Where Are the Protesting Athletes?

One thing I was really hoping for in these Olympics was for some American athlete to pull an act of protest against the war in Iraq similar to the protest black athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos exhibited at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. (For those who don't know, they held black-gloved fists in the air on the medal stand, after receiving the gold and bronze medals they respectively won in the 200-meter track race, to protest racism in America.) So far, though, it's been a damned disappointment. I didn't really expect any kind of a protest from the swimmers, especially since so many of them are from Orange County, California. Nor did I expect any such protest from the female gymnasts, since most of them are too young to vote. I figured that the best chance for such a protest would come from the track and field events, as the Smith/Carlos protest did, because most of the track and field athletes are minorities, and minorities are normally targeted by military recruiters in this country to join the military, after which they go to fight - and die - in an unjust war like the one we're in now. No such luck so far.

My mother says that the Olympic Games are no place for such political protests. Oh, yes they are. The Olympics are where people stand up for ideals like peace, brotherhood, and fair play. What Smith and Carlos did in 1968 took guts. They were competing for a country whose ruling elite was mostly resisting their struggle for civil rights. Did it really make sense for Smith and Carlos, as black men, to accept medals for their country without acknowledging the problem of racism back home? Besides, they broke no Olympic rules and violated no clause of the Olympic charter in protesting black poverty and unequal treatment. But then-International Olympic Committee president Avery Brundage, a politically arch-conservative Chicago millionaire who was working hard to move race relations into the previous century by trying to get South Africa's racially segregated team to join the Olympic movement, was angered by their protest and had them sent home.

Right now, there are Americans fighting and dying in Iraq for no apparent reason having to do something other than oil. It's up to American citizens to protest this unjust conflict, and Olympic athletes who oppose this war should take advantage of the attention they're getting to speak out. If not them, who? If not now, when?