Discrimination in Sports Against Blacks and Ethnic Minorities - Coursework Example

Introduction Discrimination is widespread in the society and at work places. The question is whether the discrimination against blacks and ethnic minorities exist in the sports too. The House of Commons committee report states that racism still prevails in British football despite betterment in recent years. The paper attempts to explore the status in the current times and how ethnic minorities feel about it. From Jesse Owens in Berlin Olympics to Harper and Wells in London Olympics Sporting events have come a long way from the days of Jesse Owens. The racial prejudice was at its peak in Berlin Olympics in 1936 when Germany was under Nazi rule and Adolf Hitler was at the helm of affairs in Germany. He was eager to demonstrate Aryan superiority in the sporting arena of the world. Owens participated as a black athlete from the USA winning four gold medals from the various events. Hitler then refused to congratulate even Owens displaying a clear disgust being a black winner. The fact remains that Hitler was extremely unhappy with the results of several black athletes from the US beating German athletes in several track and field events. It cannot be denied that German audience got extremely pleased with Owens performance in the Olympics. Racial discrimination was quite evident in the sense that when Jesse returned to the US, she neither got any sponsorship deals nor any good paying jobs. So as to say that racial discrimination was at its peak during the period before World War II (Lockyer, 2009). It would be appropriate to know about how the issue of racism fared during London Olympics held in 2012. Magnay (2012) reported that Voula Papachristou became the first athlete being barred from participating in the London 2012 Olympic Games simply because she tweeted a racist remark on Twitter. She wrote, "With so many Africans in Greece, at least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat homemade food”. Isidoros Kouvelos, the head of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, remarked that Papachristou failed to show respect for the basic values. He further told that when someone made a mistake they should be ready to pay for it. Though it is in the basic charter for all the participants of the Olympic game to play sport without any discrimination and in the true spirit of friendship, fairness and solidarity yet such incidents continue to take place. And this was not an isolated incident; Michel Morganella of the Swiss team was removed from the soccer team in London Olympics when he made a derogatory remark calling South Koreans a "bunch of Mongoloids" on a social networking site after being defeated by them in a soccer match on July 29. Discriminatory remarks are not limited to the players but the point to be noted is that media reporting too gets influenced by the racial undertones. Longman of New York Times was quick to report that Lolo Jones from the US garnered more than due media coverage over other fellow black runners such as Kellie Wells and Dawn Harper for the womens 100 meter hurdle event. Even Belton of Clutch magazine mentioned that white news media focused on Jones overlooking darker skinned Wells and Harper. It is to be noted that in the final results Harper and Wells got second and third place, respectively and Jones came in fourth (Nittle, 2013). Soccer Events and Racial Discrimination In December 2011, Liverpool’s Suarez was slapped an eight-match ban along with a fine of £40,000 by the Football Association for the charge of racial abuse to Evra of Manchester United. John Whittingdale, the chairman of the committee said, "We believe it is for the FA to take the lead and set the example for everyone, from football authorities at all levels to the grassroots groups, to follow" (BBC, 2012). In Euro 2012, the Croatian Football Federation was penalised for 80,000 Euros because fans chanted racist abuse on Italy player (Gaughan, 2012). It may be accepted that incidents of racism have reduced from the days of ‘70s and ‘80s when racial abuses were quite common. Several initiatives such as "Show Racism the Red Card" (Anti-Racism Educational Charity, 2012) have helped reduce racial behaviour yet the fact remains that a lack of diversity at club levels has slowed the fight against racism. Sports boards at the highest level are mostly occupied by Whites and that slows down the process towards elimination of racism completely. From Biological to a Cultural Form of Racism Carrington and McDonald (2001) argue that racial thinking was at its peak during World War II. It was a crude biological form of racism that was dominant then due to belief that races are different biologically and possess some in-born characteristics. Later the discrimination transformed to a cultural racism with the idea that cultural differences do separate out each ethnic groups – culturally each group has distinct customs and lifestyles. The notion became so widespread that there was no possibility of assimilation among cultures and any attempt done to accomplish that turned futile. In Britain this came to be known as a new kind of racism where language, religion, dress