What is wrong with the USA and why would he ever be a worthy moderator of a presidential debate?

If any of you have perused the athletic “scandal” that is my instagram (which, my siblings would have you believe automatically makes me the devil incarnate and dishonoring the entire family more than Mulan… both of which occurred for just being women, I would like to note….)  then you’d probably know I’m not too fond of Joe Rogan. So my disdain at the very thought that he would facilitate a presidential debate was even more disheartening. I already wanted to put my head through a god damn wall, like Mike Sorentino did that one season of Jersey Shore where they went to Italy (Season 4? Maybe? It’s been a while), but this just tips the scales ever so slightly. 

So who is Joe Rogan?

Brief overview:

-American comedian

-Host of one of the world’s most popular podcasts, several of which hosted some of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates (Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, and Bernie Sanders)

-Has had a plethora of political figures, public figures, and scientists relevant to US history, and possibly, the rest of this discussion, including Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, and my personal favorite, Iliza Shlesinger

-Commentator for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the patrons of which arguably make up the largest part of his audience (from my personal experience / interactions with men in the wild)

-Probably the ONLY reason he has any actual political pull is because our government and cultural values as a country are so fucking corrupt that we somehow don’t see this as a global embarassment. And money = power in good ole capitalism, so this guy MUST get it, right?

Why Am I skeptical About This? 

To sum it up, you’re about to dive into a rabbit hole of how Joe Rogan embodies the American experience of exactly what pisses me off most about our patriarchal culture and why he is absolutely the wrong choice as moderator of a presidential debate, but particularly a presidential debate in the setting of a global pandemic (which he previously downplayed), where distribution of wealth is a regular issue (the guy plays with which state to relocate to like its a board game–this is people’s livelihood at stake, have some class), and we already have one too many white men who think they’re going to be the one with the world-class mentality of saving (literally, we just want OUR OWN VOICES, you do not need to step in, asserting yourself to “represent” us…how about you help get US into those positions?)

But I digress…

Let’s Take One Giant Leap Back Mankind…

To properly get into this, I’m going to delve into my own background as an athlete, and what I’ve come to focus on with my own world views now that I’m well into my 20’s (and OBVIOUSLY know all.) It’ll be worth it, I promise. By now, you should realize all of my writing comes full circle at some point.

From the time I could walk, I was playing sports, with the decision that I was Olympic quality being made prior to my conception. My dad played in the minor league baseball circuits on his summers home in NY from Embry Riddle, and he played with a AAA team that fed the Yankees. My mom, a mathematician in D.C., graduated from Penn State after being an NCAA Division 1 collegiate runner. The genetics were in place, and my siblings and I were destined for greatness. 

Growing up, running was always my way to stay “in shape”. Sure, I competed for my middle school track (2 practices then showing up at a meet against the other local middle schools) and in high school (cross country, indoor and outdoor track), but I never actually “trained” for it with any actual structure. My high school coach had been the same person who coached my mom “back in the day”, and he literally let us, kids under the age of 18 with no personal experience or knowledge on what healthy running is, to choose the workouts. Our boys team played a variation of four square for practice. I stayed in shape, though, playing multiple sports a season, attending two official practices a day once I got to high school, often 3 (usually 1-2 for my actual highschool and 1-2 travel teams). I never once slowed down. This was my norm, though, and seems to be the norm for most of America in this rat race of endless exhaustion we call a “free market”. 

When I was old enough to walk, I was enrolled in gymnastics. 3 hours a day, 6 days a week. Some days I cried about being at practice. Other days, all I wanted to do was climb that creepily high rope and make the long drop into the foam pit. I had a six pack by age 5 and spent my brother’s baseball games practicing my back handsprings along the baseline past the dugouts.

We also grew up on a farm, so not only did I have to attend practices for all of my sports, but riding horses regularly was considered a chore, not a “practice”, and horses take a lot of daily work. It’s a rare person I come across that understands the full impact growing up on a farm has on a person. If it was light outside, though, and I wasn’t at practice for one of my other sports, I was usually found somewhere on or near my ponies. So after I was exhausted with practices, I usually had to go take care of the horses, and only THEN could I eat, shower, or sleep. 

Side note: I actually think that’s why wrestling attracts so many midwestern boys–they’re used to working these insane schedules and intensities of workouts from what it means to be “country” folk, but they’re all of the country folk who question authority (in a good way, often, just not one that’s necessarily viewed as beneficial to all of society when not constructively channelled) We’ll touch back on wrestling in a bit.

In middle school, the decision came to discontinue competitive gymnastics, due to time constraints with my growing equestrian career. Inserted in its time slot on my schedule was travel soccer, something I’d be able to do with the rest of the crowd in high school. 

Quitting gymnastics at ~13 years old also let me finally hit puberty, so I scaled from 4’11” to 5’7” in the course of my eighth grade year and entered high school ready to continue leveling up my athletic career. 

In high school, I went from sport-to-sport searching for that desperate endorphin high to target my frustration at everything (my parents, siblings, the mean girls in my grade, one of whom was my best friend/”frenemy”, boys, the world, Hannah Montana being cancelled, you name it). Like Taylor Swift, “I was an impossible pace”, and only forced to slow down when 9th grade year of travel soccer, some stupid bitch illegally slide tackled me from straight behind me (terrible form, what are you, a Duke basketball player? What a dirty fucking play). I fell straight onto my left clavicle, completely severing it in half and displacing it by two inches. Now, I’m not a very big person. My clavicles are rather dainty, in fact. (My upper body is actually the one place I hold absolutely no weight.) It was gross, my arm was just hanging limply. Well, if there was any question as to whether that love for the adrenaline rush had fucked me up, it was answered in that moment, because I STILL tried to play. We were already a man down, having had a red card and been down a man to start the match, and I couldn’t sit on the sideline and just watch. Plus, I had been sent with another parent via carpool, so my mom wasn’t even there to take me to the hospital! The only choice was obviously to fucking play!

If you wonder where the determination comes from, I’ve always had it. Earlier that fall, I had “just decided” one day that I wanted to play football. I’d jumped into some of my older brother’s practices growing up, so why wouldn’t I be able to do it at the high school level? I could hold my own against him, Royce, and Alex, who were the best on the Waldorf Wildcats. All of the boys in high school had just been on different teams they’d beaten. So, I joined the freshman football team, much to the dismay of several of the boy’s parents, and wore glitter eyeshadow to every single game. Even though my dad drove me over thirty minutes from my high school soccer game to my high school football game in the neighboring county (it was the first game, I couldn’t completely miss it!) and my kick never had a shot because I got my experience of what I can only imagine is a fraction of what freshmen fraternity members all across the USA experience in hazing. 

As I leaned forward, moving to kick, with the snap of the ball, my entire line decided to stand up and move aside, letting 3 huge line men have a clear shot to my very first kick in a game ever! I got anime-style judo-thrown about ten yards directly backwards by 3 ~200+ pound linemen who had just seen me, ~110 lb, 5’7” frame, long blonde hair swinging, GIRL, running across the track to my team’s huddle. And despite being tall, I was scrawny in the way most 9th grade girls are, and we had to borrow my shoulder pads from the local poundball team. (Small clavicles, remember.) It was one of those moments where the entire stadium is quiet, sure that I was dead. When Laquan (my amazing holder, side note, he transferred and his replacement deserves the following message: fuck you Madison Townley–you and I both know exactly what you did) came up to offer me a hand and check on me, already waving the coaches over, ASSUMING I was hurt, he was rather surprised to find me laughing hysterically and basically being like “what the fuck guys, do you think I’ve never been tackled before”. It’s almost like these men forgot I grew up with an older brother. Or riding horses. Or doing gymnastics. I’m USED to eating complete shit and taking it like a mother fucking champ.

Two games later, I kicked the 27-yard game winning field goal against an otherwise-undefeated magnet school that could essentially recruit its football team, who later went on to win States our senior years. Which, if you grew up in a small town, you know basically certifies your celebrity status amongst the good ole hometown boys. 

