Jonathan Zimmerman: Sports and the American Ideal
[Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University. He is the author of"Innocents Abroad: American Teachers in the American Century" (Harvard University Press, 2006).]
Quick question: what did Don Imus' bigoted remarks and the dismissed Duke rape charges have in common?
If you answered “race and gender,” you’re only partially correct. There was a third shared element in these stories, which gave them their special power and prominence in American public life.
They're both about sports.
For the past century, sports have helped Americans define the nation to themselves. Organized athletics embody a host of values that we hold dear: hard work, persistence, and cooperation.
Most of all, sports symbolize "fair play"—that is, equality of all. Whenever we discuss or debate this ideal, we fall back upon sports metaphors. Everyone should begin from the same starting gate. They should compete on a level playing field. They should stay between the lines. And so on.
So when athletes themselves suffer discrimination—on the basis of race or gender—we stand up and take notice. That’s why Americans continue to venerate Jackie Robinson, who played his first major league game sixty years ago this month. Sports tell a story about who and what we want to be: fair, just, and equal. And Robinson reminded us how far our actual society diverged from that ideal.
How else to explain the fact that the second most important African-American of the 20th century—after Martin Luther King, Jr.—was a baseball player? King organized protests, went to jail, and sacrificed his life for the egalitarian ideal. Robinson stole bases and snared line drives, all in the service of the same principle.
In slurring the Rutgers women’s basketball team, then, Don Imus chose the most combustible target in American life. It’s not just that the team is female and almost entirely black. These women are athletes, after all, so they embody the most basic premises of America itself. ....
[HNN Editor: The author next makes the point that athletes are ironically not only a symbol of equality in America but also members of a privileged class.]
Read entire article at Teachers College Record
Quick question: what did Don Imus' bigoted remarks and the dismissed Duke rape charges have in common?
If you answered “race and gender,” you’re only partially correct. There was a third shared element in these stories, which gave them their special power and prominence in American public life.
They're both about sports.
For the past century, sports have helped Americans define the nation to themselves. Organized athletics embody a host of values that we hold dear: hard work, persistence, and cooperation.
Most of all, sports symbolize "fair play"—that is, equality of all. Whenever we discuss or debate this ideal, we fall back upon sports metaphors. Everyone should begin from the same starting gate. They should compete on a level playing field. They should stay between the lines. And so on.
So when athletes themselves suffer discrimination—on the basis of race or gender—we stand up and take notice. That’s why Americans continue to venerate Jackie Robinson, who played his first major league game sixty years ago this month. Sports tell a story about who and what we want to be: fair, just, and equal. And Robinson reminded us how far our actual society diverged from that ideal.
How else to explain the fact that the second most important African-American of the 20th century—after Martin Luther King, Jr.—was a baseball player? King organized protests, went to jail, and sacrificed his life for the egalitarian ideal. Robinson stole bases and snared line drives, all in the service of the same principle.
In slurring the Rutgers women’s basketball team, then, Don Imus chose the most combustible target in American life. It’s not just that the team is female and almost entirely black. These women are athletes, after all, so they embody the most basic premises of America itself. ....
[HNN Editor: The author next makes the point that athletes are ironically not only a symbol of equality in America but also members of a privileged class.]