The Eck’s Factor: National attitude toward the Paralympics speaks to issues beyond ableism
As I write this column in anticipation of the Tokyo Olympics, I feel an abnormal amount of patriotism coursing through my veins. Not to equate patriotism with an aloof attitude toward a corrupt government, but I do feel most proud to call the United States my home during the Olympics.
Just yesterday, while I was watching the U.S. Olympic Trials, NBC momentarily cut to the Paralympic Trials happening simultaneously. I instantly noticed a discrepancy — while the Track & Field trials for athletes who are not disabled were in the magnificent University of Oregon Stadium, the athletes competing for a spot in the Paralympics were at a discreet, smaller stadium in the Minneapolis area, with no stands for spectators and mediocre publicity.
With little time for me to contemplate, the television cut to a commercial for the Paralympics, which opened with, “Everyone’s got a screen in their hands, but not everyone’s watching us.” Following a showcase of extraordinary athletes, such as David Wagner, Katie Holloway and Sam Grewe, the commercial concluded with, “Let’s make the Paralympics impossible to miss and together we’ll show the world.”
I found it ironic that NBC approached this commercial with a unified front after what I had just witnessed. These broadcasting networks are attempting to increase the salience of the Paralympics through a “We’re all in this together” rhetoric. I couldn’t help but think that NBC was targeting its audience and consumers to indirectly blame us for its own shortcomings in providing equal coverage and treatment of athletes who have and do not have disabilities.
But this paradigm of blaming the consumer is far from unfamiliar. Whether we are discussing pollution, workers’ rights or other marginalized communities’ treatment in the media, the Paralympics highlight a fallacy in how we gravitate toward micro solutions to macro problems.
To be clear, blatant ableism still goes unchecked in all aspects of society separate from the Paralympics. For instance, we have not forgotten about Artie pedaling himself into the pool during the Glee cover of “We Found Love.” Sia developed a movie, casted Maddie Ziegler, an allistic actress, to play a person with autism and told people that it was their fault for being terrible actors when they called her out. The movie then got nominated for not one but two awards at the Golden Globes. And, “vaccines cause autism” is still an accepted anti-vaccine argument.
But ableism is not solely responsible for the discrepancy. While sports corporations drastically undermine athletes with disabilities, women have been underpaid and maltreated by the sports industry, whether it be the NCAA women basketball athletes who were given inadequate training facilities and equipment during March Madness or the age-old dilemma of the U.S. women’s soccer team who simply want equal pay for being better than the men’s team.
After all, the goal of the sports industry is to not treat athletes equally: It’s to maximize profits. The athletes in the NBC commercial were used as pawns to guilt the consumer into feeling responsible for the low ratings of the Paralympics. Although more Americans watch the regular Olympics than the Paralympics, which can be explained by ableism, this national attitude is woven deeply into our framework, and just encouraging more people to watch the Paralympics is not enough of a solution.
We virtually live in a plutocracy where decisions are made by the wealthiest that serve their personal interests. Yet, they evade our scrutiny and pinpoint a scapegoat — the common people, the proletariat, if you will. If people don’t watch the Paralympics, it’s their own fault, not the marketing directors’ nor the U.S. Olympic Committees’.
If people decide not to work because of pathetic minimum wages far below that of stimulus checks, it’s their fault for being lazy and accepting “government handouts,” not the billionaires who widen the socioeconomic gap, evade taxes and plan vacations to space. If people drink out of plastic straws (which are responsible for less than 1% of ocean pollution), it’s their fault for not making wiser consumer decisions, not the corporations and commercial fishers that are responsible for a majority of ocean pollution.
Ultimately, the Paralympics illustrate macro level issues that cannot be solved by simply spreading awareness. But I am not advocating against micro solutions. After all, they tend to be the most concrete and simple ways for an individual to act, so it’s no wonder why we gravitate toward them. But we will never be equal by working for insufficient minimum wages or simply tuning into the limited coverage of the Paralympics. At least, that doesn’t sound like patriotism nor justice to me.
Matthew Eck is a rising senior writing about hot-button social issues.