In track earlier that winter, I made it to the top of SMAC as a freshman in every distance event. My coach believed it was our duty to help out our team as much as possible, so, knowing I would kill myself to score as much as I could, he put me in the 4x800m, the 1600m, the 3200m, and the 800m. I ran 4 miles of racing 1-2 times a week for 3 months and just kept moving up in the rankings. At nights, there were futsal practices and weekends were balanced with a series of co-ed games. I “had” the time, so why not? 

Spring track was just like the winter, and despite being “coached” by other high school athletes (which is, honestly, the most inappropriate thing for any kind of distance running), I was still performing at generally unprecedented levels for a freshman. The signs were all there for me to just keep staying right on track. (Pun intended). The clavicle break happened just after my spring season ended, in the midst of travel soccer, so my summer was spent recovering and I only really missed a season of travel soccer.

Plus, a broken bone, by highschool, was standard procedure. I had already broken 3 bones in my foot on two separate occasions. (The person responsible for one of those actually had a terrible bout with cancer and ultimately passed a few years back, so I look on the memory more fondly now.) I inherited my father’s clumsiness, so I’d broken multiple toes separate from those foot fractures. Seriously…one time I broke my toe climbing out of giving my dog a bath in the tub. It got caught in my towel and twisted. I’m an accident waiting to happen. For the most part, though, gymnastics had taught me how to beat the shit out of my body, but safely. I’ll never forget seeing what others must’ve all the times I skirted injuries prior, than when I watched my best friend Anna sprinting after a guy in our dorm, only to slowly lean forward drunkenly and seamlessly move into a diving forward roll. She continued her drunken sprint otherwise undisturbed and without missing a beat. My own father has broken all of his fingers several times, his nose roughly ten times, and a plethora of other fractures all over his body, and my mother grew up on the very Appaloosa horse farm that I was now growing up on, and you see a LOT of gruesome injuries on farms. Injuries like this were simply a part of life and part of loving the sport so much. My lack of nerve endings and ability to tolerate pain in a variety of abnormal ways is probably part of what contributes to my love of all sexual exploration now, too, interestingly enough. But I digress…

By the time I finished high school, I lettered in 14 different varsity sports. Mind you, we only had 3 seasons. In track alone, I was moved from distance (my 4×800, 800m, 1600m, 3200m quadruple each meet, into a mixture of hurdles, steeplechase, 4x200m, 4x400m, and even high jump, adapting and excelling universally. Collecting trophies became an expectation and they no longer held significant meaning. I knew I had earned them because the work was tangibly there in documented physical performance, sweat, and muscle fatigue. I had moved into the ODP-trajectory of soccer, acquired my C-1 certification in pony club, competed in equestrian nationals. I had placed 14th individually at cross country states, the 4th hardest high school cross country course in the nation, on 1 week of practices after my soccer season was out, I had All-County, All-Conference Honors, the Wendy’s High School Heisman State and National Finalist, accolade after accolade. And at the time, I’m sure I enjoyed sports for the recognition. Winning each race or game or match was this necessity to somehow justify the hours of work had paid off. I was occasionally in the paper for things like when I stopped to help my fellow SMAC competitor mid-race of that same State championship cross country race, but the idea of “sportsmanship” felt weird, because I still made sure I didn’t fucking let her beat me when she regained her composure on the course.

In college, my freshman year was the first time I didn’t feel a need to compete. Yet, after finally loosening up my reservations and drinking alcohol for the first time in my life, I determined that partying was fun (still love it, find me at E11even in Miami instead of a frat party, though), but I craved the structure of routine and performance that sports had always given me. My goals in life did not revolve around grinding up on our 7’ tall NBA-bound basketball athletes under the neon fixture intricately balanced above a questionably constructed frat-house-basement stage, much as those men may have wanted them to (Seriously, PJ Hairston, stop sliding in my DMs asking me to suck your dick every time I post a throw back from Dance Marathon). The amount of now-famous dicks I could’ve sucked if I didn’t have a solid amount of self-respect. (But also, no slut shaming here, I was just mentally recovering from a very abusive relationship and gobbling an endless array of dicks Nathan’s hot-dog-contest style just wouldn’t fulfill me.) Although, it’s a lot less cool to tell people that Tre Boston, a safety for the Carolina Panthers, tries to ass-fuck women on the dance floor of La Rez and literally just shoved me over and pounded up against me, as if he was actually fucking me. I’m not sure who taught you to dance, buddy, but in the DMV we get a lot more sensual than that. It’s more “Cassie’s “Me + U”” theme than whatever Metallica-level of hatred you had for crushing your dick against my backside in the ten seconds before I pulled the plug, completely disturned. I will say, the guy was one of my African studies partners (Honestly, an incredible class. Shout out to Pierce Freelon.) SURPRISINGLY I KNOW FOR UNC AND NCAA ATHLETES, ESPECIALLY THE FOOTBALL TEAM  *shocked pikachu gif* and to this day, I’m genuinely curious as to what about me seemed like that was appropriate? Or what about being the ONLY person in La Rez dancing made that seem like it was appropriate? Let’s use some context clues next time before I have to lower your audacity like a character control on Madden. 

Anywho, I enjoyed my LFIT class because it was group PE, and I normally had to work out alone. I did club gymnastics, too, though without a proper coach, I couldn’t trust my shoulder enough to throw or try what I used to so freely. Liability wise, public universities should probably at least make sure there are credentialed coaches/mentors overseeing their collegiate activities for students. One more way to create fun jobs that don’t make people hate their lives! Still, I missed competition that I could take seriously. I missed being a part of that togetherness, the environment of a team. The Club track team was a possibility, but I had never really “meshed” with just girls, as I come off naturally very dominant, try as I might not, and my first practice (I hadn’t run that summer, remember, I didn’t have to in high school sports) I got dropped on a trail 3 miles off the school’s property and had no knowledge of the town itself yet, so no way to know where I was, what direction to head, or even who the girls were I’d been with. I didn’t blame them, though, I was holding them back. It just didn’t make me want to return. 

That said, the summer leading up to my sophomore year, I contacted the track coach from the magnet school in my county (the ones who misuse their vocational school programs to recruit for their athletic programs) and was set onto what would then build into a 2-year training program, at its peak of 85 miles-per-week and running a 68 minute 10-mile race on a difficult course. I had finally found a group of equally nerdy, balanced introverted/extroverted kids who needed to channel their energy into something productively. Even amongst the D1 circuit, it was with these oddballs now dispersed all over the globe that I finally found a positive sporting community. 

And distance running, unlike other sports, gives you time to think. Distance runners tend to be the nerdier groups, the scientists, the introverts, because you can be completely unathletic and still be great at it. Seriously. Picture your cross country runners from high school. Those nerdy, lanky kids just turn into nerdy, lanky adults. I say that fondly, as a fellow geek. I’m just “cool-passing” because I’m physically attractive to most males under the white, blonde, American Barbie model. You also self-reflect during all of those miles–at some point having to confront your thoughts because it’s just you and the dirt trail winding through the woods in front of you. We spend the most time in the natural world, so it makes sense that we often become the biologists, the conservationists, the environmentalists who eventually transition into doing triathlons, ultramarathons, or hiking the US National Parks in our later years. 

My parents were amongst many of those who believed that sports were my ticket to pay for college. They had tried to save money, but even they couldn’t have anticipated how expensive colleges got. Or how I would be recruited for both academics and athletics NATIONALLY, yet then they would have the audacity to limit me to an in-state or more affordable option, after my years of work and performance. Even when soccer recruiting fell through, because they couldn’t afford to pay for all of my travel teams AND send me to camps over the summer, my mom was convinced that my switch into track would get me to the Olympics. (Even this summer, she literally said the words “there’s always cross country skiing”. Mother, there is also coronavirus.) 

