now it gets difficult: beijing paralympics begin today

The 2008 Paralympics begin today.

It wasn't at all difficult for me to boycott the Olympics. I was so disgusted by Beijing, the IOC and everything surrounding the Games, that I had no desire to watch anything.

The Paralympics - the Olympics for athletes with disabilities - are different. I love these games. I know dozens of former and current Paralympic athletes, and I've been involved with disability sports, through my writing, for more than 20 years. I've also just spent a good chunk of my summer talking to North American athletes who are competing in Beijing. I can't help but feel hopeful for them, and eager to see their results.

But I won't.

Well, I will need to look up some results to slug into stories, but I won't do any more than is necessary.

Rather than try to explain why I love the Paralympics so much, I'll reference an old story of mine. I wrote it for Sportsjones.com, which was a terrific, in-depth online magazine about sports and society. Naturally it was bought out by a huge commercial sports publisher, then immediately killed. This is what happens to interesting writing ventures that need commercial funding. You can see the front page of Sportsjone's final edition to see the kinds of stories they ran.

When the Paralympics were in Atlanta in 1996, I wrote about them extensively. Leading up to Atlanta, I wrote a series of stories for New Mobility magazine, then covered the Games themselves, a crazy, exhausting and wildly enjoyable week, and a highlight of my writing career. I also sold a fair amount of Paralympic-related stories to more mainstream newspapers and magazines. It was a sizeable leap in my resume.

Four years later, for the Sydney Paralympics, I did some preview stories, but by that time I had tired of writing the kinds of stories that most mainstream venues want. I can write the overcoming-obstacles, doesn't-let-disability-stop-him story in my sleep. Every Paralympic athlete has overcome tremendous obstacles. It comes with the territory. On its own, as writing material, it's just not that interesting to me anymore.

So in 2000, the only Paralympic stories I wanted to write were ones that no one wanted to publish - until I found Sportsjones. Allan wrote for them, too, which was fun.

Here's the Sportsjones story (in pdf). It's long, but not as long as the page numbers would indicate; many pages have only a line or two of copy.

In response to this story, I received the best blurb of my entire writing career thus far (scroll down to "more information").

The blurb writer is the indomitable Russ Kick, who edits the "Disinformation" series: You Are Being Lied To, Everything You Know Is Wrong and Abuse Your Illusions, among other books. Shameless self-promotion, yes, but praise like this is very rare in a writer's life!

I also received some very negative feedback from families involved in the Special Olympics, who didn't care for my characterization of that event. That was interesting, too.

If you do read the Sportsjones pdf, there is good news. By 2004, the USOC was shamed into doing the right thing. Funding has been restored, and vertical integration is standard now, in both the US and Canada.

I wish my friends in Beijing a lot of luck. I hope it's a great experience for them. I'm sorry I won't be watching.

war in afghanistan does not belong in olympic torch relay

During the debate about whether or not to watch the Olympics and Paralympics, some people decried the "politicizing" of the Olympic games. This reveals an ignorance of history, as the modern Olympics always have been used for political means. Indeed, the IOC choosing Beijing in the first place is a political act.

This morning I read:

Ottawa is urging the Vancouver Winter Olympics organizing committee to put the Afghanistan war at the heart of the symbolically laden torch relay, saying that the first torch carriers could be veterans of the seven-year-old conflict.

The federal government is also pushing to have Canada's French and English "linguistic duality" highlighted by the relay, going so far as to propose a list of 83 communities that could be part of the run -- and provide a chunk of the roster of torch bearers, expected to number 12,000.

Both those proposals are put forward in an undated memo from the official languages group of the 2010 Federal Secretariat obtained by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin under an access-to-information request. The proposals on the torch relay follow revelations last week in The Globe and Mail that the Harper government provided $20-million for the opening ceremony of the Winter Games to ensure the event "adequately reflects" its priorities and "to achieve its domestic and international branding goals."

This touches on a recurring theme in my home.

A government parading troops or veterans for other-than-military purposes is a political act. Putting "Support Our Troops" stickers on city-owned vehicles is a political act - as is questioning the patriotism of anyone who objects to it. But the people who do this proceed as if these acts are neutral. They are seen as non-political, because they come from a position of power, from authority.

Anyone who disagrees, however, is making a political statement.

We see this all the time in baseball, which, like many sports cultures, is generally conservative. Moments-of-silence for soldiers who are "defending our way of life" - that is, cheerleading for the war in Iraq! - is neutral. Objecting to the public display, or quietly refusing to participate, is bringing politics into baseball, shame on you!

The Harper Government wants to use the 2010 Olympics as a vehicle for its own agenda, and isn't above exploiting veterans to do it. If Harper is so concerned with Canada's "brand", he wouldn't have eliminated funding for the promotion of Canadian culture internationally. But then, he's not concerned with Canada's brand. He's concerned with the Government's "domestic and international branding goals". That is, his own agenda.

Hopefully that will not be Canada's agenda much longer.

keeping that tv off: more reasons to boycott beijing

A little reminder of why I'm not watching the Beijing Olympics.

Two elderly Chinese women who applied to hold a protest during the Olympics were ordered to spend a year in a labor camp, a relative said Wednesday. Police later squelched a pro-Tibet demonstration.

The women were still at home three days after being officially notified they would have to serve a yearlong term of reeducation through labor, but were under surveillance by a government-backed neighborhood group, said Li Xuehui, the son of one of the women.

Li said no cause was given for the order to imprison his 79-year-old mother, Wu Dianyuan, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77.

"Wang Xiuying is almost blind and disabled. What sort of re-education through labor can she serve?" Li said in a telephone interview. "But they can also be taken away at any time."

Meanwhile, swarms of plainclothes police set upon four foreign activists early Thursday as they tried to stage a protest against Chinese rule over Tibet — the latest in a series of unsanctioned demonstrations to occur during the Olympics.

Beijing announced last month that it would allow protests in three parks far from the Olympic venues during the games but they had to be approved in advance. Of the some 77 applications lodged so far, none have been approved, and rights groups have called the zones a charade.

The four unfurled a Tibetan flag and shouted "Free Tibet" south of the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium, the New York-based Students for a Free Tibet said. It put the number of police at 50; a spokeswoman for the Beijing Public Security Bureau declined comment.

"The fact that there were so many undercover police following them it just made them go with the action urgently," said Kate Woznow, the group's campaigns director.

Two Associated Press photographers were roughed up by plainclothes security officers, forced into cars and taken to a nearby building where they were questioned before being released. Memory cards from their cameras were confiscated.

The four activists — whose whereabouts were not known — were identified by Students for a Free Tibet as Tibetan-German Florien Norbu Gyanatshang, 30; Mandie McKeown, 41, of Britain; and Americans Jeremy Wells, 38 and John Watterberg, 30.[More here.]

globe and mail story about personal olympic boycott

Last week a writer from the Globe and Mail contacted me about my personal boycott of the Olympics. She had a nice talk, and I referred her to M@, who she also interviewed.

The story is out today. The writer was looking for family conflict - varying views within one family and how they deal with that - which doesn't apply in my case. She did work in a mention of me, though, which was proper, since she found her main source through wmtc! I'm described as "a Toronto-based American", which is a bit amusing. I'm sure Werner Patels is getting a lot of traffic this morning.

Last weekend at work, two co-workers asked me if I'm watching the Olympics, so we had an opportunity to talk a little about why I'm not. It helped renew my good feeling about my own choice. Right now I'm interviewing a lot of Paralympic athletes who will be competing in Beijing. That's something I'm really going to miss.

sally jenkins: "the clouded air is just the most observable sign"

From Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post. It's an excellent piece, and I hope you'll read the whole thing. All emphasis mine.

