Blade Killer

      Oscar Pistorius— famed Olympic athlete. Paralympic hero. Murderer.

I’m sure that if you have the capacity to access this relatively small blog, then you’ve probably read about the Blade Runner tragedy. He was arrested about a week ago on the account of the premeditated murder of his 29 year old girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, an aspiring model and actress. But as I went through the case, I couldn’t help but think, where’s the preferential treatment?

The justice system is supposed to be of equality and fair representation, especially in particularly developed systems like the American justice system and South Africa’s— yet we find individuals placed above it all the time (if you want to read about South Africa’s Justice System, follow this link, there are many differences in this case proceeding).

The example that you can’t miss: O.J Simpson. He was held on trial on account for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman— facing a potential death sentence. Yet, he was found not guilty in a case that seemed to have insurmountable evidence piled against him, including a pair of his socks with Nicole Brown’s blood spattered on them. Upon his acquittal he wrote a book titled “If I Did It”, outlining the steps he would’ve taken had he committed the murders. Celebrity won big in a place where fame has no place— the justice system.

       And there are a number of examples that follow the same storyline— Ray Lewis, the Baltimore Raven’s star was charged with double murder and walked. Leonard Little, a St. Louis Rams linebacker was actually convicted with the DUI-murder of Susan Gutweiler, because he rammed into her car after running a red light under the influence.  And it seems that Pistorius’s case might just be taking the same turn.

           

    Analysts and experts have taken a close look at the evidence and the stories, and although there is always room for debate, an ostensible glance at the forensics doesn’t bode well for Pistorius. New York City Attorney Tom Harvey said, looking just at the forensic evidence, that the guy is guilty as hell.” His story sounds pretty incredulous— that he shot her through a door because he feared it was an intruder that had come through an open window and locked them self in the bathroom (here’s more for a better understanding of his story). First, for someone who claims that they’re incredibly paranoid of neighborhood crime, why would the door be open? Second, how could you not know that your girlfriend was no longer in your bed next to you, the place that both sides stipulated she was moments before the murder? And third, why would he have any reason to believe that a thief would hide in a bathroom, and not even look to make sure it was his girlfriend? And whether you side with me or not, there’s clearly not enough evidence for him to put grant him the bail he just recently received.

            Ultimately, we can only hope that justice is served, whatever way that may be— but without a bias for the Olympic hero, or for that matter, although unforeseeable, against him. Although, as the proceedings look now, it seems that the special treatment world class athletes receive in the courtroom hasn’t lost its touch in South Africa. 

Sports, A Man's Game?

Athletic competition, a widely touted vanguard for equality— every individual can compete as long as they have the physical capacity to succeed. For many, it’s seen as the equalizer in societies. We’ve heard it a billion times; a talented kid grows up in an impoverished ghetto and eventually makes millions of dollars doing what he loves whether it be soccer, basketball, or baseball, you name a sport and this story has a place in it.

However, is this image of sports really as true to its appearance as it should be? Take race for instance. Racism is talked about as an artifact in so many sports— Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in the MLB (Major League Baseball Association) nearly 60 years ago, and Jeremy Lin has infiltrated the NBA (National Basketball Association) for Asian Americans everywhere. But is it really gone? In perhaps, the most global sport of all— football, or as Americans refer to it, soccer, racism is a very real problem. Players are forced to walk-off of fields in the midst of competition due to the physical and verbal abuse they face on a daily basis (you can read more here). And sometimes racist sentiment in the sport leads to even more, recently resulting in an arson attack against recruited Arab players in Israel.

However, there exists an even greater gap of inequality for a different group of people. Today I want to focus on a bias towards roughly 50% of the world’s population: women. To begin, the amount of sports made available to women are just recently catching up to the number available to men. Professional parallel organizations like the WNBA and the WLS (Women’s League Soccer) weren't created until very recently— the WNBA in 1996 and the WLS in 2010. And believe it or not, but the 2012 was the first Olympics in which women were allowed to participate in every sport.

Past, the technical restrictions on women— the culture surrounding their competition is also unsettling. Women’s sports are often given a lack of credence and written off as a joke— it’s not uncommon to see a ton of remarks and posts in the same vein as this:

Furthermore, girls are dropping out of sports as they hit their teens at twice the rate of boys, and according to the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation, it’s because sports are perceived as unfeminine— an unfriendly misconception to further integration and equality of the realm of physical activity. Especially when physical dominance is a cornerstone of the machoistic male figure, this only leaves more room for divisions.

All in all, I guess it’s a question of how much we’re willing to change as a society— organizations are doing their part, creating women’s groups and professional leagues, but how accepted and popular they become is up to the culture they’re competing for.