But unlike probably a lot of other athletes, I didn’t ever give a fuck about the Olympics, I just enjoyed being athletic. I like the way it makes my body feel, the strength it gives me. I never thought about it past the practice at hand, the game coming up, when the season was progressing. Being an athlete was such a necessary part of who I was, and am, as a person, that no lack of title or performance achievement takes that away. After all of my accolades, the titles became meaningless after a while. Much like the current holder of the “presidency”, supposedly the most coveted position in the world, they lose their worth when they fail to recognize or be filled with actual value. Some of the best athletes I’ve ever met fall unnoticed, through the cracks of exhaustion. It wasn’t lack of talent, either, it was the inability to avoid other responsibilities in their daily lives. Needing to commit to work to provide for their families, and not even their own children, but their parent’s children or sibling’s babies, or being unable to risk the potential health scare and not currently being insured, the looming threat of your already meager savings, despite working multiple jobs and well over the 40 hour work week, being decimated by the cost of healthcare too great a reality. How many people did I swipe through on Bumble who were into their 30’s yet still claimed “washed up athlete” in their bio? 

But, my brother had walked on to his NCAA D1 collegiate baseball team after choosing a school for mechanical engineering, somehow getting paid for his contribution while also playing 91 games a season and having to stay in Columbia over the summer until eventually going to Omaha, Nebraska, for back-to-back-to-back College World Series Championship games (2 of which were victorious). Obviously, I needed to follow in his footsteps, as that was expected. Everything he had done in life, I had also done, or exceeded, in some way. The spotlight must be mine. Nevermind that I was already studying biochemistry at a top 5 public university, which would win the Nobel Prize (Did I spell that right, Mr. Trump?) during my time there, I also needed to do more. He got to take batting practice with Bryce Harper, Jackie Bradley Junior, Grayson Greiner, and Christian Walker, all of whom are now living out his dreams of playing in the MLB while he hates his mechanical engineering position. 

So where do we draw the lines of “success”? At what point can I stop competing with my siblings in the eyes of my parents? And society? Why is everyone always so obsessed with the stats of the players instead of who they are outside of that few hours of media devotion? 

Sports in the USA

Now, when I look back on that time, and all of my achievements in sports, in today’s day and age, I have to stop and think about what it really means for me to “be an athlete”. 

This topic has come up a lot recently, particularly with the media and Colin Kaepernick’s Black Lives Matter protests. A popular sentiment is the idea that an athlete such as Kaepernick should “stay in their lane”. Your job is to play the game. We, as the consumers, are here to judge you. You’re a vessel for being bet on.

That sentiment is rooted in the necessity of US culture to route you into one career at age 18 for the rest of your life. Like Eminem says, “you only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow”. Gotta love that good ole influence of a patriarchal society built around militaristic values. That government propaganda to encourage “Patriotism” under duress of war, entrapping you in a career of military life because you no longer fit in with the normal population and they make no efforts to rehabilitate you (unless moving out West counts) and foundations of individual priorities, for a NATION of 3 billion people (ya, sounds VERY sustainable, you dumb twats) seeps into the economy by normalizing thousands of dollars of debt, remaining in a job EVEN IF YOU HATE IT, as long as it pays “decently” because you should be “LUCKY”, to even have one. Or how we should be lucky with our ability to speak out in favor of different conditions portrayed as “radical” social movements instead of “progress”, because the alternative is what, a communist regime? 

So as an athlete, you’re gifted with the ability to use your presence, but not necessarily your voice. It’s a bit of a “the consumer is always right” mentality that gluttonizes our Super-Size-Me brethren of West Virginia gremlins (there is a lot of good about hicks, for the record) instills this false narcissism that they should also dictate programming. And who can argue with that logic, when the end goal is ratings and viewership? The phrase #MoreThanAnAthlete becomes a social media movement, because it’s necessary. The very idea that an athlete, or any public figure, for that matter, is an actual human being and not a corporate-controlled lizard-person is blasphemous to the people who actually need to be reminded. 

But this has been a COMMON THEME throughout sports history! How has our education failed us such that people can so easily forget the incredibly vast history of utilizing sports to make a political stance throughout history? Why was THIS news? How is it that we thought it was controversial that a BLACK MAN wanted to protest statistically proven police brutality against BLACK INDIVIDUALS? WHY WAS THAT FRAMED AS AN UPROAR? Why did we even have to justify whether an athlete should have their own voice and still be supported, particularly when it highlighted a national issue with decades of indisputable statistical evidence? Why was America’s response outrage? 

The History of the NFL:

The reality of the backlash to Kaepernick’s protest being in the NFL is that organizations like the NFL, or American football, and even the MLB, (the “World” Series is literally just the United States, let’s retitle that, okay? How about we start youth programs in other countries? Provide them with baseballs, bats, and explain the rules?) is that both organizations are USA-centered. They aren’t played in the Olympics because they’re not Olympic sports. They’re the foundation of “the USA is best” because the USA is the only one doing it. And in a nation with such strong foundations of cultural racism, such as a league where 70% of the players are colored, yet only 2 of the teams have colored ownership, it’s a parallel of slavery. 

In the NFL, 22 of the teams have been owned by the same family for the past 20 years. Even in 2018, only 2 of the 32 teams were owned by people of color. Which means as a football player, you’ve literally signed a contract exchanging your physicality for a sum. It’s a rather large sum, but still. Since the average player retires by the age of 26, that means you need to figure out a way to physically push your body to unsustainable levels for the “glory” of performing in stadiums of sweaty, greasy, overweight middle aged men who lost sight of their dicks years ago. But hey! Those men have money. And if you’re getting paid for it, I guess you shouldn’t consider it “slavery”…even though the principles you stand for as a person have effectively been brutally criticized by the media and reduced to nonimportance just because your ring of white owners frowned at it. 

I’m from a sports family too, so I’ll admit, when he first started kneeling for the National Anthem, in my mind I sat there and went “hmm, well let’s see. In 2012 he replaced Alex Smith as the 49er’s quarterback out of opportunity (Smith had a concussion), leading them to a superbowl appearance–their first since 1994. In 2013 he had a decent season, but then the years that followed had him in/out of the starting position. By 2016, he was yesterday’s news, a decent quarterback, but the NFL is full of those. This MUST be a publicity stunt just to make it hard to cut him.” 

Even if that were true, though, what is the harm in what he did? 

Why would it bother me that a mixed black child who was adopted by a white family, went on to excel in academics and multiple sports until he landed at the University of Nevada, Reno on a full scholarship wanted to talk about race? Children (and adults) who are adopted, first of all, already have a series of psychological considerations to their upbringings that would inevitably cause some confusion or cognitive dissonance, even with access to all of the “best” therapists and early interventionists. Children (and adults) who are anything other than white also face a HUGE array of subtle reminders of just where in society other people think they “rightfully belong” at every step in their life. I got bullied as a child and even though I KNEW it was rooted in jealousy, it still hurt. Could you imagine people doing that at every stage of your life and never growing out of it no matter how “successful” you get? 

As a woman in STEM, I’m now well aware of the discomforts of trying to forge your way into rooms that were gated to keep you out. Of the pressure to be something because anything else is a “waste”. Of wanting to have your voice be acknowledged and respected without feeling the need to validate yourself with an endless supply of evidence, scientific theory, and quantitative data. Your male colleagues can just give the answer and know it won’t be questioned. You have to have 2-3 different bullet points to support.

My first conscious experience of this was really in college (only because I was blind to what the criticism towards me as a person was rooted in years prior). Prior to college, I didn’t really have black men in my classes. Bhaskar, my Indian gamer friend, who was great with computers in high school–which, to the extent of my knowledge meant he could install Snake on my TI-83 graphing calculator, was the only real minority. My football teammates were black, though, they just weren’t in the “advanced” classes. Maybe 1-2 black kids played soccer. I also dated a Hispanic-appearing boy from the neighboring high school, and my mom taught at all of the lower-income area schools in the county for most of my adolescence. 

I thought that, because I also had a difficult home life, in a low-income area, and we went to the same schools, that they had the same opportunities that I had–especially since I was friends with so many different people. In reality, every opportunity I had was the initiative of my parent’s necessity for some standard of “greatness”. Those kids might have ONLY been able to do that one thing that I just happened to do with them. My parent’s home, and all of our space for my creativity, was funded by my Grandfather’s distinguished military career. Sure, I put in the work behind the scenes, but the opportunities were dropped in my lap and all I had to do was show up. Nobody looked at me and doubted me once I got going. I had to keep my peppy mouth shut, but only until after I proved my worth on the field. And because I was so multifaceted, instead of being silenced, my voice was encouraged. My junior high school year, I wrote for my tri-county newspaper’s “Athlete’s Diary”, a weekly column that I could tailor to my own interests. I was ENCOURAGED to use my voice as an athlete, and because of my physical ability, it was respected on and off the field by those who were aware. 

