Discovery

Battle Bots has got to be one of the more exciting shows iv’e ever watched on tv during my childhood.  It had all the factors that make a entertaining series, character development, action, mayhem, and of course the most important, robots beating the shit out of each other.  Words cant describe how envious I was at a young age of the drivers that used to control these battle machines around the arena.  I watched every episode and even studied up on the machines and what made some better than others on the battle field. Despite this fact I had a few pet peeves about the show, mainly in the way it was run by the shows sponsor and provider, the Discovery network.

Discovery Channel has always played my favorite shows, I love the educational aspect of many of the shows but also the entertainment value is far beyond anything I can find MTV or the History Channel now a days but even the Discovery channel still has its flaws that bothered me about their programs.  While not completely selling out like the History Channel has to shitty shows and advertisements popping up all over the screen, the Discovery has still lost grips on its roots of being a truly educational network.  (Disclaimer: this is my personal opinion and does not reflect the views of the History Channel. but we can all agree Ancient Aliens is shit…)   One of the first times I noticed the downhill trend, caused by I can only assume was the higher ups at Discovery,  was the amount of adds played during Battle Bots.  Adds are a distraction especially when they appear in the corner of the screen during the actual programming show.   This is what Battle Bots did and what pissed me off the most.  I naturally understand the need for a show or network to gain revenue from advertisers but to compromise the actual show that views are tuning in for seems like the wrong way to go about it in my mind.

Although I have not read into the reasons for these adds rudely interrupting my epic show about robots, I can only assume it was the networks decision since they control all decisions about programs on their networks and therefore for the rest of this post I will blindly attack them for interrupting my entertainment.  Battle Bots being a high paced, action stuffed TV show needs your constant attention to follow who’s in the lead or who’s about to be crushed by some robot with a hammer.  I have no interest in some new blood pressure drug, or washed up childhood star appearing in a TV show about vampires and leprechauns.  Basically the point I’m trying to get at is, Discovery Network, don’t throw some small text and graphics on the lower right hand corner of my TV screen while I’m trying to enjoy one of your programs.

The World in Black and White

To begin I urge you to watch this video.  This video will explain the numbers behind the idea that our collegiate institutions have used an array of media to disguise the fact that they use AFrican American’s as a tool for D1 sports and nothing more.  I know it’s tempting to skip the video but what you’ll find is that you will see the facts behind the claim along with an emotional attachment.

That being said, UCLA is just one of the D1 schools to use this propaganda technique.  The institution I’m focussing on is D1 sports and recruitment that goes along with it.  Schools paint a picture of a diverse community of students at their school and show a picture of a black student on a pamphlet to resemble a varied campus.  The reality is that of the 19,000 males enrolled at UCLA, 3.3% are AFrican American and of that 660 males, 65% are student athletes.

This has become a widespread problem where schools isolate the options for African American males down to basically, “Pick a sport and pursue it, or don’t come here.”  This may be a generalization but if you don’t believe that this is the mindset of young black boys, then look again.  A documentary released a few years ago presented a neighborhood in Philadelphia and took a look at a group of young AFrican American kids.  When asked what they wanted to be when they grew up they all said NBA stars.  They didn’t have any other choices.  This may not seem unusual but when the narrator talked with their teachers, the teacher reported that the boys showed up to class maybe 50% of the time.  These were middle school boys.  They were so shaped by the idea that if they did not play pro basketball they were out of options that they had already given up on their studies.

What once stood for the institution of knowledge is now divided into two categories.  Black and white.  There are universities out there that do not hold these ideals but they are washed over in the grand scheme of D1 schools who want the money major sports bring in and will recruit in whatever means possible.  In that video he states “No one snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”  No one university is going to take credit for the whole institution of this messed up watered down education system that now wants to educate some and harness the talents of others.  The stereotype of the black student athlete is only being further enhanced with schools like UCLA only accepting AFrican Americans who can play sports. The feeling is that they are “Not on an even playing field with their white counterparts.”

