General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAmericans demand fairness in sports NOT politics nor economics
It's really sad. Americans expect, and demand, their sports to be fair and equal more so than they do politics or economics. We live in an age where electoral districts are gerrymandered, where people cannot vote unless they have IDs, where voting is limited to one day and that generates long lines. We live in an age with the greatest income disparity known to mankind, where American workers work with no job protections, no benefits, and their wages are suppressed. IOW, Americans live in a world of complete unfairness.
YET, if an official blows a pass interference call, or a catch is ruled incomplete, or footballs are not inflated properly, Americans lose their minds and demand justice.
Why? Why do Americans let major injustices go by without a whisper but scream to high heaven over something as trivial as sports?
My answer is that Americans have given up on the major inequities of every day life. After decades of getting beaten down by our politics, politicians, our jobs, our suppressed wages, etc., they have given up hope entirely.
But, they still have hope that our sports will be fair. IOW, Americans have substituted justice in the real world for justice in a make believe world.
Again, why?
My answer is that Americans feel powerless to enact justice in the real world. In the fake world of the NFL, Americans can pressure the league to right wrongs like they did in the Ray Rice crime. Through social and regular media, the average American believes that they can be heard and positive change can be made.
In the real world, unless you're a billionaire, forget it.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)the Americans, with a red, white, and blue color scheme similar to You-Know-Who's , and the Billionaires in green and gold. Then we need to have several cable channels devoted to discussing all the mindless minutiae of the games 24/7/365.
brooklynite
(94,727 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)the rest can ride the pine.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Why?
Because virtually every person with the position and power to do something about it, is bought and paid for. Even if they do care, which most don't, they are owned. The only way we will see any real change in this reality, isn't pretty and doesn't come without a price.
99th_Monkey
(19,326 posts)I've always thought of sports as basically a 'bread & circuses' outlet for misdirecting
passions that would be MUCH better spent focusing on politics and economics; so
your statement is a perfect corollary to that.
oneview
(47 posts)What's fair or not in football is a lot easier to see than what's fair or not in politics and the economy.
Although I don't care much about football or Hollywood blockbusters, so I'm mostly letting Deflating Snipergate roll through without my attention.
former9thward
(32,077 posts)They are "trivial" to you not to them. Politics and "economics" -- however you define that --- are trivial to them.