How would it ever be “normalized” to think otherwise? 

It’s Not Just an “NFL” Problem:

As a child, I viewed sports with the “Field of Dreams”, “Angels in the Outfield”, and “Little Giants” mentality. The American dream of underdog’s prevailing is universally appreciated, a real fan favorite. How is it, then, that we meet it with such disdain when its presented to us in the form of racial inequality? How can the same percentage of people who cling to those replays for nostalgic comfort be so blind as to condemn it when it doesn’t even interfere with the timing of the game? 

And at what point in the USA did we become so enthralled with sports, our consumerism culture, and our own egos as a nation that we neglected to realize sports are pastimes, a luxury, the result of having the time to focus on such things because the rest of our lives are going well enough that we can devote the time to games? At least within our country.

Was it always like this? 

The very idea that we have so much time on our hands that we can have professional athletes, let alone intellectual professional athletes from all corners of our land coming together to run, skip, hop, jump, shoot, spin, whatever, for “glory”, all because they’ve been privileged enough to have the time to devote to something like running, or swimming cannot exist without the rest of the community functioning within the realms of proper “civilization”. As someone with multiple higher education degrees, I understand that I only get to study epidemiology and biochemistry BECAUSE there are people who provide my food, make my clothes, take care of our national security, pick up the trash, sow the grain that I feed my horses, make the communities that I travel between so safe. 

Yet, somehow in the event of a global pandemic, the chronic health effects of which we are sure to uncover, in horror, for YEARS (which Joe Rogan did a SIGNIFICANT amount of discounting, for the record), our athletes emerged as on the table of “essential” workers. When our nation should have been “putting the team on our back”, literally by doing what our fat fucking American selves have prepared our ENTIRE lives for, which is, to stay at fucking home and drink, watch movies, play video games, and fuck and/or masturbate for 2-3 weeks, instead we demanded sports teams to travel across the country, downplaying the risk to not just the players but the hotel staff, the bartenders, even the coaches, whose very designation as “needing” to go back to work (for the money) meant they definitely wouldn’t have been able to afford their healthcare bills should they GET coronavirus. Not to mention you’re also endangering the lives of their families, those they interact with in public (purposefully or by chance), and contact tracing is a butterfly effect twistering out of control. Plus, in Florida, where the NBA opted to move the bubble to Disney for, they tied the relief funding to a business’s ability to return back to work at X capacity, effectively removing any “freedom of choice” from whether they TRULY felt it was “safe” or not. Or how we just created an entire generation of people that may doubt science should a biological warfare attack, the newest, growing range of warfare for the last few decades, occur and necessitate our use of masks to prevent a plague. The point is, nothing about that situation was handled with any level of sanity or logic, and as a nation, we should’ve used the time to highlight WHY we still prioritize athletics. How to be active within the confines of your quarantine. Notable movements spawned by athletes throughout our history.

Athletics were our distractions, our GAMES, a luxury. Not essential. 

Becoming a professional athlete in the United States is just another competition that removes the purpose behind athletics if you don’t get to use it for anything meaningful, like a voice. And removing the purpose behind athletics just makes it like anything else–any old job. But ambivalence doesn’t sell out stadiums. Fans don’t cry because they’re neutral about a rivalry. So, like almost every facet of our culture, the USA has warped our view of sports to be a capitalist-driven market place such that our professional networks are effectively modern-day slavery, particularly women’s sports, that ONLY exist for the American consumer because it is tied to your paycheck, healthcare, housing, and dependent on your marketability. Endorsements by major brands are now necessary for athletic advantage and generally a collegiate education is the way to get there. Unless your sport peaks at particularly strange times–gymnastics being less than 18 for global representation and triathletes commonly beginning their athletic journeys much later than most, by your early 20’s, you’re tapped out of potential. Which means that, from a very early age, you’re subject to representing a variety of brands on a state, national, or potentially global scale. 

But how do you sift through that to determine what YOU stand for? 

& When would you have the time? 

Sponsorships by something like food companies that allow you to eat better quality, healthier meals for free (or reduced) prices are a huge advantage, particularly since the American education system teaches so little about proper nutrition and our government subsidizes areas of the food industry that are less healthy for the American consumer. So, you’ll likely jump at the first contract you get, especially if you barely make over the poverty level of financial income from the season, even if the company is unethical, or doesn’t support your values, all because the promise of being the 1% of people that can get that money gives you hope that you can not hate your life so much, and thank you to Arianna for finally putting it out there that “whoever said money can’t solve your problems must not have had enough money to solve ‘em.” One brand builds into multiple sponsorships and hopefully these corporate brands don’t drop you when you speak out in favor of your own safety, health, or experience–even when it’s the morally and ethically “right” thing to do.

But this is America, the same country that allowed Hobby Lobby’s CEO, a religious conservative, to deny healthcare coverage on the basis of sex and his own personal religious beliefs to all of his female employees, despite Hobby Lobby being a national corporation that largely serves a customer base of females. Who am I to determine what constitutes ethics? Or where to draw the line? “Only God can judge you”, but “God” isn’t the only one who has to face the consequences of your actions. Whatever helps you sleep at night. 

And particularly right now, America is claiming outrage over our “pedophilia” problem as if this is new? Or that Trump is somehow exempt from these corrupt circles of millionaires and generational wealth despite being from them himself? Or that our pageantry circuits, cheerleading, gymnastics fixation wasn’t somehow capable of being massively exploited? Is it even capable to reduce exploitation in a world enshrouded in greed? We have Larry Nassar sexually assaulting HUNDREDS of young girls, for YEARS, often WITH THEIR PARENTS IN THE SAME ROOM. It’s shuddering to think that could’ve very easily have been one of those girls had I taken just one different step in life. 

If college is your route, to get recruited you likely needed to be able to afford their costly summer camps, and have transportation to/from on top of the expensive costs of your travel select team, your own vehicle and gas, because your parents just couldn’t justify driving 1.5 hours in rush hour traffic after your high school practice to get to travel ball. They had 2 other children to think about (and pay for). Rarely do you hear the true underdog story any longer. You grew up on “Backyard Baseball” thinking you were going to be Pablo Sanchez and instead you realized you were in “Dodgeball” facing the Purple Cobras, only you didn’t catch that rubber ball flying at you, you watched it zoom at your face with your hands tied behind your back and no way to defend yourself. So when the kind stranger that is Jerry Sandusky desecrates your innocence in a Penn State locker room, only to be hidden for years because it was easier to pay off people and “hope for the best” than to actually do the right fucking thing, you stay quiet and thank yourself for him even noticing you. It must make you special. 

Stockholm Syndrome is a fucking bitch. Only it’s not just innocent children being abused for years unable to break free from the memories. It’s the entirety of the American people doing the work and labor to be enjoyed at the whims of others who put in no actual work of their own, yet somehow magically control what happens to the numbers in your bank account. 

Let’s take Lebron as an example. Ringleader of the NBA, gets his dick sucked by ESPN every day of the week even when he’s out of season, well-respected and particularly revered in the tragic light of Kobe Bryant’s death, should’ve never agreed to start the stupid basketball games back up. You can’t tell me the same younger players who were snapchatting from the bubble the shitty cafeteria-style food they had, captioned with “you know Lebron ain’t eating this”, would’ve agreed to play if you had gone on tv and spoke out about sports needing to take a backseat as an example for the health of our nation. He, and every other member of the NBA, should’ve joined in protests, leading teams to peaceful sit-ins to demonstrate the necessity to address the causes when coronavirus and the BLM movements first started. Thinking the solution was to dribble a basketball and shoot it at a plexiglass board is completely forgetting the purpose of sports. 

Bottom line: We need to recenter our priorities as humans.

Think Bigger: The Olympics

The ancient Olympic Games were “a religious festival to honor Zeus, father of all other Greek gods and goddesses”. The athletes were all men and beginning 776 BC, they raced (yay for track! The most underappreciated sport.) The Olympics literally started off as a single race, followed by DAYS of partying. Modern day fraternity tailgates are the closest thing we have to this. 