You only have to breathe the air to understand that these Olympics aren't about sport. They're about corporate profit, a propaganda stage for the Chinese government, and the moral collapse of the Olympic movement, but the very last thing they're about is excellence or the well-being of the athletes. The real interests, the real priorities, are in the air.

A haze the color of dishwater hangs over the billion-dollar advertising billboards of profiteers such as General Electric and Visa. The miasma that forms over the vaunted futuristic Beijing skyline makes the industrial-aesthetic high-rises look like nuclear cooling towers. A smoke curtain lifts and falls, occasionally parting to reveal blue sky, as well as the workings of Chinese state power: Despite the fog, the China Daily said that it was "clear" Monday , and that the city is "green and beautiful." Very well then. It smells like roses.

Beijing has its splendors: ambrosial pear juice and duck skin in coarse sugar, ancient gnarled cypresses, bending willow trees, palaces with concealed courts, and sprawling districts in which nationalities blend into a worldly sauntering crowd. But the air is not one of those splendors. In fact, depending on which way the wind blows, it can seem as if the countryside is burning, or as if you are standing behind the tailpipe of a bus.

Athletes are threatening to skip the Opening Ceremonies because they're afraid the environment of the host city will sicken them or compromise their medal chances, and distance runner Haile Gebrselassie dropped out of the marathon because the fumes are too heavy for him to run that distance. The Chinese government has labored for years to clear the air in Beijing, with some success. But in the meantime the Games themselves have become polluted. No governing body truly interested in peak physical performance, in helping athletes to be swifter, higher or stronger, would have awarded the Games to a venue in which you can see the poisons in the air. According to Greenpeace's local director, Lo Sze Ping: "Beijing's air quality is not up to what the world is expecting from an Olympic host city. The sports teams have reason to be concerned."

So what is this Olympics really about? It's about 12 major corporations and their panting ambitions to tap into China's 1.3 billion consumers, the world's third-largest economy. Understand this: The International Olympic Committee is nothing more than a puppet for its corporate "partners," without whom there would be no Games. These major sponsors pay the IOC's bills for staging the Olympics to the tune of $7 billion per cycle. Without them, and their designs on the China market, Beijing probably would not have won the right to host the Summer Games.

Seven years ago, in controversially awarding the Games to the Chinese regime, the IOC assured us that a Beijing Games would be both beneficial and benevolent, and promote a more open society. Chinese officials, too, vowed that the Games would not only foster their economy but "enhance all social conditions, including education, health and human rights."

The clouded air is just the most observable sign of the many unfulfilled promises since then. If the society has opened somewhat, there has also been a specific crackdown on dissidents as a direct result of the Olympics. Thousands of people have been rounded up and jailed for expressing dissent -- right now a man named Hu Jia is in a prison just outside Beijing for "inciting subversion" because he testified via Webcam before the European Union that the Chinese government wasn't living up to its Olympic commitments. Hu is ill with hepatitis B and undergoing "reform" in Chaobai prison, while his family is under constant surveillance. The crackdown continued this week with the jailing of several farmers, and efforts to censor the Olympic media. Amnesty International estimates that half a million people are being held without charges here.

Anyone who believed the Chinese government would use the Olympics as an opportunity to become a human rights beacon and environmental model was either softheaded, or lying. Capitalism is not the same thing as democracy. China's interest then and now was the consolidation of state power via economics. The government is merely behaving as it always has.

But the bad air here has shown the IOC and its commercial sponsors in an especially ugly and damning light. They have been conspicuous cowards in dealing with Chinese officials, and maybe even outright collaborators, on every issue from human rights to the environment to censorship. The silence of IOC President Jacques Rogge in the face of the continuing dissident sweeps amounts to complicity. "In view of my responsibilities, I have lost some of my freedom of speech," he said last week. Rogge's idea of a solution to the thorny problems of these Games is to hope "the magic" will take over once they begin.

Most disgraceful of all is the fact that six of the 12 worldwide Olympic partners are American companies. This has to heart-sicken any patriot. These companies will reap the full exposure of the Summer Games, swathing themselves in the flag, and rationalizing that their business is helping uplift the Chinese people. Don't buy it -- or them. You should know exactly who they are: General Electric (which owns NBC), Coca-Cola, Visa, McDonald's, Kodak, and Johnson & Johnson. (The others are Canadian-based Manulife Financial; Lenovo, the Chinese personal computer maker; the French information technology services company Atos Origin; the Swiss watch manufacturer Omega; Panasonic; and Samsung.) When these acquiesced to the Chinese government's crackdown, and effectively accepted the censorship of the press during these Games, they fell into a special category of profiteers that Franklin Delano Roosevelt described in his "Four Freedoms" speech.

"We must especially beware of that small group of selfish men who would clip the wings of the American eagle in order to feather their own nests," Roosevelt said.

It's plain that the Chinese people have worked mightily to create a beautiful Beijing Games, from the elegantly manicured gardens to the whisked-clean streets, and that they are a source of immense national pride. No one could wish to injure that pride, and every one wishes them a successful Games. But the Olympics are not solely about the host, they are about all the participating nations, and the common goal of "preservation of human dignity." The moment it became apparent that the Beijing Olympics was causing a crackdown, and that basic Olympic values were being constricted rather than expanded, these Olympic partners should have spoken out, and threatened to withdraw if abuses didn't halt. When they didn't, it cast a permanent pall over these Games. Like the air here, the Olympic movement is struggling for a clean breath.

I'v heard it said that people in North America have no right to outrage and disgust over the Beijing Olympics, because our hands are not clean. Our countries damage the environment, they don't respect human rights, there is poverty, there is inequality. This is all true. But dirt is dirt. We should condemn it wherever we find it.

Can people in the UK or Iran or Peru criticize the US and Canada, even though their countries may also have skeletons in their closets? Of course they can. Concerned North Americans are no different. It's not as if by criticizing China, I am claiming that Canada is perfect.

Not criticizing China because we think we appear racist or North-America-centric seems to me like racist pandering, however unintentional. We are all human beings. All governments have a responsibility to people, and all people have a responsibility to the planet. There are no exceptions.

Many thanks to s1c for alerting me to this excellent piece, and to Sally Jenkins for reminding us of what's really going on in Beijing.

beijing offends, apologizes, then tries again

When the guide for volunteers at the Beijing Paralympics was published, athletes with disabilities - and their advocates and fans - were shocked. The manual was crammed with outdated, offensive, and downright stupid language, more in keeping with the 19th Century than the 21st.

This story in Australia's Herald Sun says Beijing organizers could use a "swift education in political correctness". I'd say they could use a lesson in humanity, decency and plain old common sense.

Disabled people can be unsocial, stubborn, controlling, and defensive according to an official Beijing Olympics guide.

The Olympic manual for volunteers in Beijing is peppered with patronising comments, noting for example that physically disabled people are "often" mentally healthy.

Volunteers at the Olympics and Paralympics are instructed not to call Paralympians or disabled spectators "crippled" or "lame", even if they are "just joking".

The document, which indicates the Chinese hosts could use a swift education in political correctness, says the optically disabled "seldom show strong emotions".

"Physically disabled people are often mentally healthy," adds the guide.

"They show no differences in sensation, reaction, memorisation and thinking mechanism from other people, but they might have unusual personalities because of disfigurement and disability.

"For example, some physically disabled are isolated, unsocial, and introspective; they usually do not volunteer to contact people.

"They can be stubborn and controlling; they may be sensitive and struggle with trust issues.

"Sometimes they are overly protective of themselves, especially when they are called crippled or paralysed."

Volunteers are instructed never to "stare at their disfigurement".

"A patronising or condescending attitude will be easily sensed by them, even for a brain damaged patient (though he cannot control his limbs, he is able to see and understand like other people).

"Like most, he can read your body language," says the 2008 volunteer guide.

"Show respect when you talk with them.

