(08-07-2021, 08:50 AM)John J. Xenakis Wrote: ** 06-Aug-2021 World View: Sydney McLaughlin, Dalilah Muhammad and Tamyra Mensah-Stock
- Olympics winners Sydney McLaughlin and Dalilah Muhammad posing with American flags
On Tuesday night, NBC primetime viewers were treated to an Olympics
performance for the ages. American hurdler Sydney McLaughlin came from
behind to defeat fellow American and defending Olympic champion
Dalilah Muhammad in the 400-meter hurdles, capturing the gold medal
and setting a new world record in the process. The race was both
extremely exciting—all three medalists, including bronze medalist
Femke Bol of the Netherlands, set new personal bests with their
finishing times—and a big moment for the U.S. Olympic team.
https://slate.com/culture/2021/08/nbc-ol...erage.html
- Wrestling Olympics winner Tamyra Mensah-Stock posing with American flag
US wrestler Tamyra Mensah-Stock could barely contain her pride in
country after her historic gold medal win in the women’s 68-kilogram
freestyle division — winning a new legion of fans for her unabashed
patriotism.
![[Image: bd6e34aa-1ca3-493c-9a51-9435dc625d92.jpe...et=170x151]](https://compote.slate.com/images/bd6e34aa-1ca3-493c-9a51-9435dc625d92.jpeg?width=780&height=520&rect=4224x2816&offset=170x151)
![[Image: tamyra-mensah-stock-85.jpg?quality=90&st...400&crop=1]](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/08/tamyra-mensah-stock-85.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=600&h=400&crop=1)
No different in spirit than Olympic athletes of the past proudly displaying the flags of the German Democratic Republic (the one that was neither German, democratic, nor republican, as the old joke goes), Ceausescu's Romania, the Soviet Union, the PRC, or Castro's Cuba. Everybody loves a winner.
Quote:“I love representing the USA. I love living there. I love it, and I’m
so happy I get to represent USA!” said the exuberant 28-year-old
Texas raised grappler, who is the first black woman and the second
woman ever to claim a wrestling gold for the US after her win Tuesday
over Nigeria’s Blessing Oborududu.
“It feels amazing,” Mensah-Stock, wearing an American flag draped
around her shoulders, told reporters following the match, curling her
hands into a heart shape.
Patriotism is acceptable. Athletes trying to use the Olympics as a forum for expressing some political message (think of the Black Power salute of John Carlos at the 1968 Games at Mexico City) isn't so acceptable. That has not changed. Of course, behavior of Iraqi athletes at the 1996 games in Atlanta indicated trouble. Maybe the son of a despotic President trying to politicize the Iraqi Olympic team was over the top for Olympic officials.
Quote:Fans cheered Mensah-Stock’s win — and her joyous celebration of the
Red, White and Blue — which came after US hammer thrower Gwen Berry
turned her back on the National Anthem during Olympic trials and Raven
Saunders made a symbol of protest after winning silver in the shot
put.
The Olympic Games is the wrong place to make one's point for Black Lives Matter or some other cause. That includes opposition to abortion or support of "gun rights".
Quote:
“Wrestles like a badass, but has a heart as gold as that medal! Her
enthusiasm & joy for life are infectious,” Amy Burchard wrote.
https://nypost.com/2021/08/04/tamyra-men...toric-win/
[Posing with American flags must have infuriated the people in the
loony left in NBC's and MSNBC's audience.]
The Flag isn't the problem. Donald Trump and his acolytes were, and people who used the US flag as a weapon in the insurrection of January 6 as much abused the US flag as KKK fascists who believe in America so long as it is their part only... and the parts of America that look like Tamyra Stock or people with the surname "Muhammad" can be relegated to... dare I say it? The difference between the KKK and Nazis is that one has shown clearly what it would do if it took over a country. The other disintegrated before it could do large-scale genocide.
But back to the US flag. I'm sure that the unfortunate denizens of Dachau and Mauthausen were delighted to see US troops enter their camps and the much hated Cross-of-Satan flag vanish. At the least, Old Glory meant no more Gestapo or SS terror -- and no new terror unless one was a war criminal.
Flags are neutral unless they bear an ideological symbol such as a swastika or a hammer-and-sickle -- or some demagogue or despot uses them as an effort to transfer loyalty to themselves.
It's far easier to display the US flag with Donald Trump out of office. I wonder why!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
