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June
6, 2003
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
June
4, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Federal Judge Blinks; Rosenthal
Walks
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
The Isaiah Crowd: The Threat of Neo-Christianity
Jason
Leopold
Manufacturing the Iraq War
John Chuckman
Blackmail as Policy
Mazin
Qumsiyeh
Summit: Peace or Pretense?
Issam Nashashibi
Sharon's Sword of Damocles
Steve
Perry
Wolfowitz of Arabia: the VF interview transcript
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3, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Copycat Killers: Bush, Jakarta and
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Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Tells All
Elaine
Cassel
We Interrupt Your Normal Show to Bring You an Important Message
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Tom
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William
S. Lind
Fourth Generation Warfare in Iraq
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Hamod
The Final Brick in the Wall
Uri
Avnery
The Altalena Affair
Hammond
Guthrie
Stepping into Some Deep DARPA
Steve
Perry
The WashTimes'
al-Qaeda nuke "exclusive"
June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
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Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
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Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Ashcroft's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
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Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
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Floyd
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Gordon
The Bad Fence
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Steiner
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Freeman
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Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
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Tariq
Ali
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Steve
Perry
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May
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CounterPunch
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Greens 04: In or Out?
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Francis Boyle
Impeach
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June
7, 2003
Remembering Tommie
Smith & Juan Carlos
Sports, Politics
and the 1960s
By RON JACOBS
On my wall at work I have a photo virtually anybody
who was cognizant in 1968 would recognize. It shows the U.S.
Olympic runners Tommie Smith and Juan Carlos with their fists
raised high in the air in the Black Power salute. I remember
watching this event as if it were yesterday. Not only was I quite
the sports fan at the time, I was quite interested in the movement
for Black liberation. In 1968, thanks to the still blatant racism
of the men running the sports world and men like Muhammad Ali
and Smith and Jones, these two interests were often intertwined.
The history of black athletes in white
America reflects the history of African-Americans in general.
Before the integration of pro sports, blacks had their own leagues
in baseball and basketball. The Negro Baseball Leagues featured
some of the best players in the sport and when the major leagues
finally began to integrate, the Negro Leagues faded as teams
in the majors hired black players. Boxing was the first sport
to be infiltrated by blacks--although African-American boxers
too had their own association until the early 1900s. Jack Johnson
was the Black boxing champion when he met the white boxing champion
Tommy Burns in 1908 and beat him.
The discrimination against African-American
athletes was even worse in college athletics. Not only were black
athletes prevented from attending white colleges, they did not
compete against their athletic teams very often either. However,
the 1960s changed that. Along with integration in the classroom
came the first wave of African-American athletes playing for
previously all-white college teams. Many of these athletes, like
today, were not courted for their academic ability, but only
for their athletic ability. Still, however, these young men did
not get any full scholarships--these were reserved for white
athletes. Also like today, graduation was not given much priority
by the Black players' coaches or respective athletic departments.
Blacks were forbidden from joining fraternities, subject to racist
remarks and acts by fellow students and teammates, and due to
their very small numbers, quite isolated from the rest of campus
life. As sociologist and activist Harry Edwards wrote in his
book, The Revolt of the Black Athlete: "The only difference
between the black man shining shoes in the ghetto and the black
sprinter is that the shoeshine man is a nigger and the sprinter
is a fast nigger."
As part of an ongoing struggle for just
treatment in US collegiate and other amateur competition, African
American athletes and their supporters begin meeting in 1967
under the auspices of a new organization called the Olympic Project
for Human Rights about boycotting the 1968 Olympics. World-class
runner and college student Tommie Smith was quoted after some
track and field trials early that year in Japan as stating that
"there may be a boycott" when asked by a Japanese reporter
Later that spring, Black students and
athletes at San Jose State asked for better treatment. With the
tutelage and complete support of Professor Harry Edwards (also
an African-American), they met with the dean of students who
told them to go away since he didn't have time to deal with such
a small number of students (70 out of a total enrollment of 5000).
With this rejection, the students began to plan for a rally on
the first day of classes the next fall. On that day, the rally
began with only 135 students: 100 or so whites and 35 or so blacks,
but by noon close to 700 were in attendance including faculty
and staff. The demands of the rally were surprisingly mild, but
indicative of the situation African-Americans found themselves
in 1967. They were: Public deliberation of all problems and proposed
solutions relevant to the situation of minority groups at SJS.
Public pledges that no housing of any
kind, including frats and sororities, will be open to all students
wishing to live there.
That all social and political organizations
be open to all students and that this be proven by spring 1968.
That all athletic recruits be treated
the same in the recruiting process.