"Do not use cripple or lame, even if you are just joking.

"Though life has handed many difficulties to them, disabled people are often independent and self-reliant.

"Volunteers should offer assistance on a basis of equality and mutual respect...

"Disabled people can be defensive and have a strong sense of inferiority."

I was so flabbergasted when I read this, I hardly knew where to begin. This column in the (California) Contra Costa Times does a nice job.

Perhaps the authors never met Staff Sgt. Josh Olson, a veteran of the Iraq War who lost his leg to a roadside bomb and now uses his marksmanship skills as a shooter on the U.S. Paralympic team.

If they had, they would never say he has a "strong sense of inferiority."

Maybe they've never come across swimmer Jessica Long, a double below-the-knee amputee with her heart set on a huge medal haul inside Beijing's "Water Cube." If they had, there's no way they would describe her as "isolated, unsocial and introspective."

Surely, they've never gotten to know me, a basketball-player-turned-sportswriter born with mild cerebral palsy. If they had, they certainly wouldn't claim I have an "unusual personality because of (a) disfigurement or disability."

Yet all of those sweeping generalizations still came to the surface inside a training manual given to volunteers of both this summer's Olympic and Paralympic Games. Ignorance, backwards thinking and a poor choice of words are all rolled into a 20-page section titled "Skills for helping the disabled."

On the surface, such material seems well-intended, but those good intentions are almost totally lost upon a single reading. Instead, a helpful tool comes across as a cruel, humorless joke crafted by people who don't know the first thing about discretion or tact.

Exhibit A: "Paralympic athletes and disabled spectators are a special group. They have unique personalities and ways of thinking."

Exhibit B: "Sometimes they are overly protective of themselves. ... Do not use 'crippled' or 'lame,' even if you are just joking."

The language is so offensive, so over the top, Olympic organizers recently requested a rewrite and on Monday offered an apology. Quite frankly, that's exactly what they should've done.

When it comes to human-rights issues, China is already under an intense microscope because of its actions in Tibet and Darfur. To paint such a broad picture of disabled athletes using a purely stereotypical brush certainly doesn't help. And it hardly meshes with the open-arms idea of the Olympic movement.

Zhang Qiuping, director of Beijing's Paralympic Games, told the Associated Press, "Probably it's a cultural difference and mistranslation. ... We've already asked the author to modify the relevant content."

Even if there was something lost in translation, is such a guideline really necessary? Who requires tangible literature to understand the simple notion of decency, tolerance and respect? And if enlightenment truly is required, can't it be obtained on the playing field, where every competitor in Beijing has overcome sizable, deeply personal obstacles just to get there?

Consider Olson. His life was forever changed when a rocket-propelled grenade hit his truck while on night patrol in Northern Iraq in 2003, severing his right leg. Olson spent months at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and was later invited to compete on the U.S. Army marksmanship unit, a break that kick-started his Olympic dream.

"For me, it is an opportunity," said Olson, recipient of the Purple Heart. "I was always taught growing up to never quit."

What about Long? The 2006 Paralympian of the Year, she was born without the long bones in both of her legs. At 18 months, she had surgery to remove her misshapen feet.

When we met in April, Long, now 16, recounted a story of watching the kids in her neighborhood run up a hill with little effort, knowing it would be hard for her to do the same because the surface wasn't flat (she gets around using prosthetics). I instantly began to nod. Having a disability sometimes means routine tasks require great effort, but you dig deep and get the job done.

"I think I got my determination from my disability," said Long, who won nine gold medals at the 2006 world championships and last year beat out Michael Phelps and Candace Parker for the Sullivan Award. "There's nothing I can't do. It's better to (think like that) than staying in my room and being ashamed."

If the volunteers in Beijing really need "skills for helping the disabled," that's the best insight they could ask for.

After a nearly global outcry, Beijing organizers apologized, pulled the offensive manual and said they will publish a new volunteer guide.

Some people have tried to explain this away as a "cultural misunderstanding". I've met Paralympic athletes from many countries, including many developing nations. Most told me about strong national and community support for athletes with disabilities. If official Chinese culture is this behind the times on disability, then it shouldn't be hosting the Paralympics.

child slavery in china

From Reuters:

Thousands of children in southwest China have been sold into slavery like "cabbages", to work as labourers in more prosperous areas such as the booming southern province of Guangdong, a newspaper said on Tuesday.

China announced a nationwide crackdown on slavery and child labor last year after reports that hundreds of poor farmers, children and mentally disabled were forced to work in kilns and mines in Shanxi province and neighboring Henan.

"The bustling child labor market (in Sichuan province) was set up by the local chief foreman and his gang of 18 minor foremen, who each manage 50 to 100 child labourers," the Southern Metropolis Newspaper said.

"The children generally fall between the ages of 13 and 15, but many look under 10," it added.

The newspaper said 76 children from the same county, Liangshan, had been missing since the Chinese Lunar Year festival in February, 42 of whom had already left the region to work.

"The youngest kids found in the child labor market were only seven and nine years old," it said.

According to a contract exposed by an undercover reporter, a child laborer is paid 3.5 yuan ($0.50) an hour and must work at least 300 hours a month.

"These kids are robust and can do the toughest work," a foreman was quoted as saying, as he pulled a scrawny girl to stand beside him, the paper said.

And meanwhile, guess where the uniforms for Team Canada are being made?

When I wrote about not watching the Olympics because of China's rampant human rights abuses, I was slammed for... well, what wasn't I slammed for. Western hypocrisy, because you're only allowed to be outraged if you come from Ideal World Where Everyone Is Perfect. Ineffectiveness, since not watching the Olympics will not in itself solve the world's problems. Politicizing the supposedly apolitical Olympics, which are awarded to countries to curry trade and political favours. Arrogance, because boycotting China supposedly implies I think the US is just grand. Bigotry, because China is in Asia and I am white.

Not watching the Beijing Olympics and Paralympics is a symbolic action. Just like the torch relay is a symbol, and protests against it symbolic, too. Like standing for a national anthem, or remaining seated.

Not watching the Olympics, in itself, solves nothing. But if I don't watch the Olympics, and I tell you why, perhaps you will talk about it around your dinner table or on your own blog. Perhaps more people will learn about what is happening in China.

If enough people don't watch the 2008 Summer Olympics because they are being held in Beijing, perhaps the IOC and Beijing will notice.

Surely it's not sufficient. But just as surely, it's worth doing.

tutu says boycott beijing

How did I miss this? Earlier this week, Archbishop Desmond Tutu called on world leaders to boycott the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu said Tuesday he supported international protests surrounding the Olympic torch and urged world leaders to boycott the games' opening ceremony in Beijing over China's human rights record.

The retired Anglican archbishop from South Africa also called on China to negotiate with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner, who is seeking autonomy for Tibet.

Tutu praised protesters who have put themselves on the line in Paris, San Francisco and elsewhere to protest last month's crackdown in Tibet, which claimed as many as 140 lives.

In particular, he applauded three climbers who hung pro-Tibet banners Monday from the Golden Gate Bridge.

"I salute them," he said.

Tutu was in San Francisco to receive the Outspoken Award from the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission for his work on behalf of gay and lesbian rights.

Desmond Tutu is a hero of mine and proof that religion can be a positive force in the world. Not in my own life, of course! But in the fight for social justice.

moral illogic part 2: supporting freedom, but not if it makes too much noise

The pro-Tibet movement continues to steal the spotlight from the Olympic torch relay.

In San Francisco, planned protests were substantial enough to back the city into a corner, and they pulled a last-minute route change. Although I can understand why protesters and spectators would be frustrated, I hope pro-Tibet organizers realize that they won the day. They are still the biggest news.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has joined German Chancellor Angela Merkel in her decision not to attend the Opening Ceremonies. He says it's not a boycott but nobody believes him.

