{"id":570003,"date":"2021-06-21T20:37:13","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T00:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=570003"},"modified":"2021-06-21T20:37:21","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T00:37:21","slug":"watch-sports-can-bring-us-together-so-get-the-politics-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/watch-sports-can-bring-us-together-so-get-the-politics-out\/","title":{"rendered":"WATCH: Sports Can Bring Us Together. So Get The Politics Out."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwatch-sports-can-bring-us-together-so-get-the-politics-out%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=570003&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-21-at-7.19.09-PM-1200x800-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p><span>In the latest five-minute video for PragerU, sports journalist Jason Whitlock talks about the power of sports to bring people together, and how wokeness and politicization can hurt this effort.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Whitlock, the host of \u201cFearless\u201d at Blaze Media, says that many people have long-recognized the power of sports to unite otherwise disparate people together. The best example of this, says Whitlock, was when the mixed-race South African rugby team won the 1995 World Cup, only a year after the formal end to apartheid in South Africa.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cMandela\u2019s presentation of the winner\u2019s trophy to team captain Francois Pienaar stands as an iconic symbol of unity in post-apartheid South Africa,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Sports has also been a unifying force in the United States, such as when Jesse Owens, a black olympic sprinter and long-jumper, won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. Only two years later, another black American, Joe Louis, scored a first-round knockout against Max Schmeling, a German heavyweight boxer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cThe Owens and Louis victories punctured Hitler\u2019s Aryan superiority myth, unified black and white Americans in pride and celebration, and established Owens and Louis as America\u2019s first black national heroes,\u201d says Whitlock.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>So how do sports have such a great effect on unity? Because winning and excellence in sports are colorblind. \u201cSports allow us to experience the power of pure meritocracy \u2014 the only way to govern sports, and the only way to govern life,\u201d argues the sports journalist.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But Whitlock cautions that, just because sports have been unifying in the past, doesn\u2019t mean they will stay so. He cites the decision of former San Francisco 49ers player Colin Kaepernick to take a knee during the national anthem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWe all know what happened next,\u201d says Whitlock. \u201cPlayers across the NFL followed Kaepernick\u2019s lead, kneeling, locking arms, and even raising fists during the national anthem. Then athletes from other sports joined in. Ironically, just as sports has the power to unite, we have discovered it also has equal power to divide.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The entire sports world has \u201c<span>has immersed itself in victimization and left-wing radicalism\u201d when it once celebrated victors, patriotism and colorblindness, he says. \u201c<\/span><span>This immersion threatens permanent damage, both to American sports and to the larger American culture.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Whitlock also argues that other sports figures, such as LeBron James and those affiliated with Nike, have been making millions \u201coff amplifying racial wounds\u201d in a \u201ccynical\u201d yet \u201cbrilliant business strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But it doesn\u2019t have to be this way in America.<\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cUltimately, the fans hold the power,\u201d says Whitlock. \u201c<\/span>They buy the tickets, the shoes and the merchandise. Watch what they do. If they accept sports as just another arena to fight political battles, you\u2019ll know dark days are ahead. If they reject it, we\u2019ll be headed back to a brighter future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span>WATCH:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Get Politics Out of Sports | 5 Minute Video\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/E4jUP5I-rZI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p><i><span>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i><span>member<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span>.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the latest five-minute video for PragerU, sports journalist Jason Whitlock talks about the power of sports to bring people together, and how wokeness and politicization can hurt this effort.\u00a0Whitlock, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2280925,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-21-at-7.19.09-PM-1200x800-1.png","fifu_image_alt":"WATCH: Sports Can Bring Us Together. So Get The Politics Out.","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-570003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-21-at-7.19.09-PM-1200x800-1.png","fifu_image_alt":"WATCH: Sports Can Bring Us Together. So Get The Politics Out.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2280925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}