preferences were distinguishing features. Coakley (1998) emphasises that the success and failure of black athletes is always given a different treatment than the athletes from other groups. Farrington et al (2012) argue that racism exists in several ways ensuring that people are discriminated on the basis of some cultural or biological traits. It is difficult to explain the future of racism due to local, regional and national variations. Racism in Sports Journalism The running of Christophe Lemaitre in July 2010 was described as the fastest among whites when he finished 100m run in less than 10 seconds. The moot question is that whether such reporting has any valid or moral basis. This also proves that many journalists see race as a significant factor in the sporting events. The French media was vociferous in naming Lemaitre as White Lightning propagating that he was the first white man to achieve the feat of finishing the 100m race in under 10 seconds; however, Lemaitre distanced himself from the fastest white man label. Australian Experience on Racism in Sports Helen Szoke, the Race Discrimination Commissioner in Australia, speaks about the perception of racism and how race-based discrimination can lead to poor health outcomes (Szoke, 2012). John Steffensens case is worth mentioning here when he was dropped from the 400 meters event in London Olympics and in his place a 19-year-old boy Steve Solomon was picked for displaying better consistency. Steffensen concluded from the incident that he had become the victim of racism. Szoke wanted to emphasize here that this event had raised more serious issues pertaining to the perception and experience of racism. Author described that before she launched the National Anti-Racism Strategy, many people reported their experiences about racism – such as being the last one to be selected in a sporting team, all players being white Anglo-Saxon and similar kinds of experiences. She surprisingly noticed that the experience of racism as reported by people was significantly high. The 2011 Mapping Social Cohesion report of the Scanlon Foundation stated that 14 % of Australians reported some kind of discrimination that was either based on creed, ethnic origin, or colour and the figures were progressively going up from 9% in 2007 to 10% in 2009 and going up further in 2010 and 2011 to 14 percent. The author is more concerned about those people who do not have any platform to raise the issues on racism (Szoke, 2012). Racism in Sports: An Ethical viewpoint Many believe that the world of sport is an ideal world and devoid of racial tensions as found in the society. Media coverage also establishes that playing field is meant to exploit the ability of a sports person without any consideration to colour, creed or race of a sports person; however, Anderson (1996) argues, "This idyllic picture is misleading". He states that African-Americans are not adequately represented in the administration and coaching slots. Integration is only up to playing field but no participation in management of the sports offered to the star performers, once their sporting career is over. Bilzerian (2012) argues that racism in the US is plaguing professional sports; that is what urged by African American civil right leaders when they ask to hire more black coaches in professional sports leagues. It is pertinent to note that 80 percent of the professional sports associations in the US are controlled by the people or a group that forms a small portion of the population. African Americans see their career prospects more in sports when compared with any other racial groups and they should have more presentation in the top positions but surprisingly they are not represented at all. Anderson (1996) takes up the issue of African-American athletes as they are more visible in the professional sports world and the problems they face are quite extensive and unique. The author agrees that overt acts or racism has declined but that does not mean that racism has got eliminated. What he terms is the "unconscious racism" that has now taken the roots. This kind or racism is pernicious and subtle. The way performance and ability of black athletes are described in the news reporting is noteworthy. Black athletes are described for their success in sports as having a natural ability in the given sports but at the same time white athletes are named intelligent and hard working for their successes in sports. Black basketball players were described as having the tools but without right intellect while white basketball players can prevail upon the game despite modest endowment. In one of the survey, Blacks and Whites both ranked white athletes at the top for leadership and then thinking, instincts, strength and the last for the speed attribute; precisely, opposite was the order of attributes for the black athletes. The author categorically mentions that this kind of characterisation or compartmentalisation does a great harm to black and white athletes alike. Since majority of the superstars in American sports come from blacks, theorists attempt to explain the phenomena in a variety of way. Many say that blacks shine in the sports because they want to come out from their age-old