And while the anti-China, pro-Tibet protests continue, a growing number of Canadians and Americans are outraged. But not about China - about the protests.

You can read their fist-pounding letters to the editors in your local newspaper, or find them on dozens of blogs. They're in a lather over the protesters turning into "thugs" and "resorting to violence". A commonly heard sentiment goes something like, "Now that the protests have turned violent and protesters are committing vandalism, I question my support for Tibet!"

You may recall my post about people who claim to be against the Iraq War, but who think war resisters should be deported and jailed because "they signed a contract". This is the same theme.

The authoritarian streak in so many ordinary people amazes me. Some people are so besotted with order that their moral code runs for cover when the voice of the people gets too loud. If you are in such a huff because a protest turned rowdy or (heaven forbid!) somebody's property was damaged that you would actually stop sympathizing with people struggling against an occupation, I have to question your core values. People clash with police over a protest against China, and the protesters are the "thugs"? Not China?

I don't expect everyone to share my belief that violence is sometimes a necessary and useful tool in a movement. And not everyone understands how the media portrays protester violence out of all proportion to reality, and how often violence attributed to protesters is actually instigated by police.

But are you so indoctrinated with order that when some people in a freedom movement become disorderly, you would rather support totalitarianism?

torch relay spotlights civil disobedience on a global scale

I have been thrilled to see the continued, sustained protest during the the Olympic torch relay. The torch's progress around the globe has turned out to be a public-relations nightmare for China and the IOC, and a boon for civil disobedience.

In London, the torch was hit with a fire extinguisher. In Paris, the runners gave up, doused the flame and boarded a bus. Protesters in San Francisco used their magnificent bridge to put on a show. (Some photos here.) In England, the torch protests had the support of two high-profile athletes, something I really admire.

The mainstream media has latched onto this, and China can't make it disappear. Curmudgeons and authoritarians everywhere are wringing their hands, but the people are being heard. Every successful protest gives future protesters more courage. It's exciting.

three canadian women take on china - and the world watches

From yesterday's Globe and Mail, I learned that the organizers behind pro-Tibet protest at the Olympic torch-lighting ceremony were three Canadian women. Doug Saunders wrote a good, lengthy piece on how they did it. Worth reading.

This was supposed to be China's week. The launch of the longest Olympic torch relay in history was heralded in the Chinese press as a spectacle that would bring the nation glory, until Monday, when editors of Beijing's newspapers struggled to edit blood-covered Tibetan protesters out of photos of the torch-lighting ceremony in Olympia, Greece.

China's week has become Tibet's moment. Tibetans and their supporters are being driven by the belief that this Olympic year and its vast media attention are a last opportunity to challenge Beijing's rule. It now looks like activists have succeeded in making China's 57-year occupation of the territory the dominant issue of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Behind this dramatic capture of the world's attention are three young women from British Columbia, who have spent much of the seven years since China won the Games organizing thousands of international volunteers and hundreds of Tibet-related organizations into a six-month campaign of stealth activism intended to humiliate China before an international audience.

Standing just to the edge of the TV cameras in Greece on Monday was Kate Woznow, a 28-year-old Vancouverite who organized the day's attention-grabbing interventions — blood-covered Tibetans lay down in front of the torch carrier during the lighting ceremony — from the offices of Students for a Free Tibet in New York, where she runs the Olympic-related campaign:

We realized seven years ago, when China got the Olympics, what an incredible opportunity this would be to shine a spotlight on the terrible treatment of Tibet," she said as she arrived in London to organize a day of demonstrations to coincide with the torch's arrival in Beijing on Monday.

The Tibet cause has been popular on campuses for years, and has attracted celebrities such as actor Richard Gere, but it has long had the somewhat passive image typified by bumper stickers and drum circles. The runup to the Olympics has changed that, as have the events in Tibet this month, which have reportedly seen more than 100 Tibetans killed by Chinese authorities in nationwide uprisings that seem to have been spurred by the Olympics protests.

"Young people really got it; they've been signing up and telling us that they have a real determination to push the bar, to make this the year when there's some change for Tibet. They know that every media organization in the world is going to be focused on the Olympics, so for years we've realized that what we have to do is to be creative and find ways to insert the Tibet issue into that frame."

As Ms. Woznow was bailing the Tibetan students out of Greek jail (the two who appeared most prominently on TV were Swiss citizens), another B.C. woman, 28-year-old Freya Putt, was in her office in Washington, preparing documents that would be sent to 150 Tibet support groups around the world giving them detailed notes on how to behave when organizing similar disruptions as the torch makes its six-month trip around the world.

Story here.

"even the pope calls for peace"

Much is being made of the fact that the US has now lost 4,000 troops in Iraq, and that this terrible milestone was reached on Easter.

Since I'm not Christian, and since most of the people being killed in Iraq are not Christian, I can't say I find the Easter date very significant. And the 4,000 number, though awful, is deceptive, when there's at least 90,000, possibly more than 1,000,000, Iraqi dead (and they're all civilians!), around 60,000 Americans wounded, who knows how many Iraqis wounded, along with untold physical and psychological destruction.

But if Easter helps people think about peace, then Easter it is. Why not.

Here are some people who want us to think about peace. This protest took place during an Easter morning mass at Holy Name Cathedral, said to be Chicago's most prominent Catholic church, and the home of arch-conservative Cardinal Francis George.

I love protests that disrupt big ceremonies. They're great attention-getters, especially now that the protests enjoy an extended after-life on YouTube. Some Tibetan protesters disrupted today's Olympic torch ceremony in Greece.

That's Liu Qi, president of the Beijing Olympics Organizing Committee, at the microphone. Other Tibetan protesters lay in the road in the path of the torch-bearers.

IOC head Jacques Rogge was on hand to say that the 2008 Games are advancing human rights in China. (It would be nice to have some other source besides China corroborate that.) In fact, Rogge suggested that the military crackdown in Tibet is only world news because of the Olympics.

He said the current violence in Tibet is an example of how the Games have brought human rights issues in the region to the fore.

"Tibet, rightfully so, is on the front page. But it would not be on the front page if the Games were not being organized in China."

By that logic, the Olympic Games should be held only in countries with the worst human-rights records.

But I got news for Jacques Rogge. The world is watching Tibet, and we would be watching anyway.

why i won't watch the beijing olympics

I've been meaning to post about China and the Olympics for a long time. Now China's current military crackdown in Tibet has given me an excuse to focus on it.

I clearly remember learning that Beijing would host the 2008 Olympics, how stunned, and disgusted, and betrayed I felt. With that, any lingering illusions I had about the International Olympics Committee were stripped away. Giving the Olympics to China was the final admission of how political, corrupt, and morally bankrupt the IOC is.

In 1980, the United States and Canada boycotted the Moscow Olympics because of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Japan, West Germany, China, and a few other countries joined the boycott; other countries made protests statements but didn't boycott.

A boycott of the Olympics because of an invasion. Seems kind of quaint now, doesn't it?

No one wants to piss off China. No wants to risk losing that powerful trading partner and access to all those cheap goods. Doing business with China means "staying competitive" - that is, ignoring the labour, safety, consumer and environmental standards your own country has built. And buying "Made In China" lets us all extend our standard of living. We buy artificially cheap products, and never count the true costs.

It's easy to sell cheap when you run sweatshops, dump untreated contaminants into the environment, have zero safety or health standards, and zero quality control.

So the western world, with its massive corporate and consumer power, doesn't just stay out of China's way. We reward China with the Olympics.

* * * *

No one blog post can detail China's many abuses. But although I can't do justice to the subject, I should at least give it a shot. So here, in no particular order, is why I won't be watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Tibet: China's continuing occupation of this sovereign, peaceful nation.

