discourse/language

This is the iconic photo of Tommie Smith and John Carlos (found here) from the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. They raised their arms, wearing black gloves, in a symbol of protest against racism in the U.S. Less often noticed is that they were wearing beads to symbolize victims of lynching and went barefoot to protest the fact that the U.S. still had such extreme poverty that some people went without basics, such as sufficient clothing. Peter Norman, the Australian 2nd-place winner, grabbed a button produced by the Olympic Project for Human Rights (see below) when he found out what the other two were going to do and wore it in solidarity (if you look closely you can see that all three are wearing matching white buttons).

The reaction was immediate and negative. Carlos and Smith were stripped of their medals, ejected from the Olympic Village, and returned to the U.S. to widespread anger. In David Zirin’s book What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States (2005, Chicago: Haymarket Books), several black athletes discuss the difficulties they faced as a result of their actions. This 2003 interview with Tommie Smith covers some of the same issues.

Below is a button like the ones they were wearing. Much like we often think Rosa Parks spontaneously decided not to give up her seat on the bus (ignoring the fact that she attended training with other African Americans determined to protest inequality in the South), the assumption is often that Smith’s and Carlos’s gesture was something they decided on at the moment. In fact the Olympic Project for Human Rights, organized by Black U.S. athletes, had tried to organize an athletes’ boycott of the 1968 Olympics. When that was unsuccessful, tactics switched to making statements at the Olympics. This was part of an organized plan on the part of a number of Black athletes who were tired of representing the U.S. but being expected to stay silent about racism in the U.S.

Some of these buttons are for sale ($300 each!) on Tommie Smith’s website.

A t-shirt with the cover of the July 15, 1968, issue of Newsweek about “the angry black athlete.”
I looked for a photo of the cover itself but could not find one online. Clearly the nation was anxious about the attitudes of Black athletes even before the Olympics (in October) caused such a stir.

I think these images are useful in a couple of ways. I use them to undermine the idea of the individualistic protester and to bring attention to the ways Civil Rights activists organized and planned their actions. It could also be useful for discussions of politics in sports–the ways in which athletes have at times used their position to bring attention to social inequality, as well as the repercussions they may face for doing so. It might also be interesting to ask why this image caused so much furor, and how the Olympics is constructed as this non-political arena for international cooperation (a topic I cover in my Soc of Sports course). You might compare the image from the 1968 Olympics to this image (found here) from the 1936 Olympics in Germany:

Here we also see the Olympics being used to make a political statement, but in this case the athlete was not thrown out of the Olympic Village or stripped of his medals. What is the difference? Just that time had passed and attitudes toward political statements at the Olympics changed? In the 1936 pose, the athlete was showing pride in and support for his country, whereas Smith and Carlos meant their gesture as a protest of conditions in the U.S.–thus shaming their nation in an international arena (this was a major cause of the anger they faced when they returned to the U.S.–the idea that they were airing the nation’s “dirty laundry,” so to speak, for others to see). Could that be part of the difference in the reaction?

Of course, a cynical person might argue that these seemingly ungrateful, misbehaving black athletes who refused to smile and play along were being publicly punished in the media for getting “uppity” (in a time period where white Americans were also wearying of minorities’ continued demands for equality and social change).

Lisa and I went to the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas today. We were not allowed to take pictures! However, we were inspired to post about the word “atomic.” Below are some pictures related to the U.S. bombing of Nagasaki during WWII. They are followed by some examples of the way in which the word “atomic” has been taken up in popular culture

The mushroom cloud over Nagasaki, Japan:

Nagasaki before and after the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb (found here):

Together the bombs dropped by the U.S. on Nagasaki and Hiroshima killed between 150,000 and 220,000 people immediately (that is, not considering the long-term morbidity and mortality). For more on the science of atomic bombs and the structural and human casualties of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, click here. Our point here is to point out that at this point in history, the word “atomic” referred to something incredibly devastating to human life.

Given this, we find it fascinating that the word came to mean something like “cool,” “super extra much,” “hot and spicy” and numerous other vague references to awesomeness. Then, the adjective could be used to describe anything at all. Consider the following examples

Clothes and sporting equipment:

Music-related stuff:

Candy:

So at some time and for some reason, the word “atomic” came to refer not to something very, very serious and instead to something very, very fun. How odd. We did a search for the etymology of the word “atomic” and there was nothing to explain how the word came to be used that way in popular American culture. In fact, there was no reference to its non-scientific use at all.

