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Katie Sowers Will Make History In The 2020 Super Bowl

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The offensive assistant coach for the San Francisco 49ers will be the first woman to coach in a Super Bowl, and is also the NFL’s only openly LGBTQ coach.

Whether or not the San Francisco 49ers are able to defeat the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIV on Sunday, February 2, they’ll still be making history. San Francisco offensive assistant coach Katie Sowers will be both the first woman and the first openly LGBTQ person to coach in the NFL’s biggest game, and that’s cause for celebration even if her team doesn’t end up winning the day.

While most people think of American football as a men’s sport, there are female full-contact football leagues, and the biggest of those is the Women’s Football Alliance, which had its first season in 2009. Sowers played quarterback for the WFA’s Kansas City Titans and West Michigan Mayhem, and in 2013, she was a member of the USA Women’s Football team that won the IFAF Women’s World Championship — a sort of World Cup for American football rather than soccer.

Sowers retired from pro play in 2016 after a hip injury, and was soon hired as a wide receiver’s intern by the Atlanta Falcons. She was hired by the 49ers in 2017 as a seasonal offensive assistant, then promoted to offensive assistant coach for the 2019 season.

Photo via USA Football/YouTube

49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppalo spoke highly of Sowers, in particular her work with the team’s wide receivers. “She’s been tremendous,” he told San Francisco’s CBS affiliate, KPIX. “What she does with the receivers, all the skill positions guys, how she interacts with them — it’s special. She’s feisty, man. Katie is awesome out there. She’ll get after guys … It’s fun to be around.”

Sowers obtained her position with the 49ers in part by impressing the team’s head coach, Kyle Shanahan, when he encountered her during her time with the Falcons. Shanahan spoke highly of her in a recent interview with the San Diego Mercury News. “Katie did a real good job for us in Atlanta, she’s done a really good job here,” Shanahan said. “She’s a hard worker, you don’t even notice her because she just goes to work and does what’s asked.”

You might have noticed Sowers yourself, if you’ve caught a recent Microsoft Surface Pro 7 commercial that features her as the star. It begins with Sowers reading from a childhood notebook about her dreams to someday be part of “a real football team.”

This is the exact sort of dream that one of the most high-profile American sports has long denied to both women and LGBTQ people — indeed, despite the high-profile drafting of openly gay defensive end Michael Sam in 2014, Sam didn’t make it to the final roster of any NFL team, and ended up spending his pro football career in the Canadian Football League. Despite several openly gay players making names for themselves at the college level since, none has successfully gone pro. At this point, therefore, Katie Sowers is pretty much the only LGBTQ representation the NFL has to offer. When viewed in that light, her success is even more remarkable.

Therefore, whether her team wins in the Super Bowl this year or not, we have to count the fact that she’s there at all as a little tiny victory for all of us.

Top Photo via Katie Sowers/Facebook

Tom Brady Is Extremely Invested In Archaic Gender Roles

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Parenting has taught the star quarterback that not every boy wants to do the same things. What a groundbreaking revelation.

Tom Brady is struggling with parenthood. But he wants us to know that despite all the curveballs his kids throw at him, he is still managing. 

As it turns out, the much-valorized quarterback for the New England Patriots has discovered that his youngest son, Benny has no interest in sports whatsoever. Somehow Brady is pushing through this trying time for himself and his family. Thoughts and prayers, friend. 

Apparently it blew his mind to realize that his son might not enjoy adhering to the stereotypical gender roles that are in place for boys in America. How is it possible that the son of a Super Bowl winning football player could not enjoy sports? It’s almost as if cultural stereotypes aren’t actually real, and when reinforced, they can put negative and dangerous pressures on children. Wild. 

“[Brady’s oldest son] Jack loves sports. He wants to try hard, and he never wants to disappoint his dad,” Brady told Men’s Health. “That was me. I’d wake up early on weekends to do stuff with my dad. That’s why I didn’t party a lot. If Dad wanted to golf, I wanted to be there with him. And if I ever missed those things, it would crush me.”

Apparently the fact that both he and his older son displayed this similar pattern led Brady to expect the same from his younger son. When he didn’t get that, he was baffled.

“When Benny came along, I thought he would be just like Jack,” he told Men’s Health. “So I was like, ‘C’mon, let’s do this.’ And he was like, ‘Nope.’ And I was like, ‘What? No, do this!’”

