Comparing Cultures by Athletics
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been making headlines, not for his football skills, but for his actions on the sidelines. Kaepernick has publicly decided to protest racial inequality and police brutality in the United States by kneeling during the National Anthem.
Since the start of the NFL season, Kaepernick has created social dialogue bigger than his sport. The following interviews with international student-athletes highlights the cultural differences regarding protesting.
Brazil:
Courtesy of SEU Athletics
Lucas Doria is a freshman men’s basketball player at St. Edward’s University. He was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, which is one of the largest cities in the world. Doria says the main social justice issues in Brazil are: political corruption, racial discrimination and poverty.
#WeAreMonkeys
While Kaepernick’s protest divides the U.S., World Cup players and fans sang the Brazilian national anthem as a way to counter governmental corruption in 2014. Doria also mentioned how Brazilians saw the Summer Olympics as a greater success than the World Cup.
South Korea:
Courtesy of SEU Athletics
Hyung-Chul (Charlie) Shin is a senior tennis player who transferred to St. Edward’s last season. Originally from Daejeon, South Korea, Shin says the major social problem is that people do not show empathy for one another. Discipline and respect are pivotal in Korea, compared to compassion.
“I don’t see much people there that are aware of [social justice issues],” Shin said. “It’s kind of rare that people talk about it. If there’s something wrong and I’m not satisfied with it, I’m not going to criticize the government.”
When asked if people protest in Korea, he laughed and said no. Protesting is seen as complaining, which is typically done in private.
Sweden:
Viktoria Malmros is a junior defender on the women’s soccer team. Born and raised in Sweden, Malmros compares social justice issues the U.S. is facing with policies already in place in Sweden. Immigration policies, governmental parties, educational systems and high taxation rates are different.
Although Sweden is a smaller country than the U.S., it is seen as more progressive by other nations. One particular social justice issue Swedish female athletes, as well as other female athletes, are combatting is diminishing the wage gap between men and women.
Canada:
In February, the National Hockey League helped raise $100 million for Bell Let’s Talk, a Canadian charitable program dedicated to mental health. This awareness campaign has raised over $100 million to focus on reducing mental illness stigmas; supporting care and access; workplace health; and research for treatments and cures.
October 19, 2016 at 1:29 am
This is a great idea that would have benefited, mightily, from, wait for it….a complete first draft and revision. Your interviews need to start right in on the central theme of your story – how the athletes feel about the Kaepernick incident and how they think something like this would go over in their countries or if it would happen at all . You could cite earlier incidences of political protest by athletes, American and not- to give your lead-in more depth and context.
Technically, you need to edit out the preliminary questions and be sure you are conducting interviews in a quiet place without ambient noise. In the Brazil interview I can hear people talking, walking, doors closing – distracting. Your interviews need to be focused and to be deeper. You are taking too long to get to the point of the interviews and then, when you get to the topic at hand, you back up or skirt around the obvious follow-ups. I suspect this is because you are reluctant to ask these athletes to reflect on the social injustices in their own countries (Brazil had huge protests before the World Cup, as Lucas says, and before the Olympics – all over the $$ being spent on the games vs. being spent on services needed by real people in a nation with a lot of poverty and huge social class differences; Sweden is undergoing a surge of anti-immigrant sentiment and political strife).
So, this is a great idea for how to present a mixed media story using audio. But please take my advice my advice next time. Don’t just “do the story,” but to dig in and DO THE STORY.
We can talk about audio interviewing some more, too.