Michael Johnson Race Analysis

For this part, I choose to watch the video about Michael Johnson, which is from option 4 Race & Sport. This video is impressed because it comes from new perspectives except sports, such as biological and sociological.

At the beginning of this video, Michael Johnson said “the controversy could be exploded by race”, which really make some sense in my opinion. Through the research, he found his ancestors are slaves who lived in Texas. He also went to Jamaica to find out why Jamaican players run so fast that they can dominate the track and field game, one reason is that “Jamaica is the last stop for African slaves, the fittest and most aggressive ones survived”. The athletic ability is another factor he mentioned, he said that blacks generally

Even though Owens achieved a lot through his career, he was still regarded as a citizen of second-class. After 1936 Olympic Games which made him famous, he tried to use his fame to take up some lucrative commercial offers, however he failed, United States athletic officials withdrew his amateur status, which ended his career. I believe in 1930s, the environment to black people was much hostile than nowadays, very few black players can have the opportunity to show up in large sports events like Olympic Games, Owens was one of them, and he was one of those black players who created the history, he proved that black players can play as good as white players (sometimes even better). However, many people held the point that white players dominate the fields and other races do not have enough power to overturn that, Owens showed up as a warrior to break up the clichés like that, so it caused the bias and stereotypes, and one thing I am sure is that Owens deserves more respect than he had when he was alive. Michael Johnson and Jesse Owens are both outstanding players and African-Americans, and they contributed a lot not only for the sports they played, but also for the race they belong

From what I found, two players called John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists while in medal ceremony of 200 meter running event, Carlos got bronze medal and Smith got gold medal, both of them are African-Americans. Also, along with Australian silver medalist Peter Norman, they all wore human rights badges on their jackets. The two US players received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks, to represent black poverty. Smith wore a black scarf around his neck to represent black pride, Carlos had his tracksuit top unzipped to show solidarity with all blue-collar workers in the US and wore a necklace of beads which he described “were for those individuals that were lynched, or killed and that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the Middle Passage.” (Dean, Black Power) This political protest was quite bold and unexpected, surprised lots of people obviously, especially it showed up in a global sports event like Olympic Games. Even though their behaviors did help in a way, for helping more and more people paying more attention for the human rights for African-Americans and other minorities, nonetheless, Norman received lots of criticize from Australian media after that, said that he didn’t have to do that just for empathy. I always think that all races should be treated