Salute

   Having grown up in a time when gross inequalities don’t occur on a large scale, the video Salute made a big impact on how I perceive racism in sport.  While Guttman identified equality as being one of the characteristics of modern sport, equality has never truly existed. Because I have grown up in a world where blatantly racist acts are fairly rare, it is hard for me to imagine a time when it was an issue weighing on everyone’s mind.  While racism certainly still exists today, it is not nearly as big of a problem as it was during the 1960s.  This was highlighted in the film through the portrayal of the race-related turmoil in the 60s. Previously, I had unconsciously thought of athletics as a separate sphere from the rest of the world.  After all, Major League Baseball was integrated in 1947.  Foolishly, I failed to acknowledge that off the playing field, Jackie Robinson and other African American athletes still had to deal with race issues in all other aspects of their lives.  With this in mind, it makes sense that the 1968 Olympics did not occur in a bubble and that the actions of John Carlos and Tommie Smith had the impact that they did.  While Carlos’s and Smith’s actions did make a huge impact on the world around them, true equality is still a work in progress.  Even today, racism still exists in the form of “stacking” African American players at certain positions. In addition, there is a shocking lack of African American representation among head coaches in elite sports or in sports such as golf or swimming.  While we have come a long way since the 1968 Olympics, it is clear that we still have a long way to go.