immense respect. Had she aspired for further or higher political office, such as the Senate or even the presidency, I would have lined up behind her. I felt that I would be remiss if I did not devote at least a short post in this blog to express my sadness over her sudden and untimely passing and my deep gratitude for her service to my country.

In doing so, I am also reminded of the fragility of life that has been so prominent in the lives of my wife and me this summer. The details of Stephanie Tubbs’ death – suffering a brain aneurysm while driving, passing away the next day, only in her fifties at the time of her death – mirror those of my mother in-law, who passed away in May. On a personal level, the sadness that I feel is magnified by the timing of Tubbs Jones’ death. She died on what would have been my mother-in-law’s 53rd birthday.

May you be remembered and cherished, Representative Tubbs Jones, for your profound commitment to democracy. I know I’ll remember you that way.

East Coast Bias

In the time since she took over as ESPN ombudsman, Le Anne Schreiber has provided what I feel are excellent columns that offer important critique of ESPN’s practices. I often wonder about the degree to which the network is addressing the issues that she is raising and I wonder whether or not having an ombudsman who levels these critiques is just a way of attempting to pacify those of us who voice significant concerns about the network’s practices. I end up wondering if ESPN uses this as a cover, allowing themselves to say that they address this because they have a forum that does so, while in reality their practices see little change. Still, it is nice to have at least have someone stating some of the issues that Schreiber brings up. For an archive of her columns, see here.

In last week’s column, Schreiber examined bias—particularly East Coast bias—in ESPN coverage. Ultimately, she concludes that the bias is not so much an explicit bias toward the East Coast as it is a bias toward the continuing promotion of superstars. As Schreiber puts it, “To my mind, if there is collusion at ESPN across platforms and programs, it is in the creation, maintenance and promotion of superstars with the potential for crossover appeal among diehard and casual fans and followers of popular culture.”

I don’t disagree with Schreiber’s ultimate conclusion. I would, though, suggest that more needs to be said on East Coast bias in sports coverage (and perhaps in national news coverage outside of sports as well). Perhaps one of the reasons Schreiber’s analysis does not address this so fully is her specific focus on ESPN’s own practices, rather than on industry-wide practices within which ESPN works but that also apply far beyond ESPN. That’s fine, given that Schreiber’s mission in the columns is to look specifically at ESPN; although, in saying that’s “fine,” it is very important to acknowledge the context of her analysis and her column and, in the process, recognize the importance of looking beyond ESPN to the industry in general.

One such place to look to the industry in general would be to examine more deeply the politics and ramifications of what Schreiber calls the “‘best story’ factor.” We might look more fully at how industry definitions of what constitutes the “best story” have historically been defined (and subsequently taught to reporters, editorialists, and other industry professionals). As part of that process, we might look at the biases that are contained with those definitions—including any East Coast bias that may be a part of that. For instance, using the example of coverage of baseball (which Schreiber uses extensively in the column for the basis of her examination), any “best story” that is designated as such because it draws on historical rivalries is bound to have a bias toward the Eastern United States because until the 1950s, no baseball team existed any further west than St. Louis.

Additionally, one of the most fundamental places in which we see East Coast bias in sport is in how national outlets for sports news present the standings of the professional sports that they cover. On a local level, the division or conference of the local team is often featured first. So, for instance, in Ohio, Central Division standings often appear first in the standings in newspapers or other sports news outlets. Similarly, in Arizona, Western Division standings come first. (Though, notably, after putting the “home” division at the top, many of these local outlets revert to the national standard for the remaining divisions.) On the national level, divisions and conferences for professional sports are almost always placed from east to west, thus embodying the idea that the east comes first and that the further west you go, the less important you are in the hierarchy of sports news.

These two examples suggest that the issue of East Coast bias in sports coverage has a number of deeper levels that deserve fuller examination.

Yet, even as I have offered this critique of Schreiber’s column, I remain a big fan of her columns in general. I would encourage everyone who has an interest in sports to read her columns for the significant insights that they offer. I also do not argue against her claims about the role of promoting superstars in driving ESPN sports coverage … indeed, I think she has a very good and a very important point. However, I think the issue of East Coast bias needs more examination.

Wrestling with Power

Among the many happenings at the Olympics this week, Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian was stripped of his bronze medal and disqualified from his event after the event had taken place because, at the medal ceremony, after receiving his medal, Abrahamian took off his medal, placed it in the center of the wrestling competition mat, and walked away. Here, from the story on NBCOlympics.com that reported on the event, is description of why Abrahamian objected to receiving the bronze medal as well as the International Olympic Committee’s reasons for taking actions against Abrahamian:

The IOC executive board ruled Abrahamian's actions amounted to a political demonstration and a mark of disrespect to his fellow athletes.