The phrase he continues to come back to is “You tell me I should be proud to be a Bruin.” As if his identity matters to the school when they along with other schools identify them as a source of revenue, a tool for their own support.  The opportunities for students in America are being skewed and the playing field is not level.

When will the institution set aside to educate us learn that “Those with less opportunity are fighting for their position trying to find their place, but those with privilege are hitting triples when they were already born on third base.”  And you tell me, I should be proud to be a student…

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Rich White People Sports

Colloquially skiing and snowboarding have always been lumped into that brand of “white people sport” that encompass the myriad of country club sports (golf, tennis, polo), water sports (water skiing, wind surfing, boating), and the assorted mountain sports category that skiing and boarding represent. However where there is stereotype, there is often an ounce of truth. So what is it about these sports specifically that seem to encourage a white audience? Money.

In the United States in 2008 36.2% of White individuals earned an average income over $75,000. This is two times that of Blacks and about 1.75 times that of Hispanics. It’s clear that there is an income disparity between races in America. It follows then that in order to make a sport White-centric it is required only that the sport be expensive. This is what leads to skiing and snowboarding being White dominated activities.

In seems evident that mountain sports could have been created to be race specific based purely on their cost of participation. According to REI.com it costs upwards of $700 for an adult to purchase the items required for a day on the slopes (excluding lift tickets which can cost around $100 daily or several hundred dollars for the season.) Class and race are so intertwined in American culture that by making an activity class specific it also becomes race specific. This is what’s been done with the world of mountain sports in America.

The exorbitant amount of money required for someone to simply enjoy an afternoon in the mountains makes snowboarding and skiing very class specific activities. These sports evolved from the same sort of mentality surrounding country clubs. By establishing a high cost of participation or membership, the “institution” can ensure the class of people that get to partake. Expensive sports are played by rich people, and in America this group is extraordinarily white.

I would like to point out that this is most likely an extreme case of “correlation not causation.” In other words, people of different ethnic backgrounds are not discouraged from participating in these sports, at least not verbally or socially. However economically, it seems almost impossible for people from impoverished homes to take to the slopes for an afternoon of boarding.

Beats (Banned) by NFL

So earlier this month something very irrelevant happened in the NFL, they banned the use of Beats by Dre headphones. Everyone has their pre-game rituals and music has always been a big part for many. For example, I have a playlist on my phone for every sport I have ever played. The tipping point came when Beats had Colin Kaepernick, San Francisco 49’s quarterback, star in a commercial that had him getting off a bus wearing Beats by Dre so he couldn’t hear the insults coming from the rival team’s fans.

The NFL made a deal with Bose, a rivaling company  with Beats in the headphone game, which allows them to control which headphones a player can and cannot wear during any camera time. The NFL is allowing Bose to do this and has fined many players for showing up with Beats on this year, on the list are Colin Kaepernick and Richard Sherman both players are endorsed by Beats and have contracts to show off the product. My question is how can the NFL allow this to happen. Both players have stated they will not stop wearing the headphones and I do not blame them.

Bose put this ban on rivals so they could profit the most off of these athletes, but contrary to their beliefs the sales of Beats have gone up because people see them as the ‘underdog’ and who doesn’t like an underdog to win. As of right now Beats has 61 percent of the premium headphone market and Bose only has 22 percent. Beats are slowly taking more control because the NFL enforces the rule. The NFL stated that Bose has no part in enforcing the punishments for the players but because the NFL has done this Bose is suffering. I have a pair of Bose headphones because I enjoy the sound quality and the weight and the way they fit my head. I just can’t believe the NFL is trying to control players lives so much and it will end up hurting those companies that endorse the NFL. If this keeps up the NFL will control what players are allowed to eat before a game. If someone wants to pump themselves up before they play they should be able to wear whatever headphones they want to.

Until next time, “Get Stuffed, Go Buffs!”

