Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-22-2014

Publication Title

Hooded Utilitarian

Abstract

A lot of media attention has been paid lately to the case of American football generally and the National Football League in particular. Recently, the NFL drafted its first openly gay man into its ranks, causing a great deal of celebration in some quarters and a high degree of consternation in others. As a fan of (American) football, I am interested in this story because of what it says about the social implications for individual players, team camaraderie, and the fans, too. I am thinking about this because I try to be mindful about and supportive of efforts to eliminate discrimination and promote equality regarding race and ethnicity; regarding sexual orientation; regarding gender; and regarding socioeconomic class.

Since I currently live in Sweden, I don’t see all the news (infotainment) about current events in the U.S., so what I have seen of the Michael Sam story I have found through websites that I visit on occasion. I saw stories on my BBC phone app; on Queerty.com and Advocate.com; and on other random links I saw on Facebook. What I did not see, though, in any instance, was editorial cartoons about this event, so I went hunting for them. Using a Google search, I found a few cartoons, some of which focused on Michael Sam’s race and others on his sexual orientation.

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This blog post was originally published here: http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/.

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