Darfur: China is Sudan's largest trading partner and the main foreign investor in its oil industry. Most Western oil companies, under pressure from human rights organizations, have withdrawn from Sudan. And although we know that economic isolation and divestment can have a very powerful, positive effect (think South Africa), China continues to do business with Sudan, enabling slavery and genocide.

China: The list of China's abuses of its own people is a long and shameful one.

-- China executes more of its citizens than the rest of the capital-punishment countries combined and doubled. While China has a much larger population than those other countries, its rate of execution is still disproportionate. China has more capital crimes, and is believed to have more hidden executions and political executions, than any other country in the world.

-- China jails (and also executes) thousands of activists, political dissidents, journalists, and ordinary citizens who attempt free expression. Reporters Without Borders is a good source for civil liberty and human rights abuses in China, as is Human Rights Watch.

-- China's labour laws are a sad joke. Factory conditions sound like something out of Dickens or Upton Sinclair.

-- China pollutes water, air and soil with impunity, poisoning and sickening its citizens for generations to come.

This is the country that has been rewarded with the 2008 Olympic Games.

Some people believe that the international attention brought by the Olympics can be used to leverage change. Do they really believe that? Or they don't care, and only use this as lip service?

In the entire history of the universe, has change ever been made, anywhere, by giving a reward before anything has changed?

If you want to teach your child, or your dog, or your partner, that they must change their behaviour, do you hand them a huge reward, then ask them to change?

It's pretty basic. It's Psychology 101. If the IOC wanted to use the Olympics to effect change, it would have told China: clean up your act, and we'll consider you for future games. Here's a list of specific changes we want to see. You might have gotten the Olympics, but we won't reward you as long as you continue these crimes.

* * * *

An effective consumer boycott of Chinese products is virtually impossible. What's more - as we learned in the pet food scandal - many products labelled Fabriqué au Canada and Made In USA only get their final assembly or processing in those countries, with parts and materials that originate in China. Unless China is forced to deal humanely and fairly with workers, the environment and consumers - or unless North American businesses are forced into a trade embargo - or both - Chinese products will always undersell those made in North America. And we want to buy everything as cheaply as possible, so we can buy, buy, buy, more, more, more.

There are scattered calls to boycott the Beijing Olympics but they don't get any traction. Not because it's too late. Because no one wants to piss off China.

I'm just having my own boycott. I usually glue myself to the Olympics. This year my TV will stay off.




Photo from Reporters Without Borders, thanks to James.

meet christine daniels

As I'm reading a book by a cross-gendered person, about her experience crossing from manhood to womanhood, this column by an L.A. Times sportswriter makes the news.

Old Mike, new Christine
By Mike Penner, Times Staff Writer

During my 23 years with The Times' sports department, I have held a wide variety of roles and titles. Tennis writer. Angels beat reporter. Olympics writer. Essayist. Sports media critic. NFL columnist. Recent keeper of the Morning Briefing flame.

Today I leave for a few weeks' vacation, and when I return, I will come back in yet another incarnation.

As Christine.

I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words. I realize many readers and colleagues and friends will be shocked to read them.

That's OK. I understand that I am not the only one in transition as I move from Mike to Christine. Everyone who knows me and my work will be transitioning as well. That will take time. And that's all right. To borrow a piece of well-worn sports parlance, we will take it one day at a time.

Transsexualism is a complicated and widely misunderstood medical condition. It is a natural occurrence — unusual, no question, but natural.

Recent studies have shown that such physiological factors as genetics and hormonal fluctuations during pregnancy can significantly affect how our brains are "wired" at birth.

As extensive therapy and testing have confirmed, my brain was wired female.

A transgender friend provided the best and simplest explanation I have heard: We are born with this, we fight it as long as we can, and in the end it wins.

I gave it as good a fight as I possibly could. I went more than 40 hard rounds with it. Eventually, though, you realize you are only fighting yourself and your happiness and your mental health — a no-win situation any way you look at it.

When you reach the point when one gender causes heartache and unbearable discomfort, and the other brings more joy and fulfillment than you ever imagined possible, it shouldn't take two tons of bricks to fall in order to know what to do.

It didn't with me.

With me, all it took was 1.99 tons.

For more years than I care to count, I was scared to death over the prospect of writing a story such as this one. It was the most frightening of all the towering mountains of fear I somehow had to confront and struggle to scale.

How do you go about sharing your most important truth, one you spent a lifetime trying to keep deeply buried, to a world that has grown familiar and comfortable with your façade?

To a world whose knowledge of transsexuals usually begins and ends with Jerry Springer's exploitation circus?

Painfully and reluctantly, I began the coming-out process a few months ago. To my everlasting amazement, friends and colleagues almost universally have been supportive and encouraging, often breaking the tension with good-natured doses of humor.

When I told my boss Randy Harvey, he leaned back in his chair, looked through his office window to scan the newsroom and mused, "Well, no one can ever say we don't have diversity on this staff."

When I told Robert, the soccer-loving lad from Wales who cuts my hair, why I wanted to start growing my hair out, he had to take a seat, blink hard a few times and ask, "Does this mean you don't like football anymore, Mike?"

No, I had to assure him, I still love soccer. I will continue to watch it. I hope to continue to coach it.

My days of playing in men's over-30 rec leagues, however, could be numbered.

When I told Eric, who has played sweeper behind my plodding stopper for more than a decade, he brightly suggested, "Well, you're still good for co-ed!"

I broke the news to Tim by beginning, "Are you familiar with the movie 'Transamerica'?" Tim nodded. "Well, welcome to my life," I said.

Tim seemed more perplexed than most as I nervously launched into my story.

Finally, he had to explain, "I thought you said 'Trainspotting.' I thought you were going to tell me you're a heroin addict."

People have asked if transitioning will affect my writing. And if so, how?

All I can say at this point is that I am now happier, more focused and more energized when I sit behind a keyboard. The wicked writer's block that used to reach up and torture me at some of the worst possible times imaginable has disappeared.

My therapist says this is what happens when a transsexual finally "integrates" and the ever-present white noise in the background dissipates.

That should come as good news to my editors: far fewer blown deadlines.

So now we all will take a short break between bylines. "Mike Penner" is out, "Christine Daniels" soon will be taking its place.

From here, it feels like a big improvement. I hope with time you will agree.

This could be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.

What an amazing thing to read in the sports pages! What courage this must have taken.

I cringed as I clicked on comments, fearing that they would be ignorant and hate-filled. To my surprise and relief, the overwhelming majority of comments were extremely supportive. Most readers praised Penner's courage, wished him luck on his journey, and looked forward to reading Christine Daniels' columns. I was really impressed. The few non-supportive columns quoted scripture (what is up with those people?), and other readers slammed those as judgemental and intolerant.

Of course I know there's tremendous hate and phobia against transgendered people in this world. But signs of progress are always worth noting.

An AP wire-service story reports:

"Mike Penner has been an exemplary contributor to the Los Angeles Times sports pages for over two decades and today's column is no exception," Randy Harvey, the newspaper's sports editor, said in a statement. "The decision to go public cannot have been an easy one and, while we do not make a habit of commenting on the personal and private lives of our journalists, we do look forward to continuing our relationship into the future."

Penner uses the word "transsexualism," rather than crossgendered or transgendered, and refers to his state as a "medical condition," an attitude many transgendered people reject. I wonder if he's partly using those expressions to help his readership and employers come to terms, or perhaps he best understands his own gender confusion as medical.

I also noticed that the AP writer went to three people for comments on Penner's column: his employer, John Amaeche, and the leader of a gay/lesbian activist group.

John Amaechi, the first NBA player to publicly come out of the closet as being gay, said he read Penner's column Thursday after returning from a speaking engagement in Berkeley at the University of California.

"It's incredibly bold and far more courageous than anything I could have done," said Amaechi, who spent five seasons in the NBA. "I commend him."