That the athletic dept. disassociate
itself from racist fraternities
That the college provide tutoring to
all those who desire it.
That the student government be representative
of all students, not just a corrupt group of racists.
There was no response to the demands,
so the first football game of the 1967 season was boycotted and
picketed by black players and their supporters.
On November 22 and 23rd, 1967, a national
Black Youth Conference was held in Los Angeles--several college
athletes attended and the boycott was discussed. UCLA basketball
player Kareem Abdul Jabbar (who was still going by the name his
parents had given him, Lew Alcindor) told why he supported the
boycott: Everybody knows me. I'm the big basketball star, the
weekend hero, everybody's All-American. Well, last summer I was
almost killed by a racist cop shooting at a black cat in Harlem.
He was shooting on the street--where masses of black people were
standing around or just taking a walk. After all, we were just
niggers. I found out last summer that we don't catch hell because
we aren't basketball stars or don't have money. We catch hell
because we are black. Somewhere each of us has got to make a
stand against this kind of thing. This is how I make my stand--using
what I have. And I take my stand here.
In the weeks following the conference,
Tommie Smith made public the contents of some of the hate mail
he had been receiving for his comments regarding the Olympic
boycott. In the meantime, the International Olympic Committee
(IOC) invited the apartheid sports teams of South Africa to the
1968 Olympics, prompting an immediate outcry and an expansion
of the boycott call to include most of the African nations, all
of the communist nations, and many non-aligned countries. Simultaneously,
it was revealed in the press that Avery Brundage, the head of
the IOC, was a part owner of a country club that forbade membership
to Jews and blacks. Eventually, the IOC succumbed to the ever-growing
international pressure and rescinded its invitation to South
Africa.
The American athletes vowed to continue
the boycott in the hopes that it would force the U.S. Olympic
establishment to provide African-American athletes with the same
opportunities afforded their white compatriots. However, the
boycott eventually fell apart--people were thinking of their
careers. In addition, the harassment and intimidation from racist
quarters was reaching the point where some of the athletes were
receiving threats to their lives and the lives of their loved
ones. An alternative path to a full boycott was decided on: no
African-American athlete would take the victory stand when they
won. Only weeks before the Olympics began, Mexican students took
over the National University, supported by thousands of their
countrymen and women. On October 2, ten days before the Games
opened, Mexican security forces opened fire on a rally in the
La Plaza de las Tres Culturas at Tlatelolco in Mexico City, killing
hundreds. Although the harassment and intimidation of athletes
supporting the boycott movement was not even close to the massacre
of the students and their supporters, the intention was the same--to
stifle protest. The Olympics almost didn't take place.
On the first day of the competition two
African American runners, Jim Hines and Charles Greene, won the
100-meter dash. When the two sprinters took the victory stand,
neither man did anything but stand at attention as they received
their medals while the US flag was raised. Then came the 200-meter
dash. Tommie Smith took the gold, John Carlos the bronze. Although
they had been intimidated and harassed like the other athletes,
when the U.S. flag began rising up the flagpole and the anthem
played, the two men refused to be intimidated. Both bowed their
heads and raised their black-gloved fists in a black power salute.
The silver medallist was a runner from Australia named Peter
Norman who wore the patch of the Olympic Committee for Human
Rights (OCHR-sponsor of the boycott movement) in solidarity with
Smith and Carlos.
Within hours, the two African-American
men were expelled from the Olympic Village and were stripped
of their medals. This was one of the decade's simplest and most
effective protests. As the games continued, other athletes from
a number of nations protested the treatment of the two in public
statements and other symbolic actions. The results of the Olympic
protest and the movement of black student athletes changed the
world of black athletes in many ways, yet much remains to be
resolved. It's somewhat ironic, although not necessarily surprising
that, as African American athletes make more and more money,
their solidarity with one another and with the rest of the African-American
community seems to diminish.
What were white student and amateur athletes
doing during this period of upheaval? For the most part, nothing.
However, there were a few individuals who worked with the OCHR
and spoke out against the war and racism they saw on their campuses.
When they did, they were often benched or kicked off the team
by coaches and athletic directors who despised their opinions
and lifestyle choices. By 1970, though, these few individuals
were joined by whole teams and, in some cases (like UC Berkeley)
virtually the entire student athlete population. After Nixon
invaded Cambodia and many of the nation's colleges and high schools
went on strike, student athletes at UC Berkeley voted to protest
en masse against the invasion. Then, following the murders of
students at Kent and Jackson State later that spring, some teams
cancelled workouts, while most wore black armbands during competitions
and issued statements supporting the student strike as it spread
across the land. In the Ivy Leagues, members of all eight schools'
track and field teams issued a strong statement denouncing the
war, the killings of students and the repression of the black
liberation movement. That statement caused the Army and Navy
teams to withdraw from an annual springtime track and field event.