Fifa: Institutional corruption at it’s finest

Since 1930, fans from all over the planet have gathered every four years to watch the most widely viewed spectacle in history – the world cup. Hosted by the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), we’ve witnessed twenty tournaments across sixteen different nations, exposing the world’s most popular sport to billions of people. Peacefully bringing the world together through soccer (and perhaps the video game series) can be seen as good deeds to most, but FIFA may not be the great institution we’re eluded to believe. With light being shed on various scandals over the past couple of years, FIFA appears to be in hot water, and may be in for serious reforms in the near future.

Beginning in 2011 with two FIFA executive committee members attempting to ‘sell their votes’ for the location of the next world cup, a can of worms has been opened up exposing the harsh shortcomings of the organization. Following this incident, an attempt to improve FIFA’s governance was made, but little has actually been done. In fact, FIFA stirred immense controversy when the destinations of both the 2018 and 2022 world cups were decided in light of these corruption allegations. Russia and Qatar have been awarded as the hosts for the respective tournaments, and much disapproval has been vocalized by players and fans alike. With Russia’s aggressive foreign policy of late (annexation of Crimea), and Qatar’s summer temperatures reaching up to 120° fahrenheit, it quite obviously that these are the worst possible places to hold such an event.

To further cloud the air,  it was uncovered earlier this year that the family of a former FIFA executive committee member received $2 million from a Qatari owned sports company, months before the official decision was made. If things couldn’t get any worse, FIFA’s reputation took a big hit from controversial moves made during the world cup in Brazil this past summer. Although the sale of alcohol at sporting stadiums is banned in Brazil (due to previous violent occurrences), FIFA pressured legislation to adopt a new bill, effectively allowing the sale of Budweiser during all world cup matches. In the end, the country of Brazil made zero profit from the world cup tournament, and is now stuck with the task of maintaining 12 new stadiums across the country (some in quite remote areas) with state of the art technology. Not only will these be impractical for use after the world cup, but they’ll prove to be pretty costly to keep around.

As I reminisce on my childhood playing soccer, I have memories of achievement, teamwork, and genuine fun. Playing the FIFA video games growing up, I would memorize the players names, and look up to some of the superstars as role models. Now, although I still am interested in the sport and play the game from time to time, there’s no doubt that the FIFA organization has had a negative impact and has tainted my view towards soccer. With outright corruption happening on a large scale, FIFA is causing harm to the world’s most popular game, and it seems to only be getting worse.

Tennis: An elitist sport

When you look at the people who dominate the world tennis circuit, there is an evident trend.  It goes beyond the obvious, “European Countries”, it is Wealthy european Countries.  You don’t see Romania, Bulgaria or The Ukraine with championship tennis players.  The best players in the world are from Switzerland, Spain and France.  This carries over directly into my life.

Some may argue that tennis doesn’t appeal to countries like Eastern Asia, African Nations or South America.  Why is this though?  Why is all of Europe not full of tennis stars?  It is because tennis is a rich man’s game.  Growing up I never considered myself rich at all.  As I’ve looked back on my life I realize I was pretty well off and the reason I didn’t consider myself rich was because I was surrounded by kids who were better off than me.  I lived in white suburbia where games like tennis thrived.

My class never defined the way I looked at sports, but I see that it defined the sports I played.  At Arapahoe high school in Denver Colorado sports are a huge part of their selling point.  The sports they sell you on however are not the traditional basketball and football programs you find at many high schools.  Instead their most winningest programs fall into the same category as tennis: lacrosse, golf and cheerleading.

I played tennis for all four years of high school and competed on the varsity team for three.  I also was a part of the lacrosse team and the same examples from tennis hold in lacrosse.  The best schools in the state at tennis, (the one’s who showed up at the state tournament and won the most), were teams like Regis Jesuit, Kent Denver, Arapahoe, Cherry Creek and Fairview.  Two of these schools are private and have a tuition of over $10,000 a year, for high school!  This simply shows that tennis is a sport intended for the wealthy.  The gear, the training, the culture all promotes a wealthier lifestyle and therefore does not present an equal opportunity for everyone to play it.  I always wondered if everyone had the chances I had in tennis if the same schools would dominate Colorado’s tennis competitions.  I have the same questions about the World Tennis circuit.  Would Federer or Nadal or Murray really be household names for tennis fans or would they just be in the mix, if the best were truly given the chances that the upper class are given in sports like tennis?

