If I Were Accused of Racism ...

Here’s what I would say if leftists were to accuse me of racism:

I’ve been associated with you leftists for many years. I know all your sins. Most of them are mentioned in my book on soccer (Soccer, the Left, & the Farce of Multiculturalism, picture in the right-hand column of this blog). Keep in mind that racism is part of a cluster of ills that also include exclusion and not respecting the Other. Here, then, are some of your sins, with page numbers from my book:

1. In its October 1999 issue, Ebony magazine compiled a list of the 100 best black athletes of the twentieth century. Missing from the list was Pelé, the great black soccer player from Brazil. In fact, no soccer players were on this list. Why not? Isn’t this a sort of prejudice? Isn’t it xenophobia? And isn’t Pelé actually more famous worldwide than most of the people on the list?

All kinds of names could be mentioned from soccer besides Pelé, such as Garrincha, Eusebio (voted best European player of the year in 1965), and Paul Ince (first black captain of the English national team). Including cricket in the mix would mean adding names like Brian Lara. And no doubt there have been plenty of black rugby stars of whom I am unaware who should have been on the list. Not including any of these people represents a sort of prejudice. It’s not racism, but so what? It’s as bad as racism, isn’t it?  (p. 169)

2. Back in its July 29, 1996 issue, The Nation called Joao Havelange a fascist. Havelange was the former head of FIFA, the international soccer organization, and he became its head because he promised the countries of Asia and Africa some guaranteed slots in the World Cup, so they voted him in. Ask any black African about him, and you will be told, “He gave us five guaranteed slots in the World Cup.” Fascist? I don’t think so. (p. 168)

3. When confronted with the Other’s sports, how did the average American leftist react? I saw how they reacted back in the 1970s, when soccer first emerged into our national consciousness. They fled back to our sports. So much for respecting the Other. The people who have supported soccer in this country, the people who gave it its present visibility, were a collection of frat boys, sorority girls, military personnel, and people in the suburbs with small children. Just imagine, being outdone in open-mindedness by frat boys. Just imagine, frat boys were more respectful of the Other’s sports than leftists were.  (passim)

4. On 5/17/87, The New York Times Magazine published an article by Brent Staples in which he observed what had occasionally been noticed before, that blacks were seldom allowed to be pitcher in baseball and mostly were shunted into the outfield. Did this cause a big ruckus among leftists? Not at all. (p. 177)

5. While our two main school sports, football and basketball, cannot be accused of excluding blacks, they can be accused of excluding Asians. There are virtually no Asians on these teams. (p. 186)

6. While basketball has obviously been a boon for blacks in America, it hasn’t helped all black athletes, for the simple reason that one needs to be rather tall to play it. What about all those black athletes who aren’t tall enough for it? They've been excluded, and being excluded is bad, isn't it? Why choose as your favorite sport one that excludes so many people? One of the ironies of the black experience in America has been that blacks were excluded from so much on the basis of an irrelevant physical characteristic, their skin color, and they have rightly been angry about that, but then they have chosen as their favorite sport a sport that excludes on the basis of another physical characteristic, size. (p. 194)

7. Twice I have followed soccer teams here in America that had black South African stars. In the 1970s I followed the Minnesota Kicks, which had Ace Ntsoelengoe, and in the 1990s I followed the Columbus Crew, which had Doctor Khumalo. In neither case did the leftists in either region notice these people. It is hard to imagine such indifference if these people had been visiting authors or artists, but because they were soccer players, they could safely be ignored. (p. 170)

8. Recently, leftists have made a big deal out of hating the religion of Islam and have labeled this hatred “Islamophobia.” They obviously see Islamophobia as the equivalent of racism. But why should it be wrong to hate the dominant religion of the Middle East, which is Islam, but not the dominant sport of the Middle East, which is soccer? I’ve known plenty of leftists in this country who have hated soccer. Isn’t hating soccer also the equivalent of racism? If not, why not?  (p. 213)

Well, I could go on and on about this topic, about how leftists here in America have made asses out of themselves by refusing to get involved in soccer, by treating athletes in soccer as not worthy of the name, and by refusing to look critically at our sports. I am pretty confident that any fair-minded observer would not be a bit impressed by your calling me a racist, given your own similar sins. So, be off with you, and try to do better. And especially try to be more critical of yourself and less critical of others.

Comments

[Elrond Hubbard]

The Nation called Joao Havelange a fascist?
The Nation calls everyone a fascist, the word has become an all purpose pejorative and has lost any meaning it once had. It's the Left's "n" word.

[John Pepple]

Well, I suppose, but I think part of it was just that they had no idea of what he had done for Africa in terms of soccer.

[mtraven]

Isn’t hating soccer also the equivalent of racism? If not, why not?

No. Because "hating soccer" is a personal preference, not a political or social program. Some conservatives hate Islam and want to go to war with it. Even if you grant your premise that leftists have something against soccer, which I seriously doubt, they don't want to wage war, or oppress soccer fans, or anything even remotely like that.

Speaking for a large segment of the left, we could not give a rat's ass about professional sports of any kind. Your obsession with it borders on lunacy.

[John Pepple]

1. A religion is a personal preference, too. It is not primarily a political or social program.

2. If leftists don't have anything against soccer, then why isn't soccer treated the same way that our sports are in even the most progressive of America's newspapers? It is always treated as a second-class sport, at best.

3. No, leftists don't want to oppress soccer fans. But they don't want to help them, either. Many immigrants from Latin America love soccer, but they get no support for this from the typical "Anglo" leftist, though they get tons of support for other parts of their culture. It's inconsistent.

