As a LiberalTM
I never liked Fox News. Not only are they extremely conservative, they also have a long history of sexual assault both in the studio and outside it, and they have had more than a few sketchy thoughts about the rights of women, racism and homophobia. But I have to say, this really wins out.On Friday, Feb. 9, Fox News took down an article by Fox Executive Vice President and Executive Editor John Moody detailing the diverse Olympians this year.
Among other gems, including accusing the Olympic committee of "pandering to a PC culture," Moody also said:
"Unless it's changed overnight, the motto of the Olympics, since 1894, has always been 'Faster, Higher, Stronger.' It appears the U.S Olympics Committee would like to change that to 'Darker, Gayer, Different.' If your goal is to win medals, that won't work."
This is NOT satire.
A "professional" journalist (I say professional in quotation marks because, dude. It's Fox News) wrote this for his job that he is paid in real money for. His superiors had to look over it and say, "Yeah, this is fine."
Now, before we get into the fun part of razing this mess of an article, let's look at this man's claim. He seems to believe that as opposed to picking the best athletes, the Olympics committee chooses people of color (POC) and those of different sexuality as opposed to straight, white people who are possibly better than those minorities. You know what this sounds like?
"White privilege doesn't exist."
"Reverse racism is on the rise!"
You know, completely false claims.
This is an ongoing claim in the job market, too. Many people are worried that, in an effort to diversify their staff, employers will pick POCs or those who are not cis or heterosexual over those who are the opposite in order to diversify their workplace.
But this is simply untrue. In fact, those who are white and vying against an African American for a job receive a callback 36 percent of the time more, and the same is true for those of Hispanic descent, except their number is 24 percent. For people who are not cis or heterosexual, it can be even worse. In over half of America, it is completely legal to fire someone for being gay, bisexual or transgender.
The Olympic committee is not concerned with political correctness and extreme diversity when they pick their athletes. They are concerned with winning a medal. This has been the case since the beginning, when they picked Jesse Owens, a black man in a very racist world, to represent America in track and field at the 1936 Olympic games in Nazi Germany.
And they chose right. Jesse Owens won four gold medals and broke two world records.
So now that we've got those statistics, let's look at the actual article! Besides John Moody's disgust at a "Darker, Gayer, Different" Olympics, let's see what else he thinks.
The article was inspired when a USOC member said how proud they were to create such a diverse team. Moody said what followed was an "embarrassing laundry list of how many African-American, Asians, and openly gay athletes" are on Team USA. Wait wait, quick question. How is this embarrassing?! Despite this, out of the 234 athletes in the Olympics, there are 11 Asian-Americans, 10 African Americans, and two openly gay athletes, Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy.
So yeah. Look out everyone. Its not like about 10 percent of the athletes aren't white or straight. And by the way, I'm not mad at the Olympics for not including more diversity. So don't think that. But lets see a couple of our 10 percent!
Chloe Kim is a 17-year-old Asian-American whose parents immigrated from Korea. And would you look at that, she took gold in snowboarding!
Adam Rippon and Mirai Nagasu won bronze for team figure skating. And Nagasu was the first American woman to land a triple axel at the Olympics.
And brother and sister duo Maia and Alex Shibutani won silver for free dance.
So quite frankly, if our Olympics are becoming "Darker, Gayer, Different" as we strive to represent our country, that sounds pretty great. Every single one of these athletes — white or not, gay or straight — have worked their entire lives to be where they are today.
So, John Moody, if you happen to read this, when you look at this "embarrassing" list of people representing your country who don't fit the picture of what you think is American, maybe keep your thoughts to yourself. Or, better yet, and stay with me on this: not have that awful, inexcusable opinion at all.