FemmeFan Weekly

November 15, 2008

Sports and Obama
By: Blythe Brumleve

The United States is a born again nation. The election of Obama has broken down doors that have been getting knocked on for decades. As I watched some of the reactions of people around me during this week, some happy and some almost angry, I began to wonder where the root of this generational attitude change originated from. Why is my generation overwhelmingly pro-Obama and my previous generations not? Sports became the clear answer.

For years and years fans have become 'use to the idea' of the diversity in sports. Jackie Robinson was the first African American player to break the color barrier in the MLB. There were others that came before him that were passed off Cuban, Mexican or Indian. Jackie was instrumental in de-segregating hotels and restaurants frequented by the Dodgers by openly criticizing them if they denied him access. As a result, these businesses were one of the first to de-segregate themselves before the law required them too. When Jackie made his MLB debut in 1947, it was to a crowd of 26,623 spectators, 14,000 of whom were black. A little boy who sat and watched Jackie play is now in his 60's and can say he lived to see the day.

The President-elect didn't come late to his passion for baseball. This photo, provided by his campaign, was taken in Hawaii in the 1960s.

Muhammad Ali took America's attention by storm with his talent as a boxer and an activist. Ali states (in his 1975 autobiography) that he threw his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River after being refused service at a 'whites-only' restaurant, and fighting with a white gang. Whether this is true is still debated, although he was given a replacement medal during the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where he lit the torch to start the games. Ali repeatedly over the years stood up to the US Government for the freedoms he believed he deserved and fought for the "Idea of America" and its freedoms.

These 2 figures in the sport's world fought so hard to be seen as equal. Their actions directly influenced and ignited an internal flame in alot of Americans through the decades, including Obama's. George Taliaferro, the first African-American drafted by the NFL, tells the Chicago Tribune’s Fred Mitchell, “Barack Obama and the American citizenry have just made it possible for everybody to dream.”

The sports loving Obama is not the only one who has been inspired. It has now gone full circle in present day athletes witnessing something the greater population thought would never come. LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers donated $20,000 to the Obama campaign and said the election results were "unbelievable". Donovan McNabb, quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, who grew up in Chicago, never even registered to vote before this election. Obama is inspiring people in ways that sports have helped to close that multi generational gap into the "mainstream".

Of course racism will always exist in all sectors of life but America’s promise is no longer just a dream. I am not black and I do not want to pretend to fully grasp what it feels like to see Obama elected but I can tell you how inspired I am, as a woman, to see barriers broke down and what can happen when you just keep trying. I'm sure there are times when Jackie Robinson, Ali and Obama wanted to give up but they just kept pushing and didn't make excuses. We are a nation that is inspired again and this time, it’s multiracial. From the baseball field to the White House, we are a nation that must keep trying to get better, generation by generation, from one more spectator to one more vote; you have to keep fighting to attain your goals.

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