Bree Newsome showed remarkable political courage. She also perhaps gave a template for reimagining sports.
The Olympic Games are hybrid beast, at once alluring and appalling. The divine part
of the Olympics takes place when we become immersed in the stories of
individual athletes. We discover sports that normally languish in the shadows
and see the sports media crawl out of their NFL-branded man cave to actually
appreciate the genius of female athletes. Even ESPN stops devotingjust 2 percent of SportsCenter to women’s athletics and it
commentators cease their practice of sounding like they’re “eating their vegetables” when reporting on this part of the sports world.
The
detestable part about the Olympics is that they have become politically
indefensible. They deliver debt, displacement, and hyper-militarization to any
city cursed with becoming a host. We sorely need a new Olympics that highlights
athleticism, puts a focus on women athletes, and isn’t politically toxic. I
therefore propose what can be known hereafter as the Bree Newsome Olympic
Challenge. Unless you have been living inside NewsCorp headquarters, then you
know Bree Newsome as the woman who climbed the flagpole on the capitol grounds
of the Columbia, South Carolina, State House and took down the Confederate
flag. Others have already written about the political and symbolic importance
of someone”s bravely putting into action Dr. King’s dictum “Why We Can’t Wait.”
I’d rather focus for a moment first and foremost on the remarkable physicality
of what Ms. Newsome accomplished. Apparently, she had never even attempted such
a feat before two days prior. This is to anyone who has done that kind of
harness-based climbing. The combination of dexterity, strength, and badassery
to pull it off is LeBron-worthy.
Then there was the
arrest. Even before Ms. Newsome had been led away in silver bracelets, social
media were swamped with queries about how to pay her bail. In rapid fashion, it
was done. Finally, before the day had been completed, works of art began to
flourish commemorating the moment.
After a mere 24 hours, the concept of what the Bree Newsome
Olympic Challenge could be took shape in my mind: Competitors would travel the
nation in an effort to dismantle flags, monuments, and commemorations of
alleged “great leaders” who committed great crimes. The Confederate flag still
flies over the state of Georgia and Mississippi (and South Carolina, for that
matter), and a motley crew of slave owners, eugenicists, and architects of
Native American genocide are given places of honor—absent of context—in cities
and towns around the nation. The Andrew Jackson Relay Events alone would keep
us busy for years. Our athletic handbook could be James Loewen’s brilliant Lies Across America,
which documents every public square that is dedicated to defending indefensible
acts in the name of rewriting or whitewashing US history.
The goal of competitors would be to capture a flag or construct
some kind of public installation that would contextualize those unduly honored.
The athletic aspect would involve not only the climbing of flagpoles, of
course, but also finishing whatever action one is trying to pull off before the
police slap on the cuffs. But have no fear, the next competition is “raising
bail.” It was fascinating to watch how quickly the numbers flipped and continue
to flip for Bree Newsome’s bail fund, like an old-school taxi meter. The first
to inspire people to raise the necessary bail gets the gold in that particular
aspect of the competition. And lastly, there is the art of the struggle: What
kind of artistic remembrance does your struggle inspire? That part, per one aspect
of the Olympic tradition, would be left to judges.
Unlike its parasitic step-sibling headquartered in Lausanne, the
Bree Newsome Olympic Challenge requires no public expenditures and demands no
corporate underwriting. It can be broadcast live over the web along with color
commentary that speaks about the challenges each athlete activist faces, as
well as the history the competitor is attempting to rectify. Think of it like The Running Man as rewritten by Howard Zinn. It’s
the Bree Newsome Olympic Challenge: combining the thrill of athletic
competition with the need to make sure that truth—the good, the bad, and the
ugly—never ceases being a part of US history. Please e-mail me at dzirin@thenation.com if
you have any suggestions for locales and, if needed, I’ll do a follow-up column
with the best ideas.
This needs to happen so… who wants to go for the gold?
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