Personal Reflection on Sport and Popular Culture

I interact with sports in many ways in my everyday life. The two most effective ways in which I associate with sports is in playing and attending live sporting events and watching mediated sports events. I had interests in sports since my tender ages when I joined school. I carried on my interests in sports until now. I am specifically interested in soccer and basketball. I actively play soccer for our home team and basketball for the school basketball team.  While playing the two sports, I have met many people from across the board who share the spirit of sporting not just as a recreation even but also to compete adequately and taking trophies home.

I am not only a participant in sports but also an active fan of various sports events. I attend live soccer matches for international soccer teams. I also attend live national basketball and tennis competitions when I have time and finances. One thing that I have noticed in my interactions in live sporting events, there is a spirited fight for victory among the players. There is also instrumental support from the supporters of each team. Sports to me are therefore not just a matter of recreation but also the depiction of the values of unity, competition, and fairness that are speculated by the popular culture.

The American dream is an ideal that seeks to create a fair environment for prosperity for all Americans. The ideology aims to remove any discrimination and asks that everyone is given sufficient room to compete. The ideology is one that is embedded in ensuring that everyone has an equal opportunity to prosper, protect citizens and in general provide an epic America where the life of each citizen is improved. Just like the American dream popular culture agrees to the fact that every person should be given a fair chance to live and prosper and their rights not alienated regardless of their social, political or religious placement. Specifically, I am encouraged by the way the Alliance of American Football (AAF) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) conduct their business in the line of the American dream. The two sporting federations have clear policies for competitions where winning is about competence and not determined by the race of an individual. Inclusivity is another key pillar of the organizations that enables them to ensure that teams are composed of all races and social classes. The ideologies of equality that guide the federations are, therefore, illustrations of the way that sports align themselves to the American dream in my view. 

Nonetheless, even when sports are made accessible to all groups under the various American sports federations and unions, I can still identify elements of hegemony in various instances. Some of the instances where I have witnessed hegemony is in the leadership of the federations themselves. The leadership of the two federations, for example, constitutes the white majority while the minority races have a tiny spec of leadership. On the other edge, however, most of the players are the minority races. On the broader outlook, therefore,  I observe sports as led by Hegemony whereby the majority race tries to prove dominance over the minority races. It is a competition of the racist ideology of white supremacy over minority races. I believe that it is the very little reason that America does not shine in international sports even when it has great talent.