I may be badly paraphrasing The Bard, but there is no other way to look at this shameful display. I remember quite well the incident at the Olympics in ‘68, and find no reason to reward the two for their total disrespect of the country they were suppose to be representing!
‘68 Olympics Salute Deserves No Honor
Earlier this month, ESPN awarded Tommie Smith and John Carlos the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the ESPYs - the sports network’s equivalent of the Oscars - for their once infamous, and now famous, black power salutes from the medal platform at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.
The stench of self-congratulation surrounding ESPN’s decision is thicker than the air in a locker room after double overtime. “As the passage of time has given us the opportunity to put their actions into the proper context,” gloats USC professor Todd Boyd in an ESPN.com column, “their supporters can now feel vindicated while their detractors must eat their words.”
It’s a rare occasion I’ll ever “eat” my words. Ask Ick, or Brat (aka Babygirl). I found the display shameful then. I still find it shameful now.
Were there problems in 1968? Oh, you bet’cher bippy there were. Was the Olympics the time and place to express dissatisfaction? Oh HELL no! Watching the Olympics was a family affair, until this incident. No longer. It has become nothing more than an extension of politics world wide. No longer do amateurs gather together in one place to compete, for the sheer joy of the competition. Professionals, drugs, and scandals plague the Olympics and have destroyed a once great event.
I no longer watch the Olympics. Nor, will I be watching much of anything on ESPN….even if the Cowboys are playing.
See the rest Jonah Goldberg’s column here.
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6 responses so far ↓
1 Liverdamage // Jul 30, 2008 at 1:24 pm
once again, media gone righteous. much like fox news or msnbc, espn takes a complex subject consisting exclusively of shades of gray and tells you what to think of it in a decidedly biased 3 minute segment.
just tell us what to think. be sure you back it up with 1 side of the argument and proof amounting to “This problem exists; therefore my position is correct and any conclusions I come across thereafter must also be correct.”… throw in a “boo-yeah” at the end and we’re sold.
2 Rodney King // Jul 30, 2008 at 3:35 pm
This is a great post, very informative lots of insight into the situation. Go Cowboys, Boo-Yeah!
Thanks
3 Robert // Jul 30, 2008 at 8:54 pm
So you do not think the Olympics was the place for Black Unity? You don’t think a black athlete had the right to protest? I think you might be a racist.
You should be sentenced to comment on my blog at one point because I agree with you and therefore we will both be racists…I bet you wont vote for Obama either.. You racist.
Ok All sarcasm aside, I didn’t like the award being given to those two, it sent the wrong message to the wrong people. There are folks out there that see this, and think their cause is as great so they should do something like that. Can you imagine the Gay athlete salute? or what ever, there is always some wrong in the world, according to who or where you are, the salute those two gave was a starting point to the victim mentality. IMO.
Roberts last blog post..New Vacation plan for Illegals.
4 Bug // Jul 31, 2008 at 11:46 am
I wonder if the hundreds of thousands of political and religious prisioners in China will be watching these games on their TVs? Somehow doubt it. Think any broadcast outfit over here will point that out? Probably not. Besides, Last week I was listening to NPR and they said it was okay. Kind of sounded like a great little place over there in China.
As for the fist in the air… That stuff just zooms right past me. Ali was given some big award after the opening ceremony in the last games. I guess for dodging the draft. Not sure. Truth and honor died some time ago. Calling things what they are no longer means you have your eyes open. It makes you a racist. Get in line.
Bugs last blog post..More in the series of college football traditions…
5 lajitas // Jul 31, 2008 at 8:13 pm
I too, was ticked in ‘68, and still am to this day. To give them the Arthur Ashe award for courage is really confusing to me. I was under the impression that Ashe’s courage was more overcoming not only being a black tennis player when most were white, but also persevering after being inflicted with AIDS after a tainted blood transfusion. He had more class in his pinky than those two have together. I admired Arthur Ashe for the person he was, and I think this award was a slap in his memory.
6 olbroad // Aug 1, 2008 at 10:41 am
Sadly, we ARE past the “honor and integrity” phase of our civilization. If that makes me a racist, so be it!
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