Unsurprisingly, it was actually Brady’s wife, model Gisele Bundchen who smacked some much needed sense into the back of his thick skull. She had to sit her wonderful husband down and explain to him that this is not nearly as deep as he is trying to make it. 

“Gisele kept saying to me, ‘Would you effing understand that your son is different?’” Brady told Men’s Health. “I was like, ‘What do you mean? He’s a boy. He should just do all these things that I do.’” 

For those of you on the edge of your seat concerned, fear not. It turns out that he and his son have in fact finally found something to bond over. 

“The reality is that Benny just likes different things,” Brady said. “And it’s great because now I just have to go do what he wants to do. When we do that, we have the best time. He’s like, ‘OMG, Dad, you’re so funny.’ He loves joking, and I joke back.”

Somehow Brady is learning to accept the fact that his youngest son is “different” and what’s more, that this just might actually be okay, and something to be encouraged. Thank goodness that this wound in the family unit has been healed courtesy of the gift of laughter. Perhaps in time they can use that bandage to work on Brady’s archaic understanding of gender roles. One step at a time.

Photo via Tom Brady/Facebook

Teaching Kaepernick

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Anthropology is the study of humans, and what it means to be human. Given its interweaving lenses, you cannot study humanity without inevitably diving into the interplay of biology and culture. Because being human is both: We are biological organisms and products of evolution, just like any other species on the planet, yet we are the only species left who can create art, think symbolically, and create definitions of ourselves that are both identities and boundaries between groups.

As a professor, I never thought that I was being political when I taught anthropology courses. I always considered current anthropology to be mostly above politics.

Occasionally there would be a conflict when fundamentalist religion bumped into evolution. In states like Alabama, biology textbooks still came with an “evolution disclaimer” sticker affixed to the cover. This conflict rarely made it into my classroom though, because in some ways anthropologists teach it all: the biology, the culture, and the vast array of the human experience.   

But the conversation and the classroom in 2018 feel different. And because of this, I now discuss Colin Kaepernick in my anthropology courses. Before we talk about Kaepernick, though, we have to put him in the middle of a conversation that many Americans may not be fully aware of.

I have always taught that biologically, the categories of race that we define in the US aren’t real. But the cultural constructs we call races are very real, and very much influence the day to day lived experiences of the people in them. I never thought of this as political. The fact that racism in the U.S. means unequal access to resources, unequal health outcomes, unequal pay, among a myriad of other ongoing systemic issues was always just reality.

We all know the current political climate in the U.S. has changed things. Everything I teach is political now, because everything is political. Anthropologists, especially those doing applied work in the community, strive to be a voice of the marginalized and disenfranchised. Speaking about the lack of access to resources for members of our communities in the U.S., using data, facts, and long-term studies, suddenly place us at the end of a political spectrum that is somehow in opposition to what some of our country’s elected officials are trying to maintain.

I don’t teach about any of these things because they are political. I teach them because they are anthropology. I teach that black women in the US are 3 to 4 times more likely to die in childbirth; that fear of deportation for immigrants leads to chronic stress and lowered health outcomes; that lack of food choices for rural Native Americans influences nutrition-related disparities; that black Americans die at the hands of law enforcement at rates sometimes twice as high as other groups.

These are examples of how culture and biology uniquely intersect in the U.S. and how our legacy of racism shapes who we are today.

Back to Kaepernick: I don’t teach about Kaepernick because he has become a political figure, I teach about him because he is an anthropological one.  

When Kaepernick first started his peaceful protests during the national anthem in 2016, he became a cultural change agent in one of the most American spaces possible – football. In 1976, cultural anthropologists first described the popularity of American football in the framework of capitalism.

Football is popular because it requires what a successful capitalist way of life also requires, competition. Players and coaches who work the hardest and are the most spirited win. Football, therefore, intersects deeply with certain American economic and traditional values. Importantly for the conversation surrounding Kaepernick, the American ideal of a good football player is one who is diligent, dedicated, and denies his own self-interest for the good of the team.

This is not the first time sports and social justice have collided. Ten years before football was described this way, Muhammed Ali refused to be drafted into military service in protest against the Vietnam War. While his critics were never short of material, one statement was rarely, if ever, made: That Ali should fall in line because that’s what boxers should do. There is no cultural expectation that boxers play by some great set of American rules. People forget that Ali was stripped of his titles and his case was eventually decided on by the Supreme Court.