I was an avid baseball player throughout high school and during some stints in college. I loved the game ever since I started playing. It was so fun for me to be a part of a team and compete along side my friends week in and week out. Baseball is often referred to as “America’s Game.” It’s hailed as America’s pastime and something that everyone seems to have exposure to, whether it be hitting rocks with your friends in an alley or suiting up with your high school team to play in front of family and friends. It wasn’t until I grew up, around the age of 16 or so, that I realized that it isn’t America’s game. It’s a game for a select few.

I remember very vividly when my Dad took me out to our local sporting goods store to buy me a new baseball glove when I signed up for high school baseball. Well made gloves run anywhere from $150 to $300 depending on the brand, size, etc. I begged and pleaded my father to buy me the $100 glove I had had my eye on for weeks. After a bit of negotiating he decided to treat me to it. “You’re doing well in school, you’re a good kid, you deserve it,” he said.

I was in love. It was the best glove I’ve ever had. It’s still the in the trunk of my car to this day, constantly waiting for me to get together with a friend for a game of catch. My parents were always very frugal growing up. I came from a well off middle class family, but that didn’t change the fact that my parents saw sports as hobbies and convincing them to invest in them was always a fight. Not to mention my two older brothers and I played as many sports as we could all year round. The cost really did add up.

I have a distinct memory of a teammate approaching me during a practice with my new glove and saying “I wish I had rich parents, that thing’s awesome.” I was absolutely blown away. I didn’t see my parents as rich. I saw them in a position where the didn’t need to worry about money, but that sure didn’t stop them from doing so. I never had the best equipment. I never had the nicest cleats or the most expensive bat. My parents paid for what it took to keep me in competition with the other kids, and that was it. I never went on thousand dollar cross-country tournaments like some of my friends. I didn’t ask for the $1,200 little league team. I never played anything but city rec league or public high school sports.

It was a very eye opening experience for me to have someone call my parents rich. All my life I’d been jealous of my peers who got the new model of bat every year, or the latest edition of Under Armor’s football cleats. For someone else to express that they were jealous of something I owned really put things in perspective.

I think we typically like to believe that everyone can play sports. That everyone has the same opportunities. But ultimately, life isn’t like that. Class difference does play a significant role in sports, even when it comes down to, presumably, the cheapest of all sporting endeavors: public high school. All that was truly required to play was a fee of around $75. And my school, like most schools, did their best to help reduce the cost for those who truly could not afford it. Nevertheless, I think sometimes we’re blinded to class barriers. There’s a very real “grass is greener on the other side” mentality in American sports. We’re always looking to what our neighbor has. But it’s important that we keep in perspective, as cliche as it is, that there’s someone else looking at our grass and wishing they could be a part of it.

Lacrosse in the ‘burbs: looking at class

As a student athlete in the suburbs of Massachusetts, it never really occurred to me how much class impacts sports. For me, your ability to play a sport and excel at it was determined by pure athleticism and natural leadership. Sure these qualities equate to being a good athlete, but reflecting back on my lacrosse career, I can see now that there were far more serious barriers to compete.

Growing up in an upper-middle class household, I was fortunate that my parents were more than willing to pay the high cost of lacrosse gear. Playing for ten years of my childhood, I ran through dozens of the latest shafts, heads, and pads, even before I had developed a true concept of money. Due to the economic class I was born into, I was able to play an expensive sport not everyone could afford.

Come high school, the effect of class on sports became much more evident. By simply looking at the demographics of our team roster compared to the rest of the student body, it was quite apparent that lacrosse catered to the “rich kids”. With a lack of public funding for the sport, athletes were expected to buy all of their own gear, and pay a $250 fee for participating on the team. Because of this scenario, some of my best friends who would commute from Boston could not afford to play.

