Film Review: THE STAND: HOW ONE GESTURE SHOOK THE WORLD
Image: Tom Ratcliffe, KIMbia Athletic
It is simply astonishing to see this in-depth documentary about the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City where a simple but powerful gesture of two black athletes on the winner’s podium receiving gold and bronze medals as they each raised a black gloved fist with bowed heads caused a massive wave of shock and aggression. This was an inflection point in American society when Jim Crowe legal practices across the country were radically disenfranchising and disadvantaging black Americans in schools, work, and economic opportunity. Civil and human rights were passionately being called for, as well as protests against the immorality of the Viet Nam War. There was a rising tide of liberalism which was unwilling to countenance the widespread mistreatment of black Americans, particularly those who routinely answered the call to fight in our wars and found themselves discriminated against by the military and faced more of the same when they returned home. Similarly, black athletes were also treated the same.
They could win medals for our national glory, face discrimination and segregation in their daily loves. Born in 1942, a charismatic, former athlete, scholar and activist against racial inequality in sports, Harry Edwards began the Olympic Project for Human Rights as a challenge to the systemic racial inequality in sports. The goal was to get enough athletes to boycott the 1968 Olympics to raise the issue to a priority level among policy makers. He had been raising awareness by travelling across the country and speaking to universities and sports figures with some degree of success. His initial recruits were runners Tommie Smith and John Carlos from San Jose University. When he spoke at Harvard, five of the white members of the Olympic rowing team immediately joined the fray. The movement achieved significant momentum, although it challenged the dreams of many top athletes who would be obliged to defer their careers for an uncertain outcome. In the end the athletes themselves decided against it. But their activities had been causing a stir.
At the last minute, the original two runners, who had won gold and bronze, decided to remove their shoes (signifying poverty). Each wore a black leather glove and during the playing of the Star-Bangled Banner they raised a gloved hand in a fist into the air. It was not a Black Power gesture, but more of a victory gesture. And everyone went crazy. They were jeered by the crowd and roundly denounced by a very righteous Avery Brundage, the long-time head of the Olympic Committee, who declared that the Olympics were no place for politics. The hypocrisy of that stance is truly laughable. Tommie Smith and John Carlos were unceremoniously sent home from the Olympic Village and not allowed to appear in the closing ceremony. Both men suffered significant negative treatment for their bold stance for something in which they fervently believed, while being tragically misunderstood.
The story is vividly told in the words of the principle characters using archival footage as well as contemporary interviews; including the runners, coaches, the Harvard rowers. Tommie and John do not appear to have any regrets about their actions and continue to carry on the work in their current lives.
The archival footage of the Olympians competing is always thrilling, although accompanied by some annoying music. The irony here is that today professional sports, having become such a huge money-making enterprise, largely based on the talent of black athletes, still will not allow the voices of the black players to be heard or expressed. Today the courageous and principled Colin Kaepernick is still being punished for taking a knee during the National Anthem and has not played for years. It is hard to overstate that the picture that emerges can only be attributed to the systemic racism which is still baked into the psyche of America. In so far as much of that was possibly unconscious bias by white people, the George Floyd killing by police has finally ripped that band aid off and made white people see more clearly and empathetically from the eyes of our black citizens. It has been over 50 years and so much feels the same. But it also feels different. Maybe this time will be different. We will all have to carry on the fight and try harder.
Available on demand August 4.