Then, from 393 AD until 1896, they had rescinded into the shadows, an all-forgotten event, until Athens, Greece once again initiated hosting. 

Since 1896, the Olympics have only been cancelled due to world wars: 1916, 1940, 1944. 

The Olympic Oath, taken by officiants, athletes, and coaches alike, address doing it for the “glory of sport, for the honour of our teams, and in respect for the Fundamental Principles of Olympism.” The values of which are excellence, friendship, and respect with the goal of “building a better world”. With some clever deductive reasoning, the purpose of the Olympics, the foundation of which performative sport in the USA is largely built on, is thus to facilitate comradery in the form of sport. I have a hard time believing the first Olympics, with just a single track race as the competition, would have a several-day-long festival that was an insurmountable dick-measuring contest by the winner who then asserted their physical dominance into every country “just because they can” in some jestering tones for several days. Nobody likes that dude at fraternity parties in modern day, and nobody would’ve liked him then, though Joe Rogan is the type of guy who often gives that guy a spotlight. (I also only say that with the tone of surprise because the USA wasn’t founded in 776 BC, so we weren’t around to take something as cool as the Olympics and Jersey Shore it into that.)

In many countries, sports may be the only way to garner international attention and hopefully, leverage eventual refugee or immigrant status. Every year, the African athletes talk about things like bringing internet to their remote villages, or digging a well for clean drinking water. Distance runners talk about running without shoes and as an epidemiologist, I sit there and picture the videos of guinea worm and other parasitic diseases native to their land their bare feet doesn’t protect them from…but they don’t have access or the money to spend on luxuries like shoes, so there’s no other way. 

Meanwhile, the USA collects our 46 gold medals in Rio and accepts our global title as the “freest country in the world, best in the land, paradise, yadda yadda” all while subjecting an athlete on our own soil, the “land of the free”, playing a sport ONLY played within the United States, to public condemnation, despite the fact that the NFL has an audience of 16.67 million fans per year IN PERSON and then an additional 16 million network viewers EVERY SINGLE GAME for the message, on BEING MORE TOLERABLE OF 13% OF OUR NATIONAL POPULATION, A POPULATION WHICH ONLY EXISTS BECAUSE WE STOLE THEM FROM THEIR OWN CONTINENTS, SHOVED THEM ON WOODEN SHIPS FOR MONTHS, AND THEN WHIPPED THEM INTO SUBMISSION TO DO THINGS LIKE PICKING FUCKING COTTON IN THE SAME LAND YOU NOW PLAY FOOTBALL ON, to potentially reach and resonate with. Somehow, though, the idea that we win more gold medals in a sporting competition is attributable to global success. It preserves the idea that democracy is the best thing in the world. But who are we trying to prove that to–other countries? Or ourselves? 

The same people who howled in delight at Tom Brady and Gronk playing footsie in a kiddie pool, really highlighting their retirement to Florida with their season-starting loss devalued cultural awareness and COULD because as a nation, we set forth this forward public image of how that kind of behavior being socially acceptable and have lost sight of what kind of example we are setting forward for the world. And how do we condemn our international rivals like Russia or China for genocide when our own government is guilty of the same thing? And if we know that countries like Russia are doping and going to continue finding ways to cheat, why are we still trying to race alongside them in these desperate Olympic bids of superiority? That very mentality is what ended in Chernobyl. So why would we ever focus so largely on whether one of their athletes can jump half an inch further than one of ours and why should we set a global precedent that we permit that kind of behavior? Or encourage it? At what point do we as a nation step back and analyze our sports culture and say “this is not the example we want to set for the youth of America or the rest of the world”.

We have IOC rules in place where you could only represent your Country’s Team’s sponsoring brand–even if the brands that sponsor you every other moment leading up to you qualifying for that Olympic team are ethically-sourced, sustainable, local, and way more in need of the exposure than Nike. And the athletes, the source of the exposure for it all, didn’t have a say. Nevermind the greater discussion of what the Olympics represents– friendship, respect, a better world. Channeling global energy into sport, which, again, is supposed to be FOR FUN. Before platforms like instagram, snapchat, only fans, whatever your vice is, the only method for exposure was being photographed and seen. So why have we as a nation, the proponents of a “free world”, consistently silenced that in this modern age of technology and the ability to share your voice? Isn’t that the point of democracy? To share opinion? But who structures where “moderation” lies? Is it the voice of someone who created his image around a sport glorifying gore, encouraging violence and bloodshed for the sake of entertainment? Joe Rogan epitomizes that mentality. He’s been a contributing part of it. 

MMA Is Problematic

As such a ferociously talented athlete across so many different sports, I like to think my opinion that wrestling is far and away the most difficult sport–on par with only gymnastics, for women, holds a bit of weight. I certainly won’t get any refuting from wrestlers. (Although women also wrestle too now, which is pretty freaking cool, and men do gymnastics.) Still, wrestling is one of the oldest forms of combat, existing across the globe regardless of geographical boundary or cultural values, and can even trace its Olympic reign to the ancient Romans and its actual origins being present even in cave drawings. (Anyone else get a sad twinge at the reminder of Jon Snow showing Daenerys proof of the white walkers in Season 7-8 of Game of Thrones, there?) Despite loving to touch on my themes of hating the patriarchy and toxic masculinity, there’s something undeniably MASCULINE about having the physical strength and mental wit to submit your opponent. I should know, because I spent 8 years on-and-off getting physically submitted (oh, so fucking willingly) by the man who very well may be my Achille’s Heel at some point. 

Wrestling is undeniably commanding respect. It has honor.

Mixed Martial Arts, on the other hand, in capitalist America, is anything but. Most of my friends, also in their mid-to-late 20’s, who listen to Joe Rogan, listen as a result of his involvement with Dana White and the UFC. And don’t get me wrong, I think martial arts are cool. I love the intensity with which they are studied, the necessity of mental focus. I hope my next venture in life includes some grappling training, should I find an outlet I actually feel comfortable trying that in. I watched my dad and brother freak out over the Rocky movies as a kid. I just couldn’t really grasp why anyone would opt to get the physical shit beat out of them or why it was glorified. Men are truly interesting creatures.

Now, I’ll give it to you. Is humanity predisposed to be drawn to gore? Is it even possible to thwart human nature into being “good” in any sense? Shouldn’t it be better that we fulfill that need to create havoc, chaos, or war and channel it into sport? 

Hear me out: our goal should be peace. Any sport that requires a level of gore to that extreme is no longer a sport. There is a reason it is called “Cage fighting” and you are no better than those poor dogs the world has seemingly forgotten Michael Vick abused, all because he was decent with a football. The only reason “we” value the level of bloodshed and dehumanization of that as a culture is because we still cling to our patriarchal values blindly. We shouldn’t encourage it…for both medical reasons and psychological. 

Patriarchy in the United States

Because of the American Revolution (1775-1783) and our social distancing from the Kingdom of Great Britain, Americans like to assume the world began in 1776 and anything over a ~100-year-timeline seems out-of-touch, unthinkable, and surely not still happening in the world. Definitely not worth mentioning in the news and any suggestion that we approach things rationally and with logic is met with some bitter disdain from an only-slightly-more-privileged class that would still benefit from all of it. This centric-thought process is a similar fallacy to the first “scientists” (people in modern day who liked to sit around, maybe smoke some weed, and ponder life’s mysteries, not unlike Joe Rogan) who proposed the earth was the center of the universe, or how white Americans can’t seem to grasp that just because they don’t witness something happening personally, doesn’t mean it’s not a completely valid concept. I saw a meme that said something along the lines of “I don’t understand Korean but I still know it’s a legitimate fucking language” and it really resonated. 

