Until recently, I did not realize how un-diverse American sports. In the 2016 Summer Olympics, Ibtihaj Muhammad, a fencer, was the first muslim American woman to win an olympic medal for the United States. When I learned this fact, I was extremely shocked. I did not realize how poorly diversified American sports were. It surprised me that after all of the boasting about the diversity of America (before Trump was elected of course), there was actually very little diversity in a large part of American culture, sports.
Even where diversity does exist, racism does too. This is widely displayed in Citizen in both the story about Serena Williams and the rest of the book. There are stereotypes that exist for every group that a person identifies with. There are stereotypes for black people in general, there are stereotypes for black women, and there are stereotypes for black women in sports. They cannot gain the support of fans until they prove themselves worthy. Ibtihaj Muhammad said few people expected her to win in the games. Even she didn't expect to win because no muslim American woman had ever done it before. Not until she actually won the gold medal did Ibtihaj gain popularity. She did become very popular, though, as a Barbie doll of her is being made.
No comments:
Post a Comment