P.S. – If you’re ever in Las Vegas and want to see something very, very weird (sociologically, we mean), we suggest the Atomic Testing Museum. There, you can learn about America’s proud “atomic testing heritage.”

UPDATE: Commenter Elena pointed out that before the creation of the atomic bomb, people thought radiation promoted health. An ad for a radioactive “solar pad,” basically a radioactive belt people were supposed to wear:

Found here.

A radium water filter:

Found here.

It seems odd to me that after the devastation the atomic bombs caused in Japan, the word “atomic” and atomic materials such as uranium retained any positive connotations in the public realm.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

From popvssoda.com

You can find other maps of regional language usage here.

I borrowed this image years ago from Myra M. F. Thanks Myra!

NEW! More satirical pro-gay marriage messages (found here and here):

Shieva K. took photos of these two posters, both part of the Boost Up campaign in New York City. Both were posted on the Upper West Side.

The Boost Up campaign is a joint venture between the U.S. Army and the Ad Council to encourage kids to stay in school. The ads feature actual teens who are at risk of dropping out of high school. When you go to the website, you can read a bio about each teen, including the difficulties they face in their home lives, etc. Then you can send a student a “boost,” meaning an email, text message, or post on FaceBook or YouTube, encouraging them to stay in school. You can also watch videos the teens have made about their lives.

The thing I find interesting about this campaign is the lack of any discussion of structural reasons these teens (predominantly racial/ethnic minorities) might be at risk of dropping out of school, or what that might have to do with wealthy people on the Upper West Side. Both the problem and the solution are presented as individual-level issues: teens struggle mostly because they have problems with their parents and unstable home lives, and we can help fix this problem by sending text messages saying “You can do it!” It’s “activism” with no actual need to get involved or think deeply about the problem–we don’t need to change the way schools are funded, wonder whether people who send their kids to private schools still have any responsibility to the public education system, or think about things like poverty, race, crumbling schools, and other structural issues that exist beyond the individual.

I guess any effort is better than nothing, but it seems like we’re basically saying, “Hey, kids! Overcome all your problems by thinking positively and having some strangers who have never met you, and probably can’t even begin to imagine what your life is like, spend 30 seconds writing you a message! That’s all it should really take, so if you still drop out of school, you must not have tried hard enough.” It fits very well into the American cultural ideology that I find so often among my students, the belief that anyone can overcome any disadvantage or hardship if they just try hard enough and “don’t give up”; if they don’t, they’re either lazy, didn’t believe in themselves, or in some other way are to blame. Regardless, there’s not much the rest of us can do about it.

Thanks, Shieva!

Here are two videos from MTV’s Think campaign (both found here):

I am not at all sure what the message is here–just a general “fear your government” warning? A comment on the Bush Administration’s policies? The Patriot Act? Also note that the message is that the Holocaust happened to people like us–not that it was done by people like us, which might be a more interesting message.

Anyway, I think this could be compared to the PETA posters in a discussion about history and who has the right to use it how. Will everyone see these images as offensive? Is any use of the Holocaust as an example or comparison automatically offensive? Would campaigns that use the Holocaust be as offensive to people if they used the genocide in Rwanda instead? Who gets to claim the right to use images and symbols of historical events, including horrible tragedies, and in what ways can they use them?

Thanks to Simone for pointing these out!

This ad, playing on white resentment about affirmative action, ran during the 1990 North Carolina Senate race between Harvey Gantt and Jesse Helms:

Before the ad ran (during the last week of the campaign), Gantt was ahead in the polls. The ad is widely believed to be the reason Helms won.

Might be good to pair with the infamous Willy Horton ad from the 1988 Presidential campaign in a discussion of how images of minorities have been used to frighten white voters.

These images were all used (along with lots of others) in a 2003 campaign in which PETA, obviously, compared modern agricultural practices and eating meat with the Holocaust:

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

I assume it will not surprise anyone to learn that many people were offended by the campaign. I can imagine using these images in courses on food/agriculture, social movements, natural resources and the environment (especially in discussions of what rights non-human animals have), and even lectures about historical memory (for instance, when and how does it become acceptable to use historical tragedies like the Holocaust as symbols in other arguments, rather than as events in and of themselves?).

Thanks to an anonymous poster for pointing this campaign out!

NEW: Elizabeth (from Blog of Stench) sent in this ad (found here) PETA apparently attempted to run in the Portage Daily Graphic in Manitoba, Canada:

The ad references an incident on a bus in Manitoba where a man beheaded a fellow passenger and compares it to the slaughtering of animals.

Thanks, Elizabeth!