To some of you, it may be surprising to hear that I fully 1111111110% support our US military. As much as I disdain the patriarchal cycle of sexism, I appreciate the security of a strong military. I’m not an idiot, I know what horrors of the world are out there. I grew up on army bases, my neighbors were secret service, I had helicopters landing in my apple orchard like it was normal. Sleeping on the floor of the pentagon was a fun “treat”. Despite my daddy issues and still living under the reign of heteronormalcy, I embrace our military whole-heartedly. It keeps us secure, but just as often as we have used it for the “common good” of our civilians, we must also acknowledge the obvious flaws in its historic abuse of human rights. Vietnam was a disaster because our development of Agent Orange skirted the Geneva Convention Guidelines by the premise of being a “defoliant” instead of a “corrosive biochemical warfare”. My grandfather was living proof of that, existing with blood clots on his lungs from inhalation of the noxious fumes. But then the Gulf War happened and the military was in the good graces of the American people once more. Look, I get it. If we don’t fight wars on other people’s lands, then we’re going to have to fight them on our own. 

But MY point is our military has an equally treacherous history of getting involved SOLELY for personal gain, which we will now be answering for DECADES to come because of the generational trauma we’ve instilled upon regions and just “hope” they somehow magically grow up to not hate us over. Sounds like my biological father’s logic to parenting. In the age of technology, this is just not sustainable. We need to acknowledge the results of our actions and cultural values. Prior to the dissemination of information, the military didn’t have to answer for it as much. Which, seems logical, particularly when travel was far less frequent, we didn’t even know if the Earth was round (some of us still don’t, Kyrie Irving. How’s that Duke education working out for ya. #GDTBATH). We can’t just exhaust our own resources at whim and leave ourselves vulnerable, right? So, our military became focused on controlling the narrative. Our media became dramatic, sensationalized fiction, and our presidency has since become reality television instead of actual reality. 

However, our military culture, despite being responsible for the technological boom that it is today via the commissioning of Licklider to develop the internet, thrived off of misinformation and distraction of human attention. Which it did well before technology, as well. In WWII, we had Japanese internment camps, yet slapped an apology on it on the basis of “war hysteria”, $43,000 in today’s money (maybe enough for a down payment on a house?) and tried to move about our days. We’ve long disguised questionable immigration policy as “protecting American workers”, even though we branded our nation under the “Field of Dreams” mentality, yet after building it, now suddenly DON’T want others to come? Not to mention the fact that we had the audacity to “grant” Native Americans citizenship in 1924 as if it was some victory, or as if they weren’t here long before the rest of us were, even though they couldn’t even vote in several states until 1968. Imagine constantly being relocated at the whim of some random person in fancy pilgrim clothes like Cam Newton in his COVID-NFL debut that  was inevitably painful, tragic, and awful, yet somehow THEY were the savages? Fuck this, Pocahontas was absolutely right. We should have a new generation of horror films focusing on the survival or death stories of some of these grievous racial injustice moments throughout US history from the perspective of the hunted. They might exist already. I’m too much of a weenie to watch horror movies alone and I’ve lived alone for ~4 years now, so it’s very possible I’m just out of touch. 

With technology being so closely intertwined with military advancement, suspicious cultural changes have become harder and harder to spin in a positive light. 

World War II had reassured everyone we disagreed with white supremacy, and publicly fought against Nazi values, yet Nazi’s flocked to Charlottesville, Virginia and were welcomed at our current president’s campaigns for re-election. With the 1936 Olympics and Jesse Owens’, the black US track phenomenon, gold medals symbolized that the world disagreed with eugenics. We PUBLICLY disagreed with dehumanizing others from a global perspective, but kept our barriers in place within the bounds of our national lives. 

In between periods of war, Americans were just content enough for the stability, the peace, the consistency, that they didn’t have the energy to question why they kept having it disrupted. The early 1950’s was Korea. The mid-1950’s until the mid-1970’s was marked by Vietnam. Then, the nuclear threat, the Space race, and physics became plastered across newspapers, broadcast even on the novel television! The Soviet Union, the remnants of which are still some of our most flaunted Olympic competitors, were clearly established as a threat to our national security. Total domination over them in whatever ways we could would secure our position within the world. 

The entertainment industry continued to develop, and the 1975 predecessor of UFC emerged with the Rocky film starring Sylvester Stallone as the “All American” symbol of blood, sweat, and tears born in Philadelphia, land of the Liberty bell, in July of 1945. For those who don’t know, Rocky embodied the US resilience of never giving up, overcoming obstacle after obstacle. Over the course of five movies, eventually it was acknowledged that the glorified boxing career and misplaced value on blood, sweat, and tears over physical health, because the reality of what it means to live in a “developed” world means that it should, realistically, NEVER come to resorting to that, resulted in brain damage–the kind “that was normal for boxers”. 

I’m sorry. But What? 

With CTE and criminology discussions involving repeat abusers’ brain development, especially the KNOWN psychological profile that serial killers have often experienced repeat head traumas, why are we encouraging such devastation for the sake of “sport”? I understand needing to be able to defend yourself and training for such adequately– but what are we teaching people if we allow people to be “purchased” for a fight, gambled on, and flaunt that lifestyle as desirable, even when Conor McGregor is in the news for some despicable act. Or when they might literally die on screen, broadcast to millions, including even their children? Don’t even get me started on Jon Jones. The necessity for an easier life and financial security should never be so desirable that you incentivize wanting to inflict brain damage on someone for fun. At least WWE is scripted, fake, and centered around acting. 

But anger is the one emotion that men have universally been allowed to show with a military patriarchal system. 30-40% of police officers were even involved in incidents of domestic violence. My grandfather, a New York City cop, took a strong hand to parenting. My other grandfather, a colonel in the US Army, took an even stronger one. But they had stressors, their jobs were hard, it was always a “mistake” or “justified punishment” and sports let them get out that frustration, that anger, that loss when they had to keep it together every other aspect of the day: set forward that strong example. We just “accept” that men are like that.

So how can we fault them for enjoying endorsing it with addictive behaviors, gambling, fighting, drugs, when there’s nothing wrong with a little indulging from time-to-time? If sports is one of the only major ways the American male has been permitted to show emotion for something without feeling the bounds of public scrutiny for the “vulnerability” of their emotion, how can we condemn the most barbaric, raw, “return to our roots” facade that is the MMA circuits, the NFL, etc when these people are adults willingly entering into these contracts? How many Chris Benoít tragedies is it going to take? How many Aaron Hernandez situations? OJ Simpson? Our love of glorifying the bloodshed that is the UFC, NFL, and professional sports when we reduce it to “just a game” is perpetuated by the leaders of our nations only representing military service values and “don’t ask, don’t tell” style “progressiveness”. God forbid we acknowledge a weakness to the world, even when not doing so actually weakens our citizens.

We need to begin setting a precedent that men do not need to be these macho Arnold Schwarzenegger-style meat heads who insert themselves with relevance into every facet of culture with the misplaced confidence that your opinion must surely be the right one, as white men are prone to do. We need to move away from that method of debate as a nation. We need to remember the collective pause quarantine offered and how, bottom line, promotion of physical and mental health should be a priority. Our sports culture should, logically, serve as a huge database for that. But we are never going to move towards that with a moderator whose cultural fanbase includes a large section of viewers who subscribe to the riches of violence. Of chosen barbary. Nevermind the wives, girlfriends, children, viewers who have to watch your inevitable, and almost assuredly mental spiral and have Stockholm Syndrome into thinking it is “valiant” that the father of their child would put himself in the risk of brain injury for financial luxury. 

But is there even a way to limit violence? How do we know it isn’t inherent to human culture? Even the bible portrays humans as susceptible to sin? 

It isn’t about removing violence altogether. I’m not saying we need to completely disband UFC or stop MMA. 

It’s about removing glorifying bloodshed whenever it isn’t necessary. Of not showcasing that as a possible priority to the American people in a time where unity should be held above all. 

Encouraging violence roots deep with our military pride, though, and existed long before modern gaming systems flooded male feeds. Fun fact: the CIA even delved deep within World of Warcraft at one point. There’s definitely a reason I play Call of Duty, and do everything male-dominated when possible. I learned tactics of how to infiltrate and dismantle from an early age. But gaming systems weren’t making our children more violent. Nor would taking them away solve anything. Our cultural emphasis on military history had already secured that hundreds of years prior and it will continue to exist for generations to come. Yet, we pointed the finger at the technology because holding man accountable is blasphemous. How dare we learn from experience. 