Gay and lesbian activists praised Penner and the Los Angeles Times.

"Christine's still-unfolding story sends a powerful message about the importance of living openly and honestly as does the Times' public support of her transition," said Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

John Amaeche makes some sense, as both Penner and Amaeche share the world of professional sports. But in tapping Neil Giuliano, the writer is a little confused: Penner didn't say he was gay. Transgendered people can be any sexual orientation. There's some merit to getting that quote, but speaking to an out transgendered person, or someone from a transgender activist group, would have been more to the point.

I join the chorus of people commending the new Christine Daniels for her courage and honesty. Every person who comes out - of any closet, there are thousands of them - to live his or her most authentic life helps each of us, helps the world.

number 42, reprised

Allan and I took our respective posts from yesterday and combined them in one essay, which hopefully will run elsewhere.

Here you go.

* * * *

April 15, 2007 is the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's Major League debut. Robinson was the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball.

The story of how Robinson and Brooklyn Dodgers president and general manager Branch Rickey went against baseball's entrenched, unwritten, whites-only rule, in what is so glibly called "breaking the color line," is a story of tremendous courage and revolutionary thinking.

In recent years, Major League Baseball, as an organization, has been celebrating Robinson, showing off the increasingly international – and integrated – game. In 1997, Robinson's number 42 was retired by every Major League team, the only player to receive that honor. Players already wearing 42 were allowed to continue until the end of their careers (only one remains, the Yankees' Mariano Rivera). When Rivera retires, no player will ever wear number 42.

Every Major League club has put number 42 on the retired-number wall of its park. This is generally done with a different color or style, placed apart from the team's other retired numbers. This causes people to inquire about it all the time: "Why does the 42 look like that?" It's a great opportunity to highlight history.

On Sunday, April 15, 2007, number 42 was temporarily taken out of retirement. On that day, any player who wants to wear 42 as a tribute and homage to Robinson can. At least one person from every team is doing so, and six entire teams are wearing 42, including the Dodgers. It's a terrific idea, and gets players involved in the celebration. Both Ken Griffey, Jr., who originally petitioned MLB to allow him to wear Robinson's number for a day, and Bud Selig, who expanded the idea, are to be commended for their efforts.

This is all good. But it's not entirely well.

Baseball announcers routinely refer to Robinson as having "broken the color bar" or "having crossed the color line". Very rarely do they explain what this actually means. Jon Miller, who calls the Sunday night ESPN baseball game along with Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, recently explained in more detail. Miller said, "Of course, before Jackie Robinson, African-Americans were excluded from playing Major League ball. It was a segregated game, until Jackie and Branch Rickey challenged that." It was wonderfully surprising to hear – and our surprise underscored how rarely that statement is made.

When Jon Miller said that last Sunday, it was startlingly different from, for example, what the Red Sox announcers said on Friday. (We're not singling them out; they're just the announcers we hear most.) Jerry Remy, a former player, and Don Orsillo kept referring to "what Jackie did" and "Jackie's great achievement" – but never said what it was. Remy mentioned courage, but he never said what Robinson did that was courageous, or why courage was required.

We hear about the color line – but not about how impenetrable that barrier was, how hatred fueled its decades-long existence, how the owners and officials of every team in baseball banded together and refused to sign any Black players. Robinson's debut is sanitized, and, with very few exceptions, presented with no context whatsoever. No one mentions how 12 more years would pass before every team had at least one African-American player on its roster. (The Red Sox were the last team, in 1959.)

Listening to baseball announcers, one might get the impression that, before Robinson, there were no African-American athletes good enough to make the Majors – that the color line existed because of lack of talent, not rampant racism. As though when Robinson came along in 1947, the baseball establishment said, finally, here's a Black player good enough to play alongside white men – because the Major Leagues would have included Black players for years, but none of them had what it took to reach the pinnacle of the sport. This was the excuse offered by Commissioner "Happy" Chandler when he explained that there was no rule officially banning Blacks. While that was technically true, there was certainly an understanding among the owners that each would never sign a Black player.

Jim Becker covered Robinson's debut for the AP:

It was a time in our country when in many places blacks couldn't stay in the same hotel as whites, eat in the same restaurants, attend the same movie theaters or even drink from the same water fountains in the South. ... There was no rooting in the press box, but many of us in it that day, like Robinson, had served in the Armed Forces and had just helped to defeat Hitler and thought it would be a good idea to defeat Hitlerism at home.

That's another thing. No one talks about what Robinson went through after April 15, 1947: the death threats, the separate hotels, the restaurants that wouldn't serve him. The racial slurs shouted from the stands – and from the opposing dugout. No one talks about the reaction from the other National League teams, one of which – the Cardinals – threatened to go on strike if Robinson remained in uniform.

Some of this is down to sports announcers' continuing assumptions that everyone watching knows the same things they do. Baseball announcers refer to "the pine tar game," "the Clemens bat game," "the shot heard 'round the world," and so forth, often giving only the most cursory explanations, if any. It's like a big inside joke in a private club. It's a poor way to cultivate a new audience or make new members of the club feel welcome.

But this alone does not account for the absence of context and explanation. This is about America's discomfort with talking about race.

Many people seem to feel that stating a fact about race is in itself somehow prejudicial. Remember the "Seinfeld" episode where Elaine may or may not be dating a Black guy? "Should we be talking about this?" That's a comic version of what happens all the time. Should we be talking about this? Why, of course! It's what happened!

Many years ago, on a blues pilgrimage to the Mississippi Delta, we took a tour of a former plantation. The tour guide showed us the slave quarters and said, "This is where the workers lived." Workers? We looked at each other, shocked. Another man on the tour spoke up. "You mean the slaves, right?" The guide said, "Yes, but we don't like to use that word."

Don't like to use the word?? But that's what they were! They were slaves! There was slavery!

Do people not realize that saying there was slavery, that there was Jim Crow, that there was segregation, does not mean one is saying those things were OK? Do they confuse stating a fact with condoning it?

Baseball announcers will never describe – or even refer to – the color of a player's skin. If you listen to games on the radio, you'll hear players described by body shape and size, by hair color and facial features, even by the creative shapes of their facial hair, but never as dark-skinned, fair-skinned, black, tan, white, or any other description that connotes race. Why is that? Skin color is physical description, yet it's always omitted. It's as if in trying to be inclusive, we believe that any mention of skin color equals bias. As if, because we want judgments to be color-blind, we pretend we actually are color blind.

There's another problem with the MLB's celebration of Jackie Robinson: the hypocrisy.

Why did Jackie Robinson have to "break the color bar"? Because Major League Baseball would not allow anyone who looked like him to play.

There was no law against it. There was no physical reason for it. There was only the tradition of segregation – a tradition that baseball officials went out of their way to uphold.

All Major League teams, prior to the Dodgers in 1947, sacrificed quality in order to remain all white. Think of it: all the great stars of the Negro Leagues could have been enhancing the play of the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Cubs or the Tigers. There was a vast pool of untapped talent, playing high-quality, professional baseball right in the same cities. But the owners chose to field inferior teams – chose not to be as competitive as possible – rather than integrate.

Some managers, like the Giants' legendary manager John McGraw, wanted (and tried) to integrate much earlier. McGraw tried to "pass" a light-skinned African-American player by calling him "Cuban", but alone, he couldn't beat the system. Most went right along with the "tradition", and many commissioners and officials went well out of their way to maintain it.

Major League Baseball has made April 15 a day of celebration. But it was the institution of Major League Baseball that created and nurtured the Jim Crow conditions that prevented so many Americans from playing Major League ball. Now Baseball congratulates itself and celebrates the game's integration, as if they had anything to do with it. As if they had wanted it all along. As if they proudly stood up and chose democracy, rather than were dragged into it, digging in their heels and hollering bloody murder.