"It was felt that his behavior on the medal podium and during the medal ceremony was not appropriate," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said. "His behavior was not in the Olympic spirit of respect for his fellow athletes. Whatever grievances you may have, this was not the way to go about it."

The IOC said no athlete will receive Abrahamian's medal because his disqualification was not connected to the competition itself, meaning there will be only one bronze medalist, Nazmi Avluca of Turkey. Normally, there are two at each weight class.

The 28-year-old Abrahamian had to be restrained from going after matside officials following his loss to Minguzzi. He stormed away from the area where interviews are conducted and slammed a door to the dressing rooms so hard it shook an entire wall. He weighed whether to skip the bronze medal match, only to have friends talk him into competing.

The IOC said Abrahamian violated two rules of the Olympic charter, one which bans any sort of demonstrations and another which demands respect for all Olympic athletes.

"The awards ceremony is a highly symbolic ritual, acknowledged as such by all athletes and other participants," the IOC said. "Any disruption by any athlete, in particular a medalist, is in itself an insult to the other athletes and to the Olympic Movement. It is also contrary to the spirit of fair play."

Additionally, the IOC has apparently asked the international weightlifting federation to consider imposing additional sanctions against Abrahamian.

I don’t want to say that the IOC should have no recourse for handling situations in which athletes act in what appear to be egregious manners, especially manners that in some way threaten or insult other competitors. I also, after some thought, think that Abrahamian having his medal taken away is probably not the biggest deal, particularly since it looks like he doesn’t really want it anyway. Rather, the big deals here are the implications of both the IOC’s response and the IOC’s characterization of their justification.

First there is the matter of Abrahamian’s actions constituting “a political demonstration.” Abrahamian’s actions do not seem to be consciously connected to a larger political cause in the way that, for instance, the black power salute of John Carlos and Tommie Smith in 1968 was (and, notably, Carlos and Smith are largely celebrated today for their actions, yet the Olympics continue to maintain and enforce the rule that was used to condemn those actions in 1968, making me, at least, wonder if the folks in charge have really learned anything in the last 40 years). Still, Abrahamian’s actions can be considered political in the same sense that all actions can be considered political, as they are connected to ideology as well as systems of exclusion and marginalization. Abrahamian’s actions could, at the very least, be said to be an objection to the politics of judging and scoring that he believed led to him being awarded the bronze medal and not the gold medal. As such, the actions could be characterized as political. However, the IOC might want to turn their eye on themselves as well. The awarding of medals is also a political statement, as it very explicitly promotes an ideology of celebrating the accomplishments of athletes who meet certain qualifications over the accomplishments of others. Additionally, even if one accepts the premise that the games will record those who were fastest, strongest, etc., the ceremony adds an additional level of politics to the mix. One can say one wants to record who finished first, second, and third in an event and not believe that there is need to take several minutes to celebrate these individuals’ accomplishments in such a very public manner. One might, for instance, argue that this breeds complacency, arrogance, etc. and, on those grounds, find it quite objectionable. That the IOC itself characterizes the event as “a highly symbolic ritual” reinforces that the event is deeply political. As semiotics (the study of signs—and, as part of that symbols) and cultural studies have told us for years, all symbols and rituals fundamentally carry with them the politics of their expression and usage. Even someone who does not want to acknowledge all of this would be extremely obtuse not to acknowledge that the playing of a the gold medal winner’s host country’s national anthem, along with the display of the flags of the nations for which the medal winners have competed, oozes with national and international politics. So, when the IOC suggests that the medal ceremony is not a space for “political demonstration,” the IOC is making the implicit statement that they are allowed to make all the political demonstrations they wish, couching them as apolitical in the process, while the athletes better not make their own political demonstrations, particularly if they are demonstrations with which the IOC disagrees.

Second there is the matter of Abrahamian’s actions constituting “an insult to the other athletes.” It does not appear that Abrahamian took these actions in order to insult or show disrespect toward his fellow competitors. Rather, if insult or disrespect was being expressed, it seems to have been directed at the judges of the competition, whom Abrahamian appears to think insulted and showed disrespect toward him. Personally, I’m not sure whether or not I see Abrahamian’s actions as the best way to go about expressing his feelings. That opinion would be based on thinking similar to the old “two wrongs don’t make a right” adage. However, I can certainly understand why this might seem to be the best course of action to take. How often do we see appeals of the sort he would have to go through to protest the judges’ decisions come to fruition and draw attention to abuses or mistakes within the scoring system? I can think of one: pairs’ figure skating in the 2002 Winter Olympics. And that was a case that was to a large extent willed into fruition by media appeals and the politics of international identifications with and representations of the countries for which the two sets of athletes competed. It’s quite reasonable to see how Abrahamian felt that no actions other than those that he took would give him any sense of satisfaction of feeling like he was legitimately heard. If he appeals the decision (and, in all likelihood loses his appeal), it all occurs quietly and he likely ends up feeling like no one listened to him. If he just accepts the medal—i.e. “like a good sport”—he implicitly agrees to allow the system to determine his fate, even if he disagrees with what occurred, and nothing happens to allow him to be heard. If, though, he makes a very public demonstration of his disapproval, resigning himself to the potential of being disqualified and losing his medal in the process, what happens? Well … it has become a widely reported story receiving prominent treatment within various media forums. For someone who really wanted the gold and not the bronze, this would definitely seem to have its appeal. Perhaps that even played a role in Abrahamian’s decision to compete in the bronze medal match so that he could make the podium and make his statement. Within that context, Abrahamian’s actions don’t seem so much to be an insult of the judges; rather, they seem to be an expression of his own sentiments about the results. And, for that matter, to connect to the politics discussed in my first point, couldn’t the public celebration of the first, second, and third place finishers be seen as a kind of insult to the other athletes who competed against them—a kind of rubbing their faces in the dirt and asking the public to forget their accomplishment of getting to the Olympics and the efforts that they put forth in order to compete?