With technology, the dissemination of information, accessibility of global travel, and necessity for action, particularly in light with what we know about global warming, climate change, and environmental values of the importance of conservation, it should be our global priority to promote peace, education, sustainability, and collaboration. We have the accessibility, technology, and education to do it. We need to quit pretending like letting some states live in the modern world and some exist on a Westworld style loop of the nostalgic commodity is permissible. We shouldn’t set a standard of devaluing life at the crossing of our border. We definitely shouldn’t be carrying out forced sterilizations on ICE detainees in the state of Georgia, an act of which is going to be referred to under the context of “genocide” once the inevitable dozens of other whistleblowers step forward into the national spotlight, only to soon dull our senses with overstimulation. That’s the world that making politics a game of chess has become, only highlighted by the proposition of this debate at all. We’ve always fixated the spotlight on the lunacy instead of the bigger picture. 

And the bigger picture is humanity. 

And as humans born within the United States of America, we are thrust into an international political spotlight that was chosen for us due to the nature of our familial history, and just like Kourtney Kardashian, at one point we may have been along for the ride, but we’re now being faced with the necessity of getting the fuck out of the influential mess we’ve created to devote time to what really matters. 

And what really matters is supposed to be love. And empathy. And being able to spend the time not worrying about your physical safety, your mental or physical health, or the thousands of those who you know are going to experience the same level of torment that you’ve experienced. Nobody who has been abused and has actually healed wants someone else to go through what they had to go through. That doesn’t mean forgiveness and complete disregard, either, but it means acceptance.

And as citizens of the USA, we need to start accepting that there are always going to an insurmountable amount of international threats, thanks to DECADES and GENERATIONS of white, conservative colonialism. We legitimately owe it to the world to undeniably encourage peace above all. Which means not acting like the sore fucking loser when our Olympic medal count drops because Lebron and the boys need to stay home and protest in Lafayette Square instead of resuming to their petty games as long as they’re “wearing t-shirts that say the names”. And protests don’t have to be loud. In fact, some of the most prolific moments in history were silent. The Greensboro four were so incredibly effective because they gave absolutely no excuse for their stance to be undermined. 

Do we think we’re going to mend any international relations by condemning all muslims as terrorists? You realize we’ve had about 5 or 6 white domestic terrorist incidences since, including what I would argue is the current state of the presidency because causing now generations of Americans to question science and logic, returning to eugenic-driven values of “Patriotic” education, Uterus collectors in state-sponsored facilities in Georgia pulling women from cages and removing their reproductive rights, is surely going to create a significant amount of broiled hatred within the bounds of our own country. You’d have thought we would’ve learned.

To all of the Christians–Mary and her lil man are knocking at your inn’s doors and you guys are turning her away. She’s gonna have to suffice birthing Jesus in some mangy stable all because you didn’t want to admit we have a “hospitality” problem in this nation structured around our necessity to compete: militarily, economically, athletically, whatever. We have to be the “best”. 

And being good at stuff does breed hatred, so maybe hate for the USA is inevitable. It breeds jealousy, contempt, anger, from those who have less. They don’t see the work that goes in behind the scenes, the practices, the workouts, the sweat, ice baths, lonely cries, wondering if it’s all going to be worth it. But why would we want other countries to suffer in the same way that we did? Why does our corporate strength cry that jobs are being outsourced yet not question why our citizens can’t afford the cost of goods in a way that affords a reasonable living wage for our workers? Why are we accepting that the same sports companies we revere–Nike especially, has exploited fast fashion and sweatshops. Or that Jeff Bezos can exploit the majority of the world and just not give back to it in any proportional rate? It’s 2020. We know that is not acceptable. It’s time to speed it up. 

We’re never going to achieve peace, the ability to rest comfortably for years on end without the looming threat of an ill-conceived draft, if we continue to pretend like the way we’ve treated other nations isn’t criminal. But you don’t get that with a host who paved his way commentating modern day gladiators–the people who have no other focus in life they can possibly see as a more constructive use of their time than wanting to achieve glory just to be a showy celebrity, parading around in their boxers and exposing themselves to unsuspecting women in bars. Or the ones who get pulled over once, twice, THREE TIMES YOU’RE OUT! At the old ball game of the heart of America’s issues, where we tried to pretend like sequestering prostitution and gambling to a cheap, knock-off version of the wonders of the world and selling it as “magical” was going to prevent addictive behaviors from occurring elsewhere in the land. 

The American people aren’t gladiators who chose to step into that ring, getting beaten down into submission, grappled into torment, your stats flashing across the screen, watching compartmentally removed from the violence. 

We need to stop treating their lives like a sport and confront the reality of the world we want to foster. 

Political History within the USA

The Declaration states “All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”

Our culture of rights was solidified with extending it to white male property owners, from there on out marking a culture bound by valuing everything at property level, disregarding non-tangible, abstract concepts such as sentiment, intellect, and arbitrary worth. At the time, only 6% of the population was able to vote under these requirements. 

Slaves, or virtually the majority, if not all, of black people, became representative of 3/5ths of a person for HOR representation. And despite the Bill of Rights, 130 years of courts subjectively determining a “person” was still only people with property, or white men, showed that mentality was not a thing of the past, even with their supposed “rights”.  

In 1807, women were specifically excluded from voting through an unconstitutional act, yet the sentiment fell on deaf, all-male ears in court. My own grandfather would continue to embrace that judgment to me, well into the 2000’s. 

The American Civil War of 1861-1865 passed, a war within our own borders, amongst our own citizens, amassing bloodshed of nearly ONE MILLION of our OWN citizens. Our industrialization of war also set the stage for military prowess globally in WWI, WWII, and so on. This war alone is arguably the rock skipping across the pond, the stage 1 of the Butterfly effect, the moment the camera pans out and goes “so you’re probably wondering how I got here” like Emperor Kuzco in the Emperor’s New Groove, sad llama form and all. My great-great-grandfather was a POW and Union general in the Civil War, and our family home in Missouri is apparently a historically preserved landmark now for its use as a hospital during the war.

…I’ll admit, I breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t on the “other” side. 

Let’s not forget Susan B. Anthony used this time to once again, point out the hypocrisy of the Equal Protection Clause not being inclusive of women.

1920’s, came and went. White women could vote. Finally! My people!

Susan B. Anthony still could not. 

1964 accompanied the Civil Rights Act, so black people could finally vote without restriction. Do we think people magically changed their opinions, though? No.

2008 marked the first African-American president, and we’ve yet to see a female leader. 

In fact, our closest chance to a female leader, an undeniable symbol of feminism for generations of future women in the United States for hundreds of years to come, was Hilary Clinton. It was a joke. Laughable at best. The Democratic Party threw up their “next in line”, someone they thought would be a symbol of the “puritan work ethic”, and women were met with a symbol of complicitness in an era of #MeToo, where silence is not enough. We were taunted with the choice of a woman who publicly humiliated another young woman on national television who was in a submissive position to HER HUSBAND, the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, to set the example for generations of young women in the USA? You have got to be kidding me. 

Nevermind the fact that she remained married to the man, throughout her campaign on “feminism”, and remains married to this day. (Though I operate under the assumption that she doesn’t want to have to testify or reveal any secrets about their marriage and it’s far too complicated to ever unweave at this point). Also, I’m an open marriage kind of gal, I can even be persuaded to see growth and forgiveness after cheating, (namely because I think people are inherently selfish in this day and age) but a large issue with our culture is our politician’s inability to be more transparent about their ACTUAL perceptions. That political guy in Florida found in the hotel room with that male stripper who OD’ed checked himself into rehab instead of highlighting the Miami LGBTQ community’s struggle with HIV/AIDS and proper use of PrEP, or the commonality of the swinger lifestyle. But no, we had a woman who still publicly stood by her husband after running on a platform ALMOST SOLELY ON IT BEING “TIME” FOR A WOMAN. This is like, how obnoxious it is when every single “girl power” movie has to go out of its way to stress the “girl power” theme. If you have to assert your dominance, you probably don’t have any. You can’t endorse girl power and womanhood but not publicly address the concern over setting an example to young women that staying with a cheater is okay, or that you shouldn’t have further contributed to this woman-hating narrative, fuck the culture. The introductory 3 blog posts that spiral into my Ghislaine Maxwell/Jeffrey Epstein rabbit hole of a childhood should explain exactly why I hate her so much. My logic at the time kept weighing “I can deal with another shitty white male, but I can’t have the first female president be this” with “what could possibly actually happen in just four years”. Even with all of those heavy considerations, I could not have imagined the breakdown of our democracy into our current situation. I thought it was insane that my sociology professor cried and talked about creating a “safe space” in her office for anyone who was uncomfortable. Yet, four years later, I’m still like, “THESE are our choices?! THESE? What the actual fuck.”

