Olympic Spirit of Smith and Carlos Stll Debated
The Olympics with all its pomp and ceremony has always been a world a stage for political protest and commentary. The world looks at Beijing to see what action will join the pantheon of Olympic protest. America in 1968 was turned upside down by the civil rights protests by track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the Mexico City Olympics. The years have not mellowed the reactions of the American public towards the 1968 protests.American conservative author Jonah Goldberg of the National Review Online wrote an article that was published in the Dallas Morning News on the Olympians. Former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk responded to the Jonah Goldberg article in a open letter that is published on this blog .
Jonah Goldberg: '68 Olympics salute deserves no honor
Pictured at rightJonah Goldberg ( courtesy Wikipedia )
12:00 AM CDT on Monday, August 4, 2008 Published Dallas Morning News
Jonah Goldberg
ESPN awarded Tommie Smith and John Carlos the Arthur Ashe Courage Award last month 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."
The argument that critics must dine on their denunciations rests on an inch-deep nostalgia and the triumph of celebrity culture.
Comments by ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott typify the insanity of ESPN's award. Scott, who was 3 years old in 1968, nonetheless told the Desert Sun newspaper that he remembers how "tense" the times were, and how he remembers thinking, "Oh, that was cool for a black man to do that." He added: "As an adult, I get it even more now." Even more than when he was barely out of diapers? That's setting the bar high.
"I've got daughters," Mr. Scott said, "so I have to explain to them why that was so important, and how much – even after they did it – grief and hatred they had to face when they came back to the States, to their own country. And why that means they're courageous."
By this standard – for want of a better word – any self-indulgent protest at the Olympics is proof of courage.
Is it even worth trying to remind people that the black power salute was, for those who brandished it most seriously, a symbol of violence – rhetorical, political and literal – against the United States?
There's also the fact that the black power salute amounted to an obscene gesture aimed directly at the Olympic ideal. "The Olympic Games as an ideal of brotherhood and world community is passe," declared radical black sociologist Harry Edwards in 1968. "The Olympics is so obviously hypocritical that even the Neanderthals watching TV know what they're seeing can't be true."
In a sense, Mr. Edwards was right then – and now. The Olympic ideal of putting politics aside and celebrating pure athleticism has always been exactly that, an ideal. And all ideals are ultimately unachievable.
China is using the Olympics to paper over the brutality of its repressive regime, just as Hitler did in 1936. In 1972, Palestinian terrorists – grateful for 1968's lesson in the propaganda value of Olympics media attention – slaughtered Israeli athletes. Nations are political entities, so you can't take the politics out of national rivalries.
The question is not, and never has been, whether the Olympic ideal can be achieved, but whether it should be pursued. By embracing those who spat on that idea, it seems ESPN thinks the answer is no. That is assuming ESPN gave much thought to the question in the first place.
Jonah Goldberg is the author of "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning." His e-mail address is JonahsColumn @aol.com.
Mr. Goldberg
I want you to know that I took great offense at your column that appeared in Monday's Dallas Morning News which attempted to discredit and debase Tommie Smith and John Carlos for their extraordinary acts courage during the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico City. I was particularly insulted by your statement.." that the black power salute was, for those who brandished it most seriously, a symbol of violence-rhetorical, political and literal-against the United States".
As a person of color, born in the segregated South , and who came of age in 60's and lived under the crippling inhumanity of Jim Crow , I can assure you that the violence which you now find so offensive, was directed at people of color, and Blacks in particular. It was against this backdrop that Smith and Carlos chose to make their stand. To be certain, the black power salute was not an exhibition of violence against the US, but a visible demonstration of pride in our heritage, our personhood, and a demand for full recognition as Americans.
Just as Jesse Owens chose to participate in the Berlin Olympics and use his marvelous athletic talents to make a stand against Hitler's fascism, Smith and Carlos elected to represent the US while exposing the hypocrisy of the USA's exploitation of Blacks for Olympic glory, yet, denying us full equality at home. This is what so many of us found to be courageous and admirable about Carlos and Smith's demonstration, and what ESPN found worthy of recognition.
Shame on your for tarnishing such a glorious achievement.
Ronald Kirk
posted by EdGray4America.com at
2:12 PM
5 Comments:
Good for Ron !
Right On, former Mayor, Ron Kirk.
Thans, Ed, for highlighting this important exchange. There is an alarming perception gap between Black and white America that the Smith-Carlos salute underscores. I'm glad Mr. Kirk shared his distaste for Goldberg's views.
Alan Bean
Amen.