Through my experience of sports, class seemed to only benefit my athletic career, but as we can see, the very opposite can happen. Because of economic discrepancies, some of my own friends could not dream the same way I could. Instead, their options were limited as to what they wanted to play. By applying class issues to my memories of playing lacrosse, it has opened by eyes to the real barriers of excelling as an athlete. There’s a lot more to it than being athletic.

Fields of metal and oil.. And men

I’d like to preface this post by saying that calling a robotics competition a sport is a long stretch for most people but for this post lets just assume it is one.

Lego was, and still could be for some people, a big part of a healthy imaginative childhood.  Building fantasy palaces, machines and starships crafted our imagination at a young age, they was quite literally the building blocks of our budding minds.  And as a result of their immense beneficial nature Legos have been adopted by many schools, ranging from elementary  all the way up to the college level to help teach basics in engineering and computer science.  At my middle school we had an after school competition using Lego mindstorms to compete in an end of the year event to show off what the teams had made and win proves from local science groups.  Being somewhat of the nerdy type naturally i loved this sort of competition and competed with my team for three years while i went to the school.  Looking back on my experience there now I realize there was almost no girls playing in these games or leading them.

STEM subjects have made amazing strides in promoting female involvement in recent years but I would bet that just even ten years ago this was not the case just based off my experience in the lego competitions.  I remember fathers bringing their sons in to work on the projects after school,  male science teachers guiding us through the design and build process of the robots, and even retired engineers coming in to watch the final competition at the end of the year.  The club was dominated by men and I don’t think I ever really took notice when I was in middle school.  Now i’m not saying I thought that no women in this sort of club was normal, I was just young and never looked around at the people and noticed how divided this really was.  The club should have actively encouraged girls to join and to promote the subjects learned to the female members of the school.  It seems strange to me know looking back at that club to where I am now in university studying a STEM subject.  The push for women in STEM subjects has been fantastic in every way for the fields.

Arnold and Heterosexuality

In the scholarly piece “Hegemonic Masculinity on the Mound”, author Nick Trujillo defines masculinity in American culture five major tenets. They are: physical force and control, occupational achievement, familial patriarchy, frontiersman, and heterosexuality. For the purpose of this blog post, I’ll focus on masculinity in American culture using Arnold Schwarzenegger as my case study. Specifically, I will examine Trujillo’s last major point of masculinity – heterosexuality.

As discussed in the reading, heterosexuality is defined by “embodying personal characteristics which are manifested in males through exclusively social relationships with men and primarily sexual relationships with women, and it requires not being effeminate (a sissy) in physical appearance and mannerisms.”

In other words, to embrace heterosexuality to its fullest, a man can never show his weaknesses, whether it be physical or emotional. Throughout Arnold’s career, heterosexuality prominently shined in his bodybuilding, movies, and even politics.

In an interview on the tonight show with Jimmy Fallon earlier this year, Arnold seems to act no different than the masculine, overtly heterosexual man we all know. In fact, only 40 seconds into the clip, Arnold exclaims that you need a Hummer to get the family to the beach safely (and not Fallon’s land rover stuck in the sand) because that’s a “girly man’s car”. With a responsive laugh from the crowd, Arnold does not stop here. Next, Fallon discusses how he’s been enlightened from Arnold on how to smoke cigars on vacation. As they both recall, Fallon had a difficult time lighting the cigar, and Arnold began to poke fun at him, “Your sleeve was on fire… and then you kept on sucking on it like this!!” as he imitated a sexual move.

In this 4-minute youtube clip, Arnold overtly expresses his masculinity through one of the major tenets Trujillo defines as heterosexuality. Although Arnold embodies all of the masculine traits described in the paper, his heterosexual expressions are almost impossible to miss. Because we’ve always seen Arnold as this macho, superhero-like man, he is a perfect iconic example of masculinity in American culture.