The Desi Hall of Shame and the joy of the Olympics
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I’m more of a hot-chocolate-in-the-lodge girl than someone who will hit the slopes but by now we’ve all seen perma-caffeinated Kash Patel and his bulging eyeballs acting like a frat boy during the U.S. Men’s Hockey team celebrations after they won the gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Italy. Our tax dollars paid for Patelji to hop on a private jet and send the world a message about not only Americans, federal law enforcement officials in the Trump administration, but Indian Americans, too.
He was already a strong contender for the Desi Hall of Shame,a place of dishonor for the likes of Bobby Jindal and Dinesh D’Souza and seemingly every tech CEO. Patel cemented his place further after deciding - or having it decided for him - to do an impressive amount of nothing about the Epstein files or investigating the murders of U.S. citizens at the hands of ICE.
It might seem like a small thing after news about the U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran this morning, but it’s part of a broader theme of a staggering failure of leadership, a lack of understanding about the world, and this need to frame everything and everyone in a western, white mold.
I absolutely don’t want to minimize the milestone accomplishment of the Men’s gold medal. It should be celebrated, but the loudest players’ behavior can also be examined through the lens the Trump administration has constructed itself.
The ‘don’t make sports political” cries were swift from the administration and its supporters. On its surface, I understand where they are coming from. I endlessly complain that Trump truly has politicized every single thing in our lives the way the post-9/11 era militarized every single thing in America, but the Olympics has always been political.
For a few weeks every few years, we get to meet amazing athletes through our screens from places most of us can only dream about going or will after hearing their stories. The UN’s blackhole of bureaucracy and esoteric action get a varnish of global cooperation. We get to put our domestic differences aside and become experts at triple axels and death-defying ski jumps from the comfort of our homes.
Wars and conflict and radical leaders and coups carry on in the background, we see the deep unfairness in access and training for different athletes from different countries. And yet, none of that matters at the starting gate.
For a brief moment, each of these athletes gets to be the best their country has to offer and maybe even the best in the entire world. (I personally think even making the top 50 is pretty damn impressive.)
That’s what the Olympics is really about, but it’s naive to think that’s all the Games are about.
The U.S. boycotted the 1980 Summer Games as a protest against the Soviet Union, in part for its invasion of Afghanistan. Clearly, that wasn’t simply because Americans cared about Afghans.
Jesse Owens’ very presence at the 1936 Berlin Games was political because Hitler was there, too.
At the 1968 Games in Mexico City, track and field athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos held their fists up in a Black power salute in a silent fight for civil rights and racial equality as turmoil continued at home.
Palestine, the newly formed republics after the breakup of the Soviet Union and then Yugoslavia. These are and were political too.
And still, these athletes were and are cheered on for their prowess and we shed tears if they do because the Olympics is about humanity.
It’s just the Trump administration have taken out all the JOY of that humanity. There’s a soft power that countries play through sport but there’s nothing soft or nuanced about the sledgehammer diplomacy on display right now.
I’m not a hockey fan, preferring my sports to be on solid land and reasonable weather, but I have to imagine there are more than a few hockey fans who are disgusted with these men who not only partied with Patel but went so far as attending the State of the Union. I had so many questions after seeing the FBI Director in the locker room like: what Team USA PR flack thought it was a good idea to allow this to be filmed? to even allow him into the locker room in the first place? Let’s assume for a second they had no choice - why not take a stand and not attend the State of the Union and not pose for several pictures with the president?
The worst moment for me, by far, was hearing many (important to note: not all) of them laugh at Trump’s sad attempt at comedy on a phone call to the team. There’s respect for the Office of the President, and then there’s respect for themselves and understanding the context of his past actions towards women and girls.
So, I made a collage for the unifying beauty of the Olympic Games; for the athletes from all over the world who compete as women, for those who are not allowed to, and for the male and other gender athletes, coaches, staff, and all the fans who support them. After the news this morning though, it’s also in honor of atheletes from Iran who will compete in the Olympics and World Cup, when it comes to the U.S. this summer. (Go read Talib Visram’s newsletter about the politics of that event, too)
This collage is about the messy nature of building each Olympic Games and, ultimately, diplomacy. It can be painstaking and detailed and it’s about bringing all these disparate parts together to make something new and celebratory.
Stay tuned for the next issue in this series where I illustrate news through my collages. And, thanks for reading! Please go like, follow, and subscribe to Export Quality on social media platforms everywhere! And, here’s a link to purchase a print of this piece through my shop.