Left On Base-College Athletics and The Myth of Opportunity
The world of American sports has changed
in fundamental ways in the past forty or so years. One could
argue that it was the decade of the 1960s that they began to
assume their current overly important role in American culture.
Money started to play a larger role than ever before, mostly
because of television--although money had always played a role--and
their role as spectacle grew larger. This growing importance
gave greater meaning to the statement by NY Times sportswriter
and author of The Contender Robert. Lipsyte, who wrote in an
introduction to Caribbean Marxist and critic CLR James book on
cricket: that among the poor, "a youngster's only capital
is his/her body. The exploitation is obvious, as is the hope:"
As suburbia grew, pickup games in a vacant lot or playground
became fewer as organized sports became the norm for youngsters
wanting to play ball.
Most coaches went along with the changes
at this level and up into high school and college, grooming their
prime athletes for the big leagues. Some, however, had other
ideas. A small group of coaches and athletes critiqued sports
in capitalist society. Perhaps the most well known was Jack Scott,
who died in 2000. Lipsyte remembers him thus: "The first
time I saw Scott, he was standing at the front of a University
of California classroom wearing red running shoes, a baseball
cap and gym shorts, which, in 1970, even in Berkeley, was not
considered appropriate academic garb. He brought several hundred
undergraduates to startled order by blowing a whistle. He did
that, he later explained, because "300 yards from here,
men who are also supposed to be teachers act and dress like this
all the time, curse their students and impose arbitrary rules
about hair, clothes, social life, and no one thinks twice about
it."
Scott was talking, of course, about coaches,
a subject in his course, "Intercollegiate Sports and Education:
A Socio-Psychological Evaluation. Scott's views brought disdain
from the tradition-bound, machismo world of organized sports
and also from politicians, like Spiro Agnew who called him "the
guru of jock liberation." This was not meant as a compliment.
Scott believed in discipline, hard work, fair play, civil rights,
equal athletic opportunities for women. While he could despise
the racism and hypocrisy of an Avery Brundage-the head of the
International Olympic Committee in the 1960s, he could admire
the idealism of the Olympic movement.
Jack was not an ivory-tower theoretician.
He had been a hard-hitting high school football player and a
college track athlete. Although his avowed goal was to do well
by doing good, he was a jock, and he wanted to win, and celebrated
for his athletic achievements. He was also a progressive thinker
in the political and social realm-something found too rarely
in the world of U.S. sports. In his two years at Oberlin as the
athletic director, he created a prototypical Title IX program
and hired Tommie Smith as track coach. He worked with basketball
player and sports announcer Bill Walton and with linebacker Dave
Meggysey on his "Out of Their League." He challenged
the authoritarianism associated with sports and explained the
role of sports in schools and society as twofold: to make a ton
of money for the school or corporation that owns the team, to
instill militaristic and patriotic values into society, and to
create a sense of community where there might otherwise not be
one (for ex. as a fan of a team). Interestingly, it was President
Eisenhower who once said "the true mission of American sports
is to prepare young people for war." Nowadays the sports
fan is reminded of this fact before almost every sporting event
broadcast on television-every broadcast seems to have a film
collage of US soldiers in fighter plane cockpits and in the battle
zone sometime during the contest.
Scott debunked the myth that sports serve
as a means for disadvantaged youth and new immigrants to further
themselves individually and a group. As those who follow sports
today know, it is still true that for every college or minor
league athlete who makes it to the pros, there are hundreds who
don't. He also criticized the role colleges play as minor leagues
for the pros--suggesting that this should end and the pros should
set up their own leagues to recruit and train players, thereby
leaving collegiate sports to people who want to be in college
for intellectual as well as athletic pursuits. As an aside, he
demanded that college recruits who are in college only because
of their athletic ability should be given extra tutoring, but
then so should all academically disadvantaged students--something
that rarely happens.
Remember, while much of this criticism
might be old hat now, it was radical in the 1960s and 1970s,
when coaches and academic departments were above reproach and
staffed with men who could easily have been drill instructors
at a Marine Corps boot camp, who were also often racist, to boot.
Despite the dated nature of Scott's complaints, very few sports
programs have done anything to address them. Consequently, the
intellectual life of the college athlete is still mostly irrelevant
to his (or her) existence in academia. What this means in an
athlete's post-college life is this: if s(he) doesn't make it
in the world of professional sports, (s)he is out of luck. Either
way, the media, the colleges and the sports establishment have
made their money.
Ron Jacobs
is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground.
He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Today's
Features
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
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