Somalia
15 years ago
Friday, April 3, 2009
Research Update
I have been able to find the majority of the things that you have told me to find in order to support my research better. I did find articles on the 1936 Olympics which is very interesting. I also found useful articles on the history of segregation which will help me support the fact that racism has been going on for decades. I believe each of these articles will be very useful in my project and will better support my research question. By listening to class discussions, I am doing a research proposal.
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Hi Derek,
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to finding out what sort of research you will do to learn more about racism in sports at SCSU.
The 1936 Olympics was probably the most controversial Olympics in history. This is because the German Olympic teams barred some of their best athletes from participating in the teams, simply because of their Jewish ancestry. Although the Germans have traditionally valued physical fitness and probably had very well-trained athletes on their teams, they did not win most of the gold medals. They lost to Hungarian Jewish athletes, Jesse Owens from the US, and many others who were not of the "master race". One would have hoped that someone in the German government had paid attention to that, but no--Hitler and the Nazis still propogated the myth of "Aryan" superiority on the basis of biological purity and physical fitness.
I did a lot of reading about the 1936 Olympics because I read a great deal about the Nazis and events that led up to the Holocaust. The Nazis had orchestrated the 1936 Olympics in such a way that foreign visitors visiting Berlin at the time would have no idea that persecution of Jews was taking place. During the Olympics, the Nazis had taken down all of the anti-Semitic signs, and told the police, soldiers, and Hitler Youth not to mistreat Jews (in public) so that their government would not raise suspicion. It was incredibly effective. After the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, visitors returned home, thinking, Hmm, maybe this Hitler guy isn't so bad! What a civilized city Berlin is!
So you are going to do a research proposal? Terrific! What will be the questions that you want to answer from your research, and who will you seek out for this information?
R. Wexelbaum