Kaepernick draws attention to a very real American inequity while simultaneously bucking a sacred American ideal. This is anthropology at its core. And this is why taking a knee hits such a deep vein of discomfort with some Americans, and inspires others.

While we follow growing support and dissent for his voice, what we are also seeing is a wave of cultural change as American values shift and evolve to reflect the complexities of the 21st Century. This is what cultures have always done and will continue to do: develop and morph as the landscape of opportunities, and access to these opportunities, changes with them.

Photo from Benjamin Crump, Esq

One of these complexities is that people of color die at the hands of law enforcement at a disproportionate rate compared to the rest of the population. Kaepernick chose to #TakeAKnee to highlight this disparity by using football as his platform. People objecting to anything that is outside the norms of group dynamics, the NFL included, is as old as culture itself.

I teach about these things not just because they are anthropology, but because they are unavoidable in the current political climate. And while the real concern is for the protection of communities who do not feel safe, there is another message that I want my anthropology students to take away when we talk about Kaepernick: that the power to change an entire culture can be found in just one person, and that they also have that power regardless of who they are or where they come from.     

#AnthropologyAF

French World Cup Victory: A Win For Diversity, Or a Slight Toward Immigrants?

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World Cup 2018 went out with a bang Sunday, as France took their second title home after an intense final against Croatia.

As an avid soccer player, the World Cup is the sporting tournament I look the most forward to. Every four years, I am completely absorbed in the games for a month, my eyes glued to the television rooting for my favorite teams. And this year, the winning team meant something a bit more special to me.

France’s national football team–nicknamed “Les Bleus” – made World Cup 2018 a victory in the name of diversity across the world. Of the 23-man squad, 19 players are immigrants or the sons of immigrants, 15 have roots in Africa, and seven are Muslim.

French Players and Their Origins

This year’s winners hold a special place in my heart. As a Muslim woman and the daughter of immigrants, seeing a squad of primarily immigrant, Muslim players take home the biggest title in the footballing world really hits home. I’ve seen players pray before the matches start and after scoring goals; it’s surreal to see them praying through every moment of their lives, as I do.

How I feel seeing Les Bleus win is similar to how I felt seeing Ibtihaj Muhammad compete in the U.S. Olympics, being the first Muslim-American woman to wear the hijab while competing as a member of the U.S. fencing team. In a way, I saw a part of myself in her. And in a way, I see a part of myself in the French squad who were victorious Sunday.

In a current global community where immigrants, Muslims, and people of color are demonized nearly daily, it’s refreshing to see us celebrated. It’s invigorating to see so many people tracing back the roots of a team whose identities are typically treated with hostility. 

But that’s not to say this diverse team is a hallmark of France’s outstanding dedication to welcoming immigrants and embracing diversity. Despite how revitalizing it might seem to see such a multicultural team take home a huge win, it’s quite hypocritical on France’s behalf to claim Les Bleus as their own, when the country itself has banned Muslim women from wearing the hijab and burqa in public and disproportionately segregated ethnic minorities in public housing complexes in French suburban areas. France has a short history of immigration, only accepting major waves of immigrants over the last 80 years, but the country has deep roots in colonialism and a fierce sense of nationalism, driving racist and xenophobic policies.

Kylian Mbappe, 19, of Cameroon and Algerian Descent

France’s approach to its jarring racism and discrimination is that of color-blindness, also known as, doing nothing. French law prohibits the national census from disaggregating data by race or ethnicity; everyone is simply, French. And while everyone in the country is “French,” citizens who find ancestral roots in France absorb themselves in French nationalism so much to the point that the immigrant persona is that of an “outsider” in their country. Racism in France runs differently than in the U.S. because they believe an absence of color is the best way address the issue. But a color-blind approach is equivalent to ignoring the issue completely, and ignoring an issue prevents a solution from surfacing.

Now Les Bleus have conquered the World Cup–bringing a title home to a country that has not fully accepted them as Frenchmen to begin with. It is self-righteous to see France praise the members of their football team who would otherwise be treated as second-class citizens, if it were not for their ability to conquer the world’s most-watched sporting event.