ghetto, poverty or economic issues. Many explain that it is the genetic endowment that makes them superior in sporting arena. Though years of genetic research done by experts (majority of them are white researchers) yet nothing has been found to have any substance on this argument. The author argues that there is no necessity of asking such question in the first place as it promotes unconscious racism in the sporting world (Anderson, 1996). The author describes the issue of African-Americans – not being provided with the equal chances or treatment as given to Whites is largely an ethical issue because certain groups of people are treated in an unequal or different way. The author also emphasises that unconscious racism that pervades in American sports is difficult to regulate. He proposes solution to the issue by bringing ethical view point and moral ways of doing the things. Ethical considerations override legal considerations and they take into account all action we undertake as human beings and perhaps that can provide solution to the problem of racism in sports. It is based on the basic premise that masses in general have faith in ethical behaviour and lawyers can do a lot in promoting ethical values across guilds, leagues and associations of the sporting world. Lawyers represent the star players and they can motivate the players to speak against racism in sports and help them promote in commercials and chalk their careers beyond sports. Lawyers can work for ethical values through their actions and respect for persons as they are involved with Sports Leagues, and Associations. They can exert pressures on Sport Leagues to prepare and follow a Code of Conduct that ensures ethical dealings with all the players free of racial bias (Anderson, 2012). Conclusion Ethnic discrimination and racism have become a major issue in European sport in last one or two decades. NGOs have become quite active opposing such incidents in the sporting events. In athletics, the federations in the UK and Romania are the only nations among all European countries who have adopted anti-racist stance. However, the situation in football is quite different as national federations from most of the European nations have enforced anti-racism regulations. This has been largely possible due to the efforts made by numerous NGOs and the concerted efforts of FIFA and UEFA in the last couple of years implementing stricter norms and regulations. Yet football federations of the many nations mention about racism in their official documents as a general statement leading to non-enforcement of the rules for referees are not properly trained to handle the incidents of racism properly. Though a considerable progress has been made in tackling the issue of racism, discrimination and inequality in the sports yet it can be said with certainty that fight against racism, discrimination and inequality will go a long way in coming years across the globe. References Anderson, P.M.(1996). Racism in Sports: A Question of Ethics. Marquette Sports Law Journal. Available from http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/sportslaw/vol6/iss2/9 [Accessed 2 January 2013] Anti-Racism Educational Charity (2012). “Show Racism the Red Card”. Available from http://www.srtrc.org/ [Accessed 2 January 2013] BBC, (2012). Euro 2012: Uefa confirms isolated racist chanting towards Dutch. [Online] Available from http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18363736 [Accessed 2 January 2013] Bilzerian, A. (2012). Racism Plaguing Professional Sports? The Bilzerian Report. [Online] Available from http://thebilzerianreport.com/racism-plaguing-professional-sports/ [Accessed 2 January 2013] Carrington, B. & McDonald, I. (2001). Race, Sport and British Society. Routledge. London. Coakley, J. (1998). Sport in Society: Issues and controversies, 6th ed., London; McGraw- Hill. Farrington, N.; Kilvington, D.; Price, J.; and Saeed, A. (2012). Race, Racism and Sports Journalism. Routledge. Oxon. Gaughan, J. (2012). Croatia racist fine less than Nicklas Bendtners punishment – thats Uefa. The Independent. [Online] Available from http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/croatia-racist-fine-less-than-nicklas-bendtners-punishment--thats-uefa-7866571.html [Accessed 3 January 2013] Lockyer, B. (2009). Sport & Society. [Online] Available from http://www.bl.uk/sportandsociety/exploresocsci/sportsoc/sociology/articles/blackathletes.pdf [Accessed 2 January 2013] Magnay, J. (2012). London 2012 Olympics: Greece athlete Voula Papachristou expelled for racist comment on Twitter. The Telegraph. [Online] Available from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/athletics/9426669/London-2012-Olympics-Greece-athlete-Voula-Papachristou-expelled-for-racist-comment-on-Twitter.html [Accessed 2 January 2013] Nittle, N. K. (2013). Racial Controversies and the Olympic Games. [Online] Available from http://racerelations.about.com/od/hollywood/a/Racial-Controversies-And-The-Olympic-Games.htm [Accessed 2 January 2013] Szoke, Helen (2012). Racism at the Olympics. Australian Human Rights Commission. [Online] Available from http://humanrights.gov.au/about/media/news/2012/72_12.html [Accessed 2 January 2013] Read More