I
grew up in England, and I well remember playing football (soccer) late into the
summer evening with my friends. All we needed was a ball, a couple of t
shirts thrown on the ground for goal posts, and there, we had a game. And
I became a passionate fan of Tottenham Hotspur -- I think it was because I
liked the name as much as anything.
Eli Siegel, the great poet, critic, and founder of Aesthetic Realism, said that
sport is close to art. I was so surprised when I first heard that, but as I thought about it I saw that it's true. It makes me so grateful to know that something I loved but saw, sorry to say, as frankly
low-class, has dignity and large meaning.
Studying
Aesthetic Realism I have been thrilled seeing how football puts together
opposites, such as freedom and order, the individual and the collective,
continuity and discontinuity.
Getting
to the main subject of this blog, I was moved and so glad to read articles such as “Racism Deserves to Get the Red Card,” by Rich Mkhondo, the important South African journalist
who was Chief Communications Officer for the 2010 World Cup.
Racism
has been in the news lately in England, and it makes me ashamed and angry that
it’s even an issue in 2012. Mr. Mkhondo
knows what he’s talking about, and I’m grateful to him for his writing which is
helping make known the one education that can really banish racism, from the
football pitch, from society, and from our own hearts and minds.
