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50 years
after
fists:
Who
would
listen,
who
would
care?
By
EDDIE
PELLS
APNews.com
Two
men
stood
together,
utilizing
the
worldwide
platform
that
only the
Olympics
can
provide,
to call
attention
to the
struggle
they
shared
with
fellow
Americans
during a
divisive,
seemingly
intractable
period
in their
country’s
history.
In
1968,
sprinters
Tommie
Smith
and John
Carlos
raised
their
black-gloved
fists on
the
medals
stand.
In
2018,
skier
Gus
Kenworthy
and his
boyfriend,
Matt
Wilkas,
made
their
own
calculated
statement
when
they
kissed
at the
bottom
of a ski
slope .
Smith
and
Carlos
had a
captive
global
audience
of
hundreds
of
millions
to
create
international
headlines
thanks
to
limited
choices
in a
growing
TV
culture.
Today’s
athletes
— even
when
armed
with a
powerful
message
of
inclusion
or
social
injustice,
a la
Kenworthy
or the
polarizing
Colin
Kaepernick
— face
different
obstacles.
They are
communicating
to
groups
fragmented
by cable
TV,
social
media
and the
various
echo
chambers
that
define
today’s
public
discourse.
And
so, even
though
the
Olympics
have
morphed
into a
mass-media
extravaganza
beyond
what
anyone
could’ve
imagined
when
Smith
and
Carlos
raised
their
fists 50
years
ago, on
Oct. 16,
1968,
it’s
hard to
envision
anything
replacing
that as
the most
significant
protest
in the
history
of the
Olympics,
and
sports
in
general.
“Back
then,
Carlos
and
Smith
were
‘The
Story’
and you
couldn’t
really
avoid
it,”
says
Washington
State
professor
Scott
Jedlicka,
who
recently
gave a
lecture
to a
group of
sports
historians
about
the
complexities
of the
Mexico
City
Games.
“Today,
not only
would it
perhaps
be
forgotten
a lot
more
quickly,
but it
would
also be
spun up
in so
many
different
ways to
drive up
meaning
and
message
about
the
protest’s
significance.”
As
true
back
then as
it is
today,
very few
people
tune in
to a
sporting
event
expecting,
or
particularly
interested
in, a
lesson
about
civics
or
social
inequality.
Many
would
prefer
for
athletes
to stay
inside
the
lines.
As
images
of their
defiantly
raised
fists
slowly
filtered
across
the
globe,
Smith
and
Carlos
were
widely
vilified,
and
kicked
out of
the
Olympics
by their
own
country’s
federation.
Both men
suffered
personally
and
professionally
upon
their
return
to the
United
States.
Neither
has
expressed
regret
about
what
they
did.
“Yes,
indeed,
it was
worth
it,”
Smith
said in
an
interview
aired on
BBC this
month.
Carlos’
words
from 50
years
ago
still
resonate
in many
corners
today:
“White
America
would
not
understand,”
he said
that
night.
“They
recognize
me only
when I
do
something
bad, and
they
call me
‘Negro.’”
If
the
reaction
to the
sprinters,
over
weeks,
and
months
and then
years,
was a
slow-moving
tsunami,
the
reaction
to
Kenworthy
and
Wilkas
was more
like a
fast-moving,
then
quickly
extinguished,
wildfire.
Though
their
kiss was
picked
up by TV
cameras,
it
didn’t
start
trending
until
the
images
were
redistributed
via
social
media.
It was a
purposeful
and
powerful
gambit
by
Kenworthy,
who used
his
Twitter
and
Instagram
accounts
throughout
the
Pyeongchang
Games to
help
bring
LGBT
issues
to the
fore.
Images
of the
kiss
went
viral,
but the
nature
of
2018-style
social
media
made the
episode
a juicy
morsel
for a
news
cycle.
It was
quickly
overrun
by
outrage
over
Korean
dog meat
farms
and
politically
charged
rants
about
Ivanka
Trump’s
visit to
Pyeongchang.
Part
of this
might be
a sign
of
progress
— the
image of
gay
athletes
kissing
doesn’t
evoke
the same
response
now as
it would
have 20,
or 50,
years
ago,
Jedlicka
says.
But
another
part
“speaks
to the
fact
that you
don’t
have the
media
gatekeepers
you had
in
1968,”
said
John
Koch,
who
teaches
a course
called
‘Rhetoric,
Sports
and
Society’
at
Vanderbilt.
“It
used to
be the
media
had the
sole
responsibility
of what
was
salient,
worthy
of
seeing,”
Koch
said.
“Twitter
users
have
that
same
ability
now.”
That’s
what has
helped
Kaepernick,
in many
ways,
become
this
generation’s
Smith
and
Carlos.
When
the
quarterback
first
kneeled
to
protest
racial
and
social
injustice
during
the
national
anthem,
it went
completely
unnoticed
during a
preseason
NFL game
and only
gained
traction
through
the
powers
of
social
media.
From
there,
his
message
has been
filtered
and
re-filtered
through
everything
from
tweets
by
President
Donald
Trump to
ads run
by his
corporate
supporter,
Nike.
Most
poignantly,
sports
has
become a
central
part of
the
(hashtag)MeToo
movement
in the
wake of
the
Larry
Nassar
sex-abuse
scandal,
which
exposed
the
physician
as the
molester
of
hundreds
of young
female
athletes,
including
members
of the
U.S.
Olympic
gymnastics
team.
The
hashtag
in
”(hashtag)MeToo”
says all
we need
to know
about
the
medium
through
which
some of
the most
heart-wrenching
calls to
action
have
come.
It
reinforces
the
words of
Marshall
McLuhan,
the
renowned
intellectual
who
famously
declared
“The
medium
is the
message”
— a nod
to the
idea
that the
way
information
is
disseminated
is every
bit as
important
as the
information
itself.
In
1968,
Smith
and
Carlos
felt the
sting of
social
injustice
and knew
they
could
draw
attention
to it on
the
Olympic
medals
stand.
Fifty
years
later,
athletes
have
more
outlets
at their
disposal
to point
out
similar
problems
of
inequality.
But once
they use
them,
the
myriad
of
platforms
can help
turn one
story
into a
slow-moving
Kaepernick
tsunami
and
relegate
another
to a
Kenworthy-Wilkas
news
minute.
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