The game of baseball has always been a reflection of America, and this is what America does. Today it hails Martin Luther King, Jr. as a hero for us all to emulate. Yesterday King was a dangerous radical who the FBI wiretapped and the CIA tried to assassinate (and may have succeeded). Countless American heroes, from Susan B. Anthony to Cesar Chavez, were villified, harassed, ridiculed and imprisoned during their lifetimes. Now their images adorn the walls of grade schools across the land. Malcolm X's face is on a postage stamp.

America will always try to thwart revolutionary ideas. Then, after enough time has passed, it often ends up celebrating the achievements of those brave, forward-thinking people who refused to be intimidated, who refused to go along with injustice – and who forced the country to do what it should have been doing all along.

number 42

Today is the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's Major League debut. Robinson was the first African-American to play in Major League Baseball.

The story of how Robinson and Brooklyn Dodgers president and general manager Branch Rickey went against baseball's entrenched, unwritten whites-only rule, in what is so glibly called "breaking the color bar" [US spelling purposeful there] is a story of tremendous courage and revolutionary thinking.

My parents grew up in Brooklyn, and like so many of their neighbours, they felt a special pride that their home team had taken this historic step. There's also a Canadian connection, as Robinson played for the Dodgers' minor league club, the Montreal Royals.

(I'd also like to put in a word for Larry Doby! Doby was the first African American to play in the American League. He suffered just as much bigotry and harassment as Robinson, but without the fame.)

In recent years, Major League Baseball, as an organization, has been celebrating Robinson, showing off the increasingly international flavour of the game, and congratulating itself at the same time. In 1997, Robinson's number 42 was retired from all of baseball, the first player to be so honoured. Major League players already wearing 42 were allowed to continue to wear it until the end of their careers (only one remains, and he's worthy of it), then no one else will ever wear the number.

Every Major League club has put number 42 on the retired number wall of its park. This is generally done with a different look - different colours or style, placed apart from the others - than the team's other retired numbers. This causes people to inquire about it all the time: "Why does the 42 look like that?" It's a great opportunity to always mention Robinson.

Today, on the 60th anniversary of Robinson's first game, the number has been temporarily taken out of retirement. Any player who wants to wear 42 as a tribute and homage to Robinson can. At least one person from every team is doing so, and some whole teams are wearing 42, including the Dodgers. I think it's a great way to get players involved in the celebration. Every team will also hold some type of tribute to Robinson. To see the Dodgers' celebration, tune in tonight to ESPN (Rogers SportsNet in Canada).

This is all good. But it's not entirely well.

Baseball announcers routinely refer to Robinson as having "broken the colour bar" or "having crossed the colour line". Very rarely do announcers explain what this means. I recently heard Jon Miller, who calls the Sunday night ESPN baseball game along with Hall of Famer Joe Morgan, explain in more detail. Miller said, "Of course before Jackie Robinson, African Americans were excluded from playing Major League ball. It was a segregated game, until Jackie and Branch Rickey challenged that." I was thrilled - and my reaction underscored how rarely that statement is made.

Newcomers to the sport, or people unfamiliar with US or baseball history, would never know that blacks were not allowed to play in Major League Baseball. Honestly, one could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps there was no black athlete good enough to make the majors, and that the line Robinson crossed was one of athletic achievement.

Some of this is down to sports announcers' continuing assumptions that everyone watching knows the same things they do. (I'm sure they do this in all sports, but I follow only one sport, so all my examples are from baseball.) Baseball announcers refer to "the pine tar game," "the Clemens bat game," "the shot heard 'round the world," and so forth, often giving only the most cursory explanations, or none at all. It's like a big inside joke in a private club. It's a poor way to cultivate a new audience or make new members of the club feel welcome.

However, I don't think this accounts for the lion's share of the lack of explanation of Robinson's achievement. I think it's more of America's discomfort with talking about race. When Jon Miller said that the other night, it was startlingly different from, for example, what the Boston announcers said on Friday. (I'm not singling them out; they're just the announcers I hear most.) Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo kept referring to "what Jackie did" and "Jackie's great achievement" - but never said what it was. Remy mentioned courage, but he never said what Robinson did that was courageous, or why courage was required.

People seem to feel that just stating a fact about race is in itself somehow prejudicial. You know the "Seinfeld" episode where Elaine may or may not be dating a black guy? "Should we be talking about this?" That's a comic version of what happens all the time. Should we be talking about this? Why, of course! It's what happened!

When Allan and I took a tour of a former plantation in Mississippi, the tour guide referred to the slaves as "workers". We immediately looked at each other in horror. Another man on the tour said, "You mean the slaves, right?" (We were so glad someone else had the same thought!) The guide said, "Yes, but we don't like to use that word."

Don't like to use the word?? But that's what they were! They were slaves! There was slavery!

Do people not realize that saying there was slavery, that there was Jim Crow, that there was segregation, does not mean one is saying those things were OK? That somehow stating a fact is tantamount to condoning it?

I notice that baseball announcers will never describe the colour of a player's skin. We are not supposed to notice that! I remember thinking this when Alfonso Soriano played for the New York Yankees. I used to listen to a lot of games on the radio, so I frequently heard physical descriptions of players. I remember Soriano being described as a tall, long-legged young man with a big, handsome smile. All true. He is also very dark-skinned. If I were describing him, I would say he was a tall man with very long legs, very dark skin, and a wide, happy smile.

When I was teaching, I was one of the few white faces in the youth centre. My African American and Latino colleagues routinely described everyone by skin colour! Not only skin colour, of course, but that was always included. It's physical description. It needn't be omitted. But you never hear that in baseball. It's as if, because we want hiring and judgements to be colour-blind, we pretend we are actually colour blind. As if in trying so hard to be inclusive, we believe that any mention of skin colour equals bias.

Whenever I hear announcers say Robinson "broke the color bar," I think, say it! SAY IT! Please: say what he did, and explain - at least a little - why he had to do it.

* * * *

As if this post isn't long enough, if you're still reading, I have another problem with the MLB's celebration of Jackie Robinson: the hypocrisy.

Why did Jackie Robinson have to "break the color bar"? Because Major League Baseball would not allow anyone who looked like him to play.

There was no law against it. There was no physical reason for it. There was only the tradition of segregation - a tradition that baseball officials went out of their way to uphold.

All Major League teams, prior to the Dodgers in 1947, sacrificed quality in order to remain all white. Think of it: all the great stars of the Negro Leagues could have been enhancing the play of the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Cubs or the Tigers. There was a vast pool of untapped talent, right in their own cities. But they chose to field inferior teams, rather than integrate.

Some managers, like the Giants' John McGraw, wanted (and tried) to integrate much earlier, but alone couldn't take on the system. Most went right along with the "tradition", and many commissioners and officials went well out of their way to maintain it.

And now Baseball congratulates intself and celebrates the game's integration, as if they had anything to do with it. As if they had wanted it all along. As if they proudly stood up and chose democracy, rather than were dragged into it, digging in their heels and hollering bloody murder.

The sport of baseball has always been a reflection of America, and this is what America does. (I'm purposely using "America" - the concept - and not "the US" - the country.) Today it hails Martin Luther King, Jr. as a hero for us all to emulate. Yesterday King was a dangerous radical who the FBI wiretapped and the CIA tried to assassinate (and may have succeeded). Countless American heroes, from Susan B. Anthony to Cesar Chavez, were villified, harassed, ridiculed and imprisoned in their lifetimes. Now their images adorn the walls of grade schools across the land. My favourite example of this hypocritical syndrome is Malcolm X on a postage stamp. Think of it.

America always celebrates the achievements of brave, forward-thinking people who refused to be intimidated, who refused to go along with injustice - and who forced the country to do what it should have been doing all along.