The French national team made a similar stride their last World Cup victory, back in 1998. Twenty years ago, France arrived at the Cup with just as diverse of a team – captained by the brilliant Zinedine Zidane: a Muslim, Arab, and Frenchman. After the 1998 final against Brazil, commentators cheered that the French flag should be changed from blue, red and white to “black, blanc, et beur,” or “black, white and Arab.” But France’s win at the Cup in 1998 remained just that–its diverse team had no impact on the country’s ongoing grapple with embracing the immigrant persona.

Twenty years later, the French squad has done it again, arriving to Russia 2018 with a multicultural squad with the ability to unite a fractured nation struggling to accept immigrants they view as “outsiders.

Paul Pogba, Son of Guinean Parents and Muslim, Prays on the pitch.

I am elated to see a team like Les Bleus be victorious. But what disappoints me is that immigrants, Muslims, and people of color shouldn’t have to accomplish phenomenal feats to be treated as human or gain the respect and compassion of their home countries. We should be treated as humans simply because we are human. But instead, there’s something to prove, and there has to be a reason why we deserve respect and compassion–as if being human isn’t enough. It takes human dignity and turns it into a competition.

It takes human dignity and turns it into a competition.

Yet amongst the stormy political climate currently engulfing our global community, I see a glimmer of hope and promise in the results of World Cup 2018. It has been a long-winded journey towards a more inclusive, accepting world, but Sunday’s game was a way to bring us all together, despite any differences.

That’s the beauty in sports. These competitions are more than just games. The World Cup is more than just a title. For a few weeks, people from thousands of different backgrounds with millions of different stories come together for one sole reason: to enjoy the sport of football together. The French squad who took the Cup home Sunday are proof that immigrants don’t drain a country’s resources, they enrich its culture. And that’s a lesson every country must learn.

Opinion: The NFL’s National Anthem Ruling Just Lost Them a Generation of New Fans

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On May 23, the NFL ‘unanimously’ gathered to announce that during the national anthem, all players must stand in attendance or wait in the locker room. The decision came without prior counsel from the national players association, as well as the players’ coalition, despite the three parties, up until last Wednesday, having seemed to have found some kind of resolution on the issue. The NFL, after all, agreed at the end of last year, to give $90 million to aid the players’ community activism.

While the NFL expressed that this was made to avoid interjecting politics into players’ lives, the decision ultimately comes with a stroke of irony; in trying to depoliticize the issue, they politicized it in the worst of ways. And to make matters worse, just yesterday, President Trump, canceled the upcoming ceremony with the Super Bowl Champions, the Philadelphia Eagles at the White House. He tweeted, “They disagree with their president because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem…”

While I agree kneeling may take away from the national anthem, bullying and cajoling players into a respectful silence is un-American at best, and a sign of deep insecurity at worst.

Nonetheless, the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, doubled-down on this ruling, stating that they have been “sensitive enough” to the player’s “choices” but demand that they stand during the anthem. “We want people to stand — and make sure they treat this moment in a respectful fashion,” said Goodell shortly after the ruling.

As a private entity, I get it: The NFL does what it can to protect its brand and their financial bottom line. They’re not social warriors, their job is to entertain and make money doing so, anything else is considered a threat.

And to double down on my own statement, I can see where this makes sense: After all, the NFL is hurting in the ratings, (another 9.7 percent drop during the 2017 season). With reports of declining viewers and backlash over the league’s handling of traumatic brain injuries, increasing reports of domestic abuse, and nearly half of parents now looking to distance their children from football due to the risk of brain injury. With attacks on their current players and their supply lines, it’s obvious the NFL has never been more desperate to return to its former glory; where the intersections of contemporary life never presented themselves.

Kaepernick. Photo from kaepernick7.com

But that is not the world we live in anymore. With this recent ruling, it is clear who the NFL believes their “core” fans to be and who they expect to protect their brand moving forward.

Not the legions of young engaged people who level with the league’s players on the same issues – police brutality and state-sanctioned violence – offering a deeper connection between them as they become the new generation of NFL viewers. The NFL could have had a vision that took its viewers into the 21st Century.

Yet they chose those fans who were already leaving – disproportionately white, male, and conservative – who drool over the drenched faux-patriotism as an escape – and those who can use this issue to continually justify their racism.  

But let’s be clear: This decision did not happen in a vacuum.

No public quarrel of this magnitude was possible without Trump. On numerous occasions, he demanded that the players face expulsion from both the league and apparently the country.

Any president who calls a player a “son of a bitch” on live television for expressing their rights to free speech is, put simply, a clown. While the public responded with the usual skepticism to another daily twitter rant, the downstream effect was not lost on certain team owners.

Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones, as well as Dolphin owner Stephen Ross, in a series of depositions gathered by the Wall Street Journal, attributed much of their decision to forbid their players to protest out of fear of the president’s ire.

Despite this, the legalese behind this decision is hardly on firm footing, which also factors into how we should perceive this issue.

On May 21 of this year, Epic Systems Corp v. Lewis ruled in favor of free speech in the private sector. The ruling stated: “Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” Whether it be kneeling or the Macarena, the ruling addressed that self-organization to protest and demonstrate are protected under our labor laws.

Even still, are the players’ method of protest that unethical and disgraceful to our sensibilities as a country who values and protects free speech? What if Colin Kaepernick protested not against the police killing of black males, but the undervaluing of our troops or maybe the ineffectiveness of our veterans affairs system? What if a player kneeled to protest abortion?

Would people have come out with the same uproar? Of course not.

Because in America, it doesn’t matter what you are protesting, but who is doing the actual protesting. Herein lies the major difference and begs the question: When have black people ever been able to protest without an overwhelming hostility from traditional American institutions like the NFL? In making this decision, the NFL has only legitimized a vicious cycle of inequality that ironically marginalizes around 70 percent of their players. That is not only morally reprehensible, but runs contrary to the entire American experience.  

Ask any active service member, veteran, or cop what it means to be patriotic and they’ll each give you a different answer; because the idea of patriotism is ambiguous at best and nefarious at worst. And in this instance, it is the latter, as the idea of patriotism is being conflated with the worst kinds of populism and nationalism.

These players took a knee in good faith, to support those in their community who have suffered a form of state-sanctioned violence. There is little question that this is true. In 2017 alone, police killed 1,147 black people accounting for 25 percent of those killed, despite representing only 13 percent of the overall population. The role of law enforcement in this country has overreached and most people would agree on that.

So why can’t we pause a fucking sporting event to address this critical issue? White people must speak up and be strong allies, regardless of the sanctity of your sporting event; which, let’s be clear, did not interject overt patriotism until the Pentagon started signing contracts with pro-sports leagues in 2012.

As a millennial raised in a military family, the topic of patriotism can cause some internal dramas, as I am sure it does for people like me who grew up on various bases all over the world.

I commend the troops risking their lives, but I believe no one should be forced to stand for the anthem. Soldiers and police serve to protect this very freedom and no one person should be required to value or even honor the freedom that they have. To think differently is to enter into the realm of the kinds of authoritarianism prevalent in less democratized countries; enforcing freedom doesn’t make much sense. And sorry, but just because of any one players’ achievements doesn’t give us the right to reduce their freedom of expression in whatever form it might take.

Not to mention these players have made it abundantly clear they are not protesting our military, but a system of racism that develops into black and brown people being killed by the police at disproportionately high numbers.

When Roseanne Barr grabbed her crotch after a shrieking mockery of the national anthem, she called it a joke, yet managed to have a long career afterward. Yet when Kaepernick kneels, he’s immediately tossed away from the league and graces of fans, even having to file a list of grievances on the grounds of owners in collusion to keep him out.

From another perspective, maybe we don’t deserve someone like Kaepernick, who gave up his career to draw attention to a cause we all know to be true. Maybe he represents the best of an American that has been acknowledged only in the study of civic responsibility.

Patriotism can’t be forced, especially not by rich billionaires telling predominately black athletes how they should exercise their patriotism just because the clock is running.

That’s not a compromise. It is a distortion of everything that actually makes America great. But those who disagree understand privilege as having the privilege to salute the flag. And that has come to be the uncomfortable truth.

Either way- come September- the choice of standing or remaining in the locker-room during the anthem won’t change anything-  you don’t think those same shit-kicking fans won’t notice? You think Trump won’t stop tweeting? This is only the start. But as a warning to any of those who continue to berate these protests, I say this: watch your words very wisely. You do not want to be on the wrong side of history with this one.

 

Electric football returns to RVA this weekend bringing fans a convention, championship and education sessions

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There’s a football simulation game experiencing a renaissance. The player becomes the coach of a full 53-man team, devising game plans and strategies all the way down to blitzes and blocking schemes. It’s so visually detailed that you can make out the individual braids on Robert Griffin III’s head, and you can literally feel the action.
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