Lately, it feels like the world is on fire. At least, “hockey Twitter” is, as everyone will be quick to point out once you start criticizing a white dude and the domino effect meltdowns in mentions begin.
Awhile back I started the Tumblr White Male Sports Journalists. While sports reporting isn’t exactly the heaviest topic you could get into as a journalist, it becomes (like a lot of things in our society that are supposed to be lighter entertainment) a microcosmic theater of issues in and of itself. I thought about putting this piece over at WMSJ, but I wanna go long form here, and be thoughtful, and also put some more content on this website–which looks beautiful (thanks Bloguin!) and which I don’t use nearly as much as I should since reporting on women’s hockey for SCoC has taken up a lot of my free time lately. Since I, like many players in the CWHL, work full time doing other things since there’s no money in practicing our passions. Imagine that.
So like. Let’s be real here. The fact that Rob Rossi thinks that this is a provocative question to ask, let alone have a podcast about, is pretty messed up in and of itself. Cultural differences affect everything. All of our differences affect our perceptions in myriad ways. This is the crux of like most cultural and critical theory. I know that reading Derrida is rough as hell, but hey, PSA to Rob: I highly recommend trying to get your mind around différance because it will really clarify a lot. In short, we clarify meaning based on differences and deference, creating hierarchical structures which are constantly on the move, whether in practical application or in our own minds. We act and feel and learn and form identity and form understanding based on our understanding and interpretation of differences, and also how these understandings and interpretations change based on new information.
So yeah, CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AFFECT SPORTS REPORTING. Everything affects sports reporting. I identify as female so the fact that I am female affects my sports reporting. You don’t have to look as far as Russia to figure that out, Rob. Seriously, you don’t. Look around you. Look at yourself and your choices. Look at your colleagues. Look at bloggers, look at Twitter, look at other sports. Hockey is a predominantly white dude sport and you’ve hit on this MEGA DEEP TOPIC by looking at another privileged white man. Meaning Evgeni Malkin, whom I love to death, but let’s not be euphemistic about his position: he is a wealthy white dude who may have been born in communist Russia to humble beginnings, but that doesn’t exempt him from this description. If the first time you have truly learned about the effect of cultural perspective in reporting is by following Malkin’s story, that really worries me. A lot.
Then, you deign to have a podcast about this issue with two other white male sports journalists and one black male sports journalist from the same media market in Pittsburgh. Seriously get it together. You wanna talk about cultural differences, really, and this is the panel you assemble? John Steigerwald, really?
So I couldn’t help myself and I had to listen to this podcast. And it’s like really, yes, this is the case: Rob Rossi didn’t think about the ramifications of cultural differences in a serious way until he visited Moscow with Evgeni Malkin. And don’t get me wrong: I’m sure that was a fantastic and eye-opening experience. However, the fact that you haven’t had to think about it until middle age is just indicative of how hard you don’t have to work in many cases to be a white male sports journalist. You aren’t burdened by thinking about cultural differences every day of your life–you have the luxury of forming your identity in a vacuum. Attaining your position was not the result of working hard to learn more about the world around you. Your privilege has allowed you to not educate yourself throughout your life about how you differ from other people. And then, in a new and unfamiliar city, you experience that garden variety fish-out-of-water feeling, and you really think you’re having a deep fucking cultural experience? Come on.
I had the (amazing/privileged/unbelievably lucky) opportunity to take a semester in the Netherlands when I was a sophomore in college and I took a travel writing workshop which basically amounted to twenty or so white kids sitting in a room while our professor (a wonderfully eccentric Bostonian who had moved to Poland, a stone’s throw from Auschwitz) yelled at us about not thinking that we were special. That we weren’t the first goddamn people to walk the streets of an unfamiliar city and run out of money for shawarma, that we were lucky to even fucking be here, so god damn it, try to have an original thought. So I mean: I understand that when you’re in a position of privilege it can be very challenging to look beyond yourself. But to see that same extreme naivete I was going through at 19 (as a white girl having the time of her life on a study abroad) exhibited in an adult male educated writer never becomes less upsetting.
I of course want to give credit to people who are trying not to be pieces of shit and learn more about differences between, you know, the white male American establishment and everybody else.
But this shouldn’t have even been a question, Rob Rossi. This is easy stuff. High school level global awareness, high school level understanding of cultural divides. I realize I threw you a bit of a curveball with the French philosopher stuff but I mean bear with me. We can do better than this.
Also disappointing as hell to be reminded about how many of my favorite athletes would have voted for John McCain (Petr Sykora? Honey, no) but hey let’s not turn this into an OVERTLY politicized discussion.
Don’t really know where I was trying to go with this, aside from the fact that with everything that has been happening in the world in 2014, to have this podcast appear on my Twitter feed this morning felt just a little bit insulting. At the very least disappointing. I mean, not that I generally have high expectations of the mainstream Pittsburgh sports media, or White Male Sports Journalists in general. But like. A lot of us don’t know this stuff because we are educated or because we’re better than you or something like that. This isn’t a pissing contest. We know about the gravity of these issues because we have to, because they are crucial to our survival and our integrity. And I’m privileged as fuck (hellooooo white girl went to college good job etc) and it would be very easy for me to turn a blind eye to this, but I don’t want to.
Just like. We could have told you that Moscow wasn’t Pittsburgh, bruh.
keep learning, everyone. *sips coffee*
headed to the Boston Blades game tonight at the Allied Veterans Rink in Everett, MA, btw. Hope to see you there!
ETA: can’t even begin to touch on how trying to listen to the entirety of this podcast will expose you to a ridiculous amount of tone deaf racism and classism. John Steigerwald goes on a rant about how black athletes speak in press conferences. Do Not Recommend.