* * * *

If you'd like to read more on this from a baseball perspective, I believe Allan and I have both been typing furiously at the same time.

unforgivable blackness

Last night we started watching "Unforgivable Blackness," Ken Burns's film about the boxer Jack Johnson.

Johnson was one of the greatest American athletes of all time, and in his day, undeniably the greatest. But what makes Johnson an irresistible historical figure was his complete refusal to live by the rules white society demanded of African American men in that era.

The most vivid example of this was his choice of partners. In a time when black men were killed because someone suggested they glanced at a white woman, Johnson openly lived and travelled with a succession of white women who called themselves his wife. He was the first African American popular icon, then was persecuted by the government, and eventually brought down.

Johnson's career and his life story perfectly expose the twisted logic and utter ludicrousness of Jim Crow America.

In the early 20th Century, boxing was one of the three major sports of the western imagination (along with horse racing and baseball). The title "Heavyweight Champion of the World" was the most coveted title for any individual athlete. It bestowed riches, fame and glory on its holder in a way unimaginable today.

Johnson defeated all African American opponents, and any white boxer who would step into a ring with him. But convention had it that no Heavyweight Champion would ever fight a black man. That would risk the title being held by a black man, and that could not be allowed to happen.

Johnson would not accept this, and he made it his life's quest to goad a Heavyweight Champion to meet him in the ring. When it finally took place, the match was viewed as a contest of supremacy between the "white race" and the "Negro race". The results sparked deadly riots throughout the country.

It's an almost unbelievable story, and I don't want to say too much about it, as watching Ken Burns unfold it for you is so fascinating and compelling. I'm an unabashed Ken Burns fan. I missed "Unforgivable Blackness" when it first ran on PBS, but with this Zip rental, I think I've now seen every film he's made. He never disappoints.

john amaechi: a milestone

Last week a former NBA player named John Amaechi came out as gay.

Some people try to downplay the importance of his announcement, shrugging their shoulders and saying, "Who cares about sexual orientation". Well, the sports world still cares. In 2007, we can say skin colour isn't a hiring factor in professional sports; in 1945 we couldn't say that. One day we'll be able to say sexual orientation doesn't matter, but that day is not now. Amaechi's announcement is a major milestone.

Those of us who care about both progress and sports are waiting - and we wait still - for a male player, playing on (not retired from) a US professional sports team to come out as gay. Individual sports are not the same; women's sports are not the same. Any time someone in the public eye comes out, it's a victory, but the world of professional team sports, with its entrenched, unquestioned homophobia, and its thinly disguised homoeroticism, is still the final frontier.

It's often acknowledged that the first player to cross this threshold will have to be a major star, someone who is indispensable, unbenchable, someone who the fans adore. (The musical "Take Me Out" imagined a team very much like the Yankees and a player very much like Derek Jeter carrying the torch.) Only a huge star will be able to come out as gay and keep his job and his endorsements. And if he doesn't keep them, no excuse will mask the bigotry.

I was really happy about Amaechi, and greatly encouraged by the reaction. Sure, there were the predictable stupid comments. But there were statements of support, too - and that would have been unimaginable, say, 25 or even 10 years ago.

Dave Zirin, the author of What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States, covers a beat that I envy: the intersection of sports and activism. I've quoted him a few times on this blog; whenever there's a story about progressive thought or politics in the sports world, I know Zirin will be on it.

About Amaechi, Zirin writes:

Sports is one of the last grand hamlets of homophobia. Amaechi poses a real challenge to the realities of the locker room, the press box and the owner's box: all places where I have heard homophobic comments used as casually as a comma. I give no credit to [NBA Commissioner David] Stern's pretension that it just doesn't matter. I also have nothing but contempt for folks like bench-warming Philadelphia 76er Shavlik Randolph, who said, "As long as you don't bring your gayness on me, I'm fine." Then there was Steven Hunter, who said, "For real? He's gay for real? Nowadays it's proven that people can live double lives. I watch a lot of TV, so I see a lot of sick perverted stuff about married men running around with gay guys and all types of foolishness."

I have nothing but pity for 22-year-old LeBron James (yes, still just 22), who commented, "You take showers together, you're on the bus, you talk about things. With teammates, you have to be trustworthy. If you're gay and you're not admitting that you are, you're not trustworthy. It's the locker room code."

As Washington Post writer Michael Wilbon responded, "Not to be too cynical, but I don't want to pay too much attention to reactions from a 22-year-old ballplayer with incredibly limited exposure.... LeBron's reaction simply reflects the self-absorption of the day when it comes to young athletic gods whose transition from boyhood to manhood is in too many cases put off until retirement from the pros."

It's a rather sharp sign of the level of homophobia and repressed homoeroticism--in a sport that involves all kinds of "banging down low," as the announcers tell us--that so many jocks immediately gravitate toward the fear of what might happen in the shower. In our televised interview on the Canadian program Outside the Lines, Jim Traber insisted that he had no problem with having a gay teammate... as long as he didn't "try to touch my butt in the shower." (I gently informed Jim that not even the soap wants to touch his butt in the shower.) Amaechi had to tell fellow members of the Utah Jazz to stop flattering themselves. When his Neanderthal, crew-cutted teammate Greg Ostertag asked Amaechi, "Dude, are you gay?" Amaechi responded in his clipped British accent, "Greg, you have nothing to worry about."

But I have nothing but respect for the NBA people going beyond the "locker room code" to offer real support. Former teammate Michael Doleac told the Palm Beach Post, "If that's who he is, good for him. John was a smart guy, a great guy, a fun guy."

Another former teammate, Grant Hill, said to the Associated Press, "The fact that John has done this, maybe it will give others the comfort or confidence to come out as well, whether they are playing or retiring."

But my favorite comments came from Knicks coach Isiah Thomas. Lord help me, I am starting to really like the man, which may be a sign of the apocalypse.

Thomas told the press, "If [there is an openly gay player] in my locker room, we won't have a problem with it. I can't speak for somebody else's locker room, but if it's mine, we won't have a problem. I'll make damn sure there's no problem.... We're a diverse society and we preach acceptance. We're proud of diversity and no matter what your sexual preference may be...no one should be excluded."

In the middle of all of this tortured--and long overdue--public grappling by the league, Amaechi was also blindsided from a surprising source: ESPN columnist LZ Granderson. Granderson, who is gay, wrote, "I am so over gay people. Specifically, John Amaechi.... You know, the athlete who comes out after retiring, writes a tell-all, and then hears how courageous he is from straight columnists trying to appear 'evolved'.... I can't help but wonder: When will somebody simply man up? That is, come out while he is still playing and finally demystify this whole gay athlete thing once and for all."

This is an outrageous argument. Granderson, as a well-salaried ESPN columnist, feels safe out of the closet. But his daily reality couldn't be more different from someone who has to navigate the machismo that dominates the typical locker room. It couldn't be more different from the athlete risking the opportunity to emerge from poverty in a profoundly homophobic society. As Amaechi said about coming out while active, "It's terrifying. These people are looked at as stars, as NBA players. Any change to that would be psychologically, emotionally and financially devastating."

If Granderson really wants to do something about homophobia, maybe instead of chastising closeted gay players, he should report on the extracurricular activities of Indianapolis Colts football coach Tony Dungy. Dungy, who just became the first African-American to lead a team to Super Bowl victory, will thump his Bible at a March fundraiser for the Indiana Family Institute. The IFI is affiliated with James Dobson's Focus on the Family, which fights to "retrain" the "evil" of homosexuality.

Granderson should take a cue from gay former NFL player Esera Tuaolo, who told the Associated Press, "What John did is amazing. He does not know how many lives he's saved by speaking the truth.... Living with all that stress and that depression, all you deal with as a closeted person, when you come out you really truly free yourself."

I can't wait for that first player from the NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL to step out of his closet and be "really truly free".