Courtesy New York Times Op Ed
"Fists Raised, but Not in Anger"
By Allen Barra is the author of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.”
Published: August 22, 2008
After the Games “IT was a story that should have made headlines for one day,” Robert Paul, who was the United States Olympic Committee’s publicist at the 1968 Summer Games in Mexico City, told me recently. “If they had handled the whole affair right, with some reason, tolerance and common sense, it would have been something we could now look back on with pride. Instead, it’s the Olympics’ biggest ongoing shame.”
We were discussing the most famous gesture of protest in Olympic history, the supposed black-power salute of Tommie Smith and John Carlos on the medal stand of the 200 meters at the 1968 Games. And we kept coming to a paradox: While American critics are scoring points right now on the subject of Chinese civil-rights abuses and questionable athletic practices, they continue to forget that there is one big wrong that needs to be righted on the home front.
Smith and Carlos were members of the Olympic Project for Human Rights, which was organized by the sociologist Harry Edwards and others to draw attention to racism in sports and society. One of their priorities was pressuring the International Olympic Committee to bar South Africa for its apartheid policies, which it subsequently did. The group’s members weren’t just blacks — Peter Norman, who finished second in the 200, was one of many white athletes who wore the group’s pin.
There was talk of a boycott of the 1968 Olympics by African-American athletes; it never happened, although some stars, such as the All-America basketball player Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) staged a silent protest by refusing to try out for the Olympic team. For his part, Smith decided that if he won the 200 meters — and he did, in 19.83 seconds, a world record that stood for 11 years — he would make his own statement.
A few minutes before the medal presentation, Payton Jordan, the head coach of the track and field team, and sprint coach Stan Wright approached Robert Paul, the publicist, in the press section. Jordan told Paul that he had given Smith and Carlos permission to wear black socks. Did Paul, the coaches asked, know what was going on? Moments later, Smith, his wife, Carlos and the sportswriter Pete Axthelm walked down the press-box aisle, headed for the presentation stage. Did anyone know, Paul asked Jordan, why Mrs. Smith was holding a black glove in each hand?
Avery Brundage, the iron-fisted boss of the International Olympic Committee, must also have thought that something was up, as he did not appear to award Smith, Norman and Carlos their medals. “I really didn’t know what I was going to do with the gloves,” Tommie Smith told me in a recent telephone conversation. “I was thinking about wearing both of them but quickly realized that would make no sense.”
Walking toward the stand — his wife had by then passed the gloves along to the runners — he decided to “represent the flag with pride, but do it with a black accent.” Wearing their medals, they raised clenched, gloved fists as the national anthem was played — Smith his right, Carlos his left. It was done, Smith says, “in military style” — Smith was in the R.O.T.C. at the time. “My head was down,” he says, “because I was praying.”
“I wanted to embody my pride and love for what America is supposed to be,” he told me. “There was no hate, no hostility shown or intended.” It was not, contrary to how it has been portrayed in the media, intended as a black-power salute.
The next morning, Brundage told Douglas F. Roby, the American committee’s president, that if Smith and Carlos weren’t removed from the team then the entire United States track and field team would be banned from the rest of competition. Roby didn’t dare defy Brundage; he told the two athletes in person that they could keep their medals but they had to leave the Olympic Village.
Was there any precedent for what Smith and Carlos had done in Mexico City? In 1936, German athletes made the Nazi salute when awarded their medals. Brundage, then president of the United States Olympic Committee, made no objection, and rejected any proposals for boycotting the Berlin games.
In the years after Mexico City, both Smith and Carlos found life to be difficult. They had trouble finding work. In the late ’70s Carlos’s wife committed suicide. He blamed the pressure put on him by his Olympic protest. Smith, fired from his job at North American Pontiac upon returning from Mexico City, eventually became a professor and track coach at Santa Monica College.
Brundage died in 1975. In the 33 years since his death, Smith and Carlos say, neither has ever had so much as a feeler from either the International Olympic Committee or United Sates Olympic Committee regarding reconciliation. Neither has been voted into the American group’s hall of fame, even though Smith, by his count, once held world records in 11 different events, the most ever by a track and field athlete.
“I think their attitude is, ‘Why bring it up?’ ” Smith told me in our recent conversation. “Why rock the boat now?” But if some conscientious official was looking to right a wrong that grows larger with each passing Olympics, would Smith be conducive towards hearing them out? “I would” he said, then, after a pause, “take what they say into account. I would listen.” Would anyone at the United States Olympic Committee like Tommie Smith’s and John Carlos’s phone numbers?
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