I said what I said

Also I’m high

  • Othello [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    soccer

    fifa uses fucking human trafficking to build stadiums, all of the sexual assault stories, refusing to pay women fairly.

    basketball

    college basketball still steals MILLIONS from mostly poor black teens and young adults. your face can be sold on a shirt that makes millions and you make no money and you probably never will. there is also a culture of player abuse around basketball. and you still have a sport that reduces people to their bodies and if those bodies have opinions they are told to shut up and play. and they still also refuse to pay women and stop assaulting them. stadiums still take millions of taxpayer dollars.

    i dont care about your local adult sports team or a pick up game, but sports under capitalism is destructive to the bodies, minds and lives of millions of black and brown children. nothing is as bad as football and boxing but these companies are no less “evil”

    • Othello [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      this isnt even mentioning the effects of sports in colonized nations. We are reading Fanon over in the theory comm, come join us, this is a bit of what we read last week. heres some of Fanons (a casual soccer player himself) thoughts on sportsball.

      But the youth commissioners in underdeveloped countries often make the mistake of imagining their role to be that of youth commissioners in fully developed countries. They speak of strengthening the soul, of developing the body, and of facilitating the growth of sportsmanlike qualities. It is our opinion that they should beware of these conceptions. The young people of an underdeveloped country are above all idle: occupations must be found for them. For this reason the youth commissioners ought for practical purposes to be attached to the Ministry of Labor. The Ministry of Labor, which is a prime necessity in an underdeveloped country, functions in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning, which is another necessary institution in underdeveloped countries. The youth of Africa ought not to be sent to sports stadiums but into the fields and into the schools. The stadium ought not to be a show place erected in the towns, but a bit of open ground in the midst of the fields that the young people must reclaim, cultivate, and give to the nation. The capitalist conception of sport is fundamentally different from that which should exist in an underdeveloped country. The African politician should not be preoccupied with turning out sportsmen, but with turning out fully conscious men, who play games as well. If games are not integrated into the national life, that is to say in the building of the nation, and if you turn out national sportsmen and not fully conscious men, you will very quickly see sport rotted by professionalism and commercialism. Sport should not be a pastime or a distraction for the bourgeoisie of the towns. The greatest task before us is

      to understand at each moment what is happening in our country. We ought not to cultivate the exceptional or to seek for a hero, who is another form of leader. We ought to uplift the people; we must develop their brains, fill them with ideas, change them and make them into human beings.

      yes this is a transparent attempt to get people more interested in fanon

      • WittyProfileName2 [she/her]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        yes this is a transparent attempt to get people more interested in fanon

        What would you recommend as a good starting point with Fanon?

        I’ve got very little knowledge about anti-colonial theory but I’ve been trying to educate myself.

        • Othello [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          1 year ago

          honestly the BEST place to start is the wretched of the earth IMO, he lays out the path to decolonization and discusses the many potential pitfalls, but im not the Fanon expert hes written a lot. we are on 4 chapter now, but I will literally respond to every discussion comment as long as I am on this site and we can have a convo about any part of the work.

    • thoro
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      1 year ago

      You’re talking about the capitalist implementation of leagues and commodification of the sports.

      Might as well call movies and books evil because of what studios and publishers have done, get tax breaks in many states, treat workers poorly, etc.

      It’s capitalism, not sports inherently whether organized or not.

      I also think if we want a proletarian movement, it’s better we don’t demonize sports

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        This is a dumb argument. The platonic ideal of a sports league does not exist, global-capitalist sports leagues exist plus whatever the DPRK has. No one is arguing against the platonic ideal, they are arguing against the existing institutions and the systemic problems that inform their nature.

        Except maybe the high-contact non-comvat sports like American Football and Rugby, but certainly not basketball.

        • thoro
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          1 year ago

          Were organized sports not a major cultural part of communist and socialist nations? Is there something inherently fascistic about “professional”, for lack of a better word, athletics and organized sporting leagues, as in the best in their class coming together to form teams and compete against each other for plaudits and the entertainment of spectators?

          A lot of people are arguing against sports, or at least organized sports, in general here. Many in here are upset with the cultural assumptions put on them by conservative, patriarchal societies through sports and using this to attack sports in general and the people who enjoy them. The term “sportsball” is not an attack on the capitalist model of professional sports, it’s way to infantilize people who enjoy a specific form of entertainment.

          Those are valid feelings and valid critiques, but I believe they are attacking symptoms and not the cause.

          And I do still feel it is best we don’t fall out of touch with the working class, which generally is fond of sports.