US athletes told to cool it at Olympics
We're so worried about how the rest of the world thinks about us. The more I hear about crap like this, the more I realize that nobody should do anything they don't want to solely to make someone like them. For example, when it comes to my relationships with other people, I'm going to be who I am and if they don't like me, then so be it. Naturally I'm not going to go out of my way to cheese them off, but I'm not going to hide who I am and pretend to be someone else just to get their approval. I'm not going to refuse to celebrate when I think there's something worth celebrating. I'm going to exult in victory if I'm victorious. Sure, I'll be gracious about it, and I'm certainly not going to ram it down my opponents' throats and trash talk them. But I'm not going to keep it inside either.
If a US athelete is victorious and wants to show his pride in his achievement and the country that helped make it possible, he or she should be able to, just as any athelete from any country should. (Personally, I can't wait until the day I see an Iraqi athelete running around the stadium wearing a medal and waving the flag of Iraq.) What's wrong with that?
GeekWithA.45 states it succintly:
Hiding light under a bushel is a fruitless gesture, and no one will ever gain or regain respect for America by noting how subdued and restrained the decorum of our athletes is.
People who hate us will boo and jeer (and kill) on ANY pretext, and this is blaming the victim political correctivism of the worst sort.
America's athletes should not hold themselves to any different standard of behavior than any other country's.
Whether it's on the scale of interpersonal relationships at school or the workplace, or the scale of international relations, it still comes down to the difference between tact and political correctness.
No comments:
Post a Comment