Ultimately, these first two points also lead to a third “big deal” about these actions. Based on the hypocrisy that appears to belie the actions of the IOC, which suggest a “We can do it, but you can’t” attitude toward the competitions, the case of Abrahamian being disqualified and stripped of his medals potentially serves as one of the many, many examples in the contemporary world in which organizations hold significant power over individuals and often hesitate little to exercise that power over individuals, whether by firing individuals on spurious grounds, not providing due process to individuals, determining the conditions under which products are made available to consumers, using the efforts of individuals for the organization with little concern for the well-being of the individuals, and so on? In this case, the IOC, as an organization, holds significantly more power than Abrahamian, as an individual working within that organization. So, then, when the IOC doles out sanctions in ways that belie fundamental hypocrisies that exist between their characterization of individuals’ actions that draw the sanctions and their characterization of their own actions, including their actions of imposing sanctions, wouldn’t this be a pretty significant abuse of power? Additionally, in the sense that the IOC’s actions squash dissent and prevent voices and perspectives from being heard, isn’t this an insult to the “fair play” of international cooperation that the Olympics purports to uphold?

Oh ... and a little perspective, Mr. Costas?

Had to mention ... Bob Costas just stated that it is "virtually universal" among Chinese citizens to think that hosting these Olympics is "the single most important event in the history of modern China." Dude ... I'm a sports fan and I'm someone who studies sport for a living and argues for the significance of sport, but isn't that statement severe overkill, even for someone as thoroughly embedded in American sports as Costas? Maybe I'm wrong ... While I read The Gate of Heavenly Peace years ago, I'm certainly not an expert on China and current Chinese discourse on the meaning and significance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

A note on the Olympic opening ceremony

I’ve been watching NBC’s coverage of the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony this evening as I’m working (and as I’m typing this blog entry). The United States contingent was just shown coming through moments ago. Something of note that I thought bore mentioning. The announcers have been quick to mention political issues involving many countries as they have paraded in, including references to international political connections to the United States. As I’ve noted before on this blog, I’m all for recognizing the intersection of politics and sport, so I’m happy to hear these issues at least being mentioned, even if they are often watered down, as the commentators mention them. At one point, as Iran was entering the stadium, one of the announcers mentioned that one of the things that China and the Bush administration agree on is that Iran should not have nuclear weapons. He mentioned that this was one more of the many connections between politics and sports that have been mentioned. Unfortunately, he then immediately issued an apology for bringing those connections up. Fortunately, the connections have not stopped.

UNFORTUNATELY, though, as the United States delegation walked through, the closest thing to a political connection made was simply showing Laura and George W. Bush waving to the athletes. Rather than mention of any political issues of relevance to the United States (such as the economic recession, the state of American foreign relations … heck, even mention of the upcoming election), we saw many celebrities (from Kobe Bryant to Lindsay Davenport to Jennie Finch) pointed out to us, we heard mention of hairstyles and fashion, and so on. Sure, the announcers have not mentioned politics for every country, but given the amount of time devoted to the United States, which is to be expected on NBC’s telecast, this seems disproportionate. I wonder if the latent message is that the capitalist system of the United States is with few if any flaws and that the United States has solved all of the problems that “ravage” other parts of the world. First, it is inaccurate to imply that all is peachy in the United States. Second, to suggest a society that exists without political disagreements would seem to run counter to the promotion of a rich, engaged public sphere of discourse.

Certainly not the first insightful connection by Jon Stewart

This past week, I had some thoughts on how various accounts, including John McCain's camp, made fun of Barack Obama mentioning how keeping one's tires inflated helps save gas, then, at the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota, McCain called a bunch of idle engines revving "the sound of freedom." Fortunately, a forum with a much wider audience than this little blog took up the topic and voiced a perspective very similar to what I was thinking. You can find it starting at about the 5:30 mark here.