4. "Speaking for a large segment of the left, we could not give a rat's ass about professional sports of any kind." A number of years ago, Katha Pollitt complained about how most leftists she knew were obsessed with baseball.

4. Whether I'm a lunatic or not, all I'm doing is taking leftist principles and applying them to foreign sports. What does multiculturalism entail about foreign sports? Obviously, it entails that leftists ought to respect it. Yet, the typical multiculturalist in this country, especially if they are older, treats foreign sports no differently than the average redneck.

5. I may be obsessed with soccer, but then lots of people in the Third World are obsessed with soccer, too. How any leftist can ignore this and imagine that he or she is somehow in tune with the Third World is beyond me. It's just self-deception.

[mtraven]

It seems to me the left pays just about the right amount of attention to soccer, but obviously you disagree.

Far be it from me to tell someone else where to spend their mental energy. If you think you are going to remake the left by obsessing about soccer, knock yourself out.

[John Pepple]

1. You write, "It seems to me the left pays just about the right amount of attention to soccer." Let's see, baseball is hierarchical (the pitcher gets vastly more action than the outfielders), as is football (quarterbacks get more control over the action than the other players). In addition, football privileges the big, while basketball privileges the tall. Soccer is not hierarchical and it avoids privileging the oversized.

Nevertheless, you think that the left should continue to allow our media to emphasize non-progressive sports over a progressive sport like soccer. That speaks for itself, and I don't need to say anything more about how absurd it is.

2. You write, "If you think you are going to remake the left by obsessing about soccer, knock yourself out." Anyone who reads my blog can see perfectly well that I discuss many topics, not just soccer.

But in writing about soccer, I want something to be noted for the historical record, namely that when confronted with part of the Other's culture, the left was repulsed while people on the right were not.

I'm tired of reading articles and books by leftists about the Other, because the assumption is always that the left is good and the right is bad. The left is good because it treats the Other with respect while the right doesn't. Sorry, but that wasn't what I saw when I got involved in soccer. As a leftist, it wasn't what I wanted to see, but it is in fact what I did see, and I think leftists should be honest enough to admit this.

[mtraven]

Your blog software doesn't seem to allow links or italics in comments. You might want to turn that on. I included this link:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Athenation.com+soccer

to show that the left (represented by The Nation) does write about soccer.

Also, you say "...the left was repulsed while people on the right were not." I have not been studying the history of political takes on soccer for the last 30 years like you, but in the recent World Cup the right was all over mocking it for its foreignness. EG: http://www.thenation.com/blog/glenn-becks-blues-why-far-right-hates-world-cup . I did not see anything remotely comparable from the left.

[John Pepple]

Thanks for the heads-up about tweaking my blog.

This is the ninth World Cup I’ve watched, and the first eight had the same pattern: lots of soccer bashing, and no leftists defending it. This time there were leftists bashing conservatives who bashed soccer. There were also conservatives commenting on the Internet that they were conservative but that they liked soccer. And as you say, there were no leftists bashing soccer. Why?

Back in the 1970s, there were leftists who bashed soccer. Leftist media like The Nation, In These Times, and NPR never had a good word to say about it. I stopped paying attention to them quite a while ago.

What has changed between then and now? I can only guess. First, some of the old guard has died off, and a new generation of leftists that has grown up with soccer has taken its place. For them soccer is simply a part of life.

Second, some of the leftists who refused to get involved back in the 70s got involved later on because their kids were playing on teams. Gradually, they learned a little about the game (not just the rules, but the names of the European teams, and so on), even if they didn’t become fans.

Third, it’s pretty easy to travel to foreign countries these days, and once there one is immersed in the culture, like it or not. I know a couple of leftist baseball fans who love Italy and gradually they have decided to follow soccer, simply from seeing how ardently it’s followed over there.

So, gradually more and more on the left have come to like the game. Plus, this World Cup was in Africa rather than Europe, and that may have caused more interest.

I’m assuming, however, that there are still plenty of leftists, especially older leftists, who hate the sport, but now keep quiet about it. Plus, the fans at the games seem to skew to the middle or the right. This is shown by the advertisers for televised games, which include the Army or the Marines, but never something like Whole Foods.

Plus, our media still acts almost as though it was the 1950s when it comes to sports, and leftists don’t seem to be in any hurry to change this. If you want to see a newspaper in this country that is wild about soccer, you have to look at the foreign-language press (for example, La Opinion from Los Angeles, whose front page you can look at on newseum.org).

And I am frequently astonished when I discover how ignorant some leftists can be about things that are well-known outside of the U.S. When the movie Bend It Like Beckham came along, the NY Times reviewer admitted he had never heard of the guy. Garrison Keillor in his book Homegrown Democrat talks about how traveling businessmen can talk basketball when they take cabs from the airport because the driver is usually black. In fact, most of those drivers are from Africa, where soccer and not basketball is the main sport. Lots of leftists seem unaware that Nick Hornby’s first book was on soccer, or that Lynne Truss (who wrote a book on punctuation a few years back) had a soccer column in the Times of London back in the 1990s (and a very funny one, too).

And, let’s face it, I don’t know of any leftist in this country who knows much of anything about the sport of cricket (not counting recent immigrants from cricket-playing countries). And yet, cricket is huge in south Asia. Since south Asia has over a billion people in it, one would think that that number alone would encourage leftists to learn a little about the sport. I have certainly learned a little, even though I have no interest in it as a sport. Yet, leftists don’t bother, and that is one reason why I think that the multicultural movement has been a farce. The people who should know more than other Americans are either just as ignorant, or even more ignorant, than most Americans.