BOYCOTTING OLYMPICS WOULD BE STUPID KC Sports & Fitness
May 2008
By John Landsberg
Many years ago I was sitting in a Political Science lecture and the professor was discussing the concept of “ethnocentrism.” She explained that “ethnocentrism” meant that people have a tendency to look at the world from the perspective of one’s own culture.Here in the U.S. when we look at other countries and cultures we generally come away with a distinct feeling of superiority.We just know our culture is the best in the world. Yes, I believe we live in the greatest country in the world, but we aren’t perfect.However, that rarely stops many of us from thinking our values and our culture are superior to everyone else’s. That certainly is the case with the Summer Olympics and those idiots who think our athletes should boycott the games over human rights issues in China.Or that they are convinced that China is not handling situations in Tibet and Darfur correctly. Give me a break. In reality about the only thing most folks know about China is there are a lot of people there (1.4 billion) and most of the stuff we buy is made there by people who don’t get paid very much for their efforts.Other than that 99% of people here couldn’t find Tibet or Darfur on a map on a bet. The Olympic Games are supposed to be non-political.The goal is to have the greatest athletes in the world come together in a peaceful manner to compete against each other. The games were specifically designed for nations to forget ideologies and come together in fair competition. This whole ridiculous notion of boycotting the Olympics or even the opening ceremonies has hit close to home with me.Last April I was in China and saw how hard that country was working to make the Olympics a success.They were extremely proud to host the world and were united in their goal of making visitors as comfortable as possible and introduce them to their culture. In addition, my son was one of those very special individuals who had the opportunity to carry the Olympic Torch on its way to Atlanta for the 1991 Olympics. It was one of the proudest moments in my life. The thought that some jerk might have jumped out and tried to stop him over some policy they disliked is reprehensible to me. China is certainly not perfect. But it is time that we started to grow up and realize our country is not perfect either.Boycotting the Olympic Games will not enhance how we are viewed by the rest of the world. In reality, many other nations don’t have the greatest image of us now. This would hurt us even more. There are superb athletes in our country who have trained for these Olympics for most of their lives. This might be the first and only time that they will be recognized by the world for their talents.A boycott would kill their dreams. If we want to make a statement about the Olympics our athletes should go to China and compete. We should win or lose with class and dignity. That will make a much stronger statement than boycotting ever would.
