Toban Black

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Rebecca Solnit on the political context of athletes at the Olympics -

“At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, two young African Americans from San Jose State University won first and third place in the two-hundred-meter dash, gold medalist Tommie Smith setting a world record in the process. On the podium, receiving their medals alongside Australian silver medalist Peter Norman, they gave the Black Power salute. Bronze medalist John Carlos wore beads that signified the lynchings of his fellow African Americans. They were shoeless to represent black poverty. Norman joined them in wearing Olympic Project for Human Rights badges. Their actions suggested that great bodily gifts could not be separated from bodily suffering, or conscience. It was a beautiful moment, one of the iconic moments of the 1960s. As athletes, they had represented their country magnificently; as human beings they had testified to the complexity of that nation and their place in it.

In response, International Olympics Committee President Avery Brundage banished the two men from the rest of the games and a spokesperson called their act ‘a deliberate and violent breach of the Olympic spirit.’ The Olympic spirit by this measure insists that athletes be bodies without minds and hearts. But the insistence that athletes not ‘politicize’ the Olympics is really an assertion that the politics of the Olympics be determined by [government leaders], not movements and [other] individuals, most particularly not participating athletes. When authorities say we should not politicize something, they mean that the politics of the status quo should not be questioned.”

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The rest of that article is about related issues.

I added the web link to this Wikipedia entry -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute

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On the Olympics -

Here’s a relevant post at The Fanonite -
The Politics of Free Speech
(When I read that post I found that the author wasn’t careful enough with their words — which is not to say that I’m not very supportive of the general points that are made there, however.)

And here’s a related post at my blog -
“China on television during the Olympics”

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On ‘black’ power, here’s a photo I took in 2007 -

If you click on that image you’ll get to the Flickr photo page where there is some context and backstory in links beneath it, and in photos before and after that one.

To what’s there pages I’ll add that the photo was taken in a very ‘white’ city (London, Ontario, Canada) — by which I mean that coloured people are both largely absent and very marginalized here.