And the political history in the United States, that Constitution that people who still support Donald Trump and the GOP love to wave as a “perfect set of guidelines” on the basis of their religious values are completely ignoring the fact that those same political idols of theirs wanted the separation of church and state. Which means not voting on the basis of religion. Yet, our political history is still undeniably warped by white, conservative, Christian values–a fact we can ALL admit just by objectively looking at the legislative development of the United States code of conduct for not being shitty human beings in 2020. 

And that “if you have to TELL someone you’re in power, you probably aren’t”? That’s how I feel about “religion” as a whole. You lost me for good when you were overjoyed by Justin Bieber endorsing a Megachurch pastor wearing $3,000 Yeezy’s in the state of Texas, even though that same church is pro-life, despite science PROVING that pro-life legislation increases the rates of infant and maternal mortality and you also claim to care about saving babies. I’m sorry, but no. The “Republican” political party has become hypocritical at its heart. Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s body isn’t even cold and yet the Grade-A Certified Cunt, and NOT the Wet ass pussy Cardi B/Megan Thee Stallion goddess kind, that is Mitch McConnell wants to vote her successor in despite that same logic being presented to him as why a similar vote was postponed until the 2016 election was complete.

So I struggle, because 65% of our total population is still willing to believe the word of a book because they believe in the spirituality of “goodness” on faith alone, but won’t believe scientific fact on systemic cultural issues rooted in the foundations of our society, so when the opportunity to actually vote for “goodness” and programs that promote a more sustainable earth, a better community, properly coordinated healthcare, is presented to them, they make up some excuse as to why they prefer it to be the “individual’s choice”, even though there’s 200+ years of research as to why that does not work in just our country and THOUSANDS of years of research for why this doesn’t work in civilizations across the globe. The only reason we even have foundations like the EPA is because we had to FORCE chemical industries in Toms River, New Jersey to stop purposefully disposing of hazardous waste improperly, allowing it to seep into the watershed and cause a significantly higher incidence of childhood cancer. But with “small government”, the EPA wouldn’t exist. Do you actually want to save the children? Assuming the world is good is a naive way of thinking that is just harmful to those of us who had to learn that the hard way. The Catholic Church sector of Christianity couldn’t even save their own children. In fact, they were shielding the abusers from punishment because they were worried about the PR on the faith. That’s not appropriate.

Additionally, if you are voting in an election, not even for YOUR OWN RIGHTS, but for your ability to have control over someone ELSE’S rights, you’re no longer voting for “individual” choice, you’re voting for control over someone else, call it what it is. But that’s hard with a religion that stresses the importance of the individual, because it really is true that in an emergency situation, you can only be helpful if you take care of yourself first. (The old “oxygen mask on an airliner” analogy.) Still, we need to recognize the necessity to employ other people with the tools to make decisions over themselves. We can’t leave things like mental and physical healthcare, protection from the law (which, also, is supposed to HELP us, the law is literally supposed to PROTECT citizens… we shouldn’t need protection from it), the ability to afford housing, up to “faith”, because this is reality, not some idealistic delusion. And unlike delusion, in reality, we have the ability to change it, but we first have to accept it. 

Despite other countries with impressive quality of life, longevity, and distribution of health indicators existing, we refuse to acknowledge our own system needs to be revitalized because we’re scared to admit that we were wrong. But isn’t religion based around forgiveness, and acceptance, and learning as you grow? You constantly revisit the same text and get new context from it, so shouldn’t we normalize the same thing with society? The fact that Megan Rapinoe, a KNOWN LESBIAN, would receive any kind of backlash for using her position to highlight the reality of the LGBTQ+ population is ridiculous and the fact that our media would glorify that, encourage the divisiveness, and for this to be “normal” is just pathetic. We can’t keep claiming to be so advanced as a civilization when we only legalized gay marriage federally in 2015!

But 65% of the population is centered around Christian values, and that may seem like a lot–it’s certainly still the majority, so why should we change that at all? Let’s think about what that means in other terms. It means that out of every 5 Americans, roughly 2 of those are going to NOT be that way. They’re going to have different values. Does this mean they are terrible people? Fuck no. Objectively looking at all of the religions around the globe, there are a lot of fucking similarities. Concepts of a higher power only differ in WHO or WHAT that higher power is. Themes of morality, righteousness, being the best version of a human tend to involve similar themes. (I personally don’t feel the necessity to characterize what I think influences the universe. I accept that as a human, I don’t need to know all. Ignorance truly is bliss. I’ve had near death experiences, and there was just peace, acceptance, contentment.) For the life of me, though, I cannot grasp the necessity to feel as if you have to prove to others that what you believe in, which is FOUNDED ON FAITH AND FAITH ALONE (AKA THERE IS NO TANGIBLE PROOF YOU CAN SHOW THEM) “MUST” be the right way. The point is, we should still include those 2 people in things that we do. I’m sure they have a lot to offer. The purpose of the USA being the “best” is that we get to cherry-pick our favorite aspects of other cultures and bring them here to exist in one place in unity. Didn’t any of you watch Zootopia? 

So I guess my argument isn’t so much about just Joe Rogan, or what he represents as an individual. Truth be told, I recognize his comedic worth. I listen intermittently (shout out to Miley for being the bad bitch who can always put someone in their place, you are my idol), but the very fact that he even thinks the general public should want him to moderate a presidential debate under the current state of our country, with what may be one of the most important elections for a global stage of symbolizing what kind of progression we’re going to move forward with (or should I say, backward, because if Trump wins, I am seriously considering seeking asylum overseas, purely for mental health and peace of mind, because I cannot live in whatever Nazi Germany style regime he wants to reinvent) is a travesty. 

Sports have historically paralleled our international relations and cultural movements within our own country. Black men could represent the USA globally before they could even vote. You realize how fucked up that is? Right? Jesse Owens was a symbol of defiance to Adolf Hitler yet would’ve been lynched had he not had his gold medal with him walking through some towns in Alabama. We boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics to protest Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, yet 31 years later started the “War on Terror”. 

And we do set a global precedence for acceptable behavior. The world does watch us. So no, we don’t need Joe Rogan to debate Joe Biden and Donald Trump like we should further encourage our presidential elections to resemble some mockery that is ESPN’s The Ocho instead of discouraging the circus that has been allowed to perform long enough. We shouldn’t have to debate the topics that will inevitably be discussed: whether black lives matter, is it humane to perform significant surgical operations on prisoners against their will if it removes their ability to propagate or remain in this country, whether we should be protecting consumers, addressing climate change.

This is not the world we want to encourage. 

This election isn’t about a candidate. It’s about our values for humanity. 

SOURCES:

(Do I have to actually publish these in proper APA or MLA citation on a blog? Here’s the links)

https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/18/news/nfl-nba-mlb-owners-diversity/index.html

https://www.penn.museum/sites/olympics/olympicorigins.shtml

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/31/nfl-television-viewership-increases-5percent-for-2019-season.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/158-resources-understanding-systemic-racism-america-180975029/

https://theundefeated.com/features/athletes-and-activism-the-long-defiant-history-of-sports-protests/

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Texas-pregnancy-related-death-rate-among-15017414.php

https://www.pewforum.org/2009/09/09/muslims-widely-seen-as-facing-discrimination3-2/

https://ehne.fr/en/article/gender-and-europe/gendered-body-expression-european-identity/women-and-olympic-games

https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-baseball

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/446420-ten-athletes-who-made-major-political-and-social-statements

https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/18/news/nfl-nba-mlb-owners-diversity/index.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joe_Rogan_Experience

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Kaepernick