Aimée Niau Lacordaire – Pike & Hurricane

How life will disappear if we continue to overexploit nature

Aimée Niau Lacordaire — Sun, 17 May 2020 14:35:59 +0000

The Amazonia and Australia’s fires, the coronavirus, and the invasion of insects in Africa: those four disasters that hit between 2019 and 2020 have one point in common; they are all due to the impact of humans on nature.

The extent of the damage

During the years 2019 and 2020, 4,700 square kilometers of the Amazonian forest burned, the equivalent of the size of 628 football stadiums. There are at least 1.6 million hectares of the Australian forest which burned and 2000 koalas that died during the fire. And more than 228 000 people have died of coronavirus in the world. Furthermore, East Africa is being invaded and ravaged by locusts. Due to the lack of information on the impact of the locust invasion, we don’t exactly know the extent of the damage, however, this greatly affected the harvests and therefore risks famine. But the worst is yet to come. Because these phenomena are only going to multiply if we continue to overexploit nature.

What are they due to?

In fact, the forest fires in Australia are the results of an exceptional drought and heat waves which are unquestionably linked to global warming. Likewise, the cyclones that hit Africa have favored the insects’ circulation and reproduction. It’s the extreme climatic variations that caused those cyclones, and so ideal conditions for these locusts. In Amazonia, the climate alone does not explain forest fires, but they are also due to humans who want to appropriate the land to cultivate it. In the 90’s, deforestation was principally due to agriculture, but now it’s the expansion of soybean plantations in order to feed livestock, which is the number one cause of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.

The coronavirus were been transmitted to humans by a pangolin, and these animals are heavily poached, “researchers estimated in 2017 that between 400,000 and 2.7 million pangolins are now hunted each year in the forests of Central Africa to supply the Asian market”.This animal is on the verge of extinction, not only because of poaching but also because of deforestation, which made them lose their habitat. Moreover, the passage of virus from animals to humans is easy because of intensive breeding which makes it easier for the virus to move between species; as with the H1N1 flu. It has also been proven that the coronavirus causes higher mortality rates in regions with a high rate of air pollution.

What does the future hold for us ?

In Australia, temperatures and droughts peaked in 2019 and researchers have shown that if we do nothing about global warming, these high levels of heat will be the norm in a few decades. The forest allows the absorption of carbon dioxide (CO2). This is why the Amazon constituting the largest forest in the world is called “the lungs of the Earth”. Unfortunately, when the dynamics of tree mortality intensifies, the trees will no longer absorb but reject this CO2, and therefore contribute to global warming. Evidently, this leads to a devastating loop and therefore the death of thousands of plant, animal and human species.

If we continue to poach and eat wild animals more and more diseases will be transmitted to humans. In addition the food chain would collapse if animals were to disappear. And if we continue to consume as much meat as we currently do, and therefore encourage intensive farming, more viruses will be transmitted and cause more and more deadly pandemics.

We saw that nature takes over during confinement, animals have reclaimed the territory of humans, and pollution has slowed down. It is therefore possible to limit our impact on nature. It is therefore more than necessary to take drastic measures if we want to prevent the extinction of species. It is necessary to stop overconsumption, to stop animal exploitation, to fight against overheating. If no action is taken, thousands of plant species will disappear causing the death of the animals, we will face extreme weather, which will slowly destroy the human species, starting with those who already suffer from it, the poorest.

by Aimée Niau Lacordaire

Photo Credits

Koala, Mathias Appel, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)

Fire, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region U.,S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Regio, Public Domain Mark 1.0

Sheep, Bernard Spragg. NZ, CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)

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Transgender women are women

Aimée Niau Lacordaire — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 15:15:04 +0000

Small dictionary
A transgender person “adopts the appearance and lifestyle of a gender different from that of their birth. Whether born male or female, the transgender person changes or even rejects their biological sexual identity.” Cis-gender, is a type of gender identity where the felt gender of a person corresponds to his biological sex, assigned at birth.

Transgender women in history
You perhaps know Marsha P. Johnson. She was a black, transgender woman activist in New York City during the 1960-90’s and is the emblematic figure of the LGBTQ+ movement in NYC, she participated in the “Stonewall riot”, which was a series of spontaneous and violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place on the night of June 28, 1969. These riots are represented as the symbolic moment marking the real emergence of LGBT activism in the United States and around the world, taking place in a very homophobic context. After this a legal battle to obtain the right to demonstrate took place, as a consequence of that the first demonstration of a few hundred gays and lesbians takes place, and the pride march was born.

Today’s reality

Today, the rights and the distinction that a transgender woman, notably, is a woman, are being called into question. In fact, in France, even if Simone de Beauvoir, a feminist French icone said “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman”, this fact is questioned by several “feminist figures”, who consider themselves as feminist but transphobic, nommed TERF:“trans-exclusionnary radical feminist”.

Recently, collage groups against femicides have been created on the initiative of Marguerite Stern, former Femen activist (feminist movement created in 2008 in Ukraine). Marguerite Stern, expressed herself in a thread on twitter, on her opinion that collages should not include messages including trans women, because for her, they are not real women, and do not face the same sexism as cis-women. Several feminist personalities such as Christine Delphy, a French sociologist and a feminist activist, joined her, signing a transphobic stand. Other famous “feminists” in all the world have the same stance as Germaine Greer a writer, journalist, art historian, Australian academic and known to be a major figure in a current of feminism known as the second feminist wave.

In the thread of Marguerite Stern we can read sentences like: “No, I am not a “vulva person”, I am a woman. I was born a woman, and even before I was born, in my mother’s womb, I suffered discrimination because of this. I have suffered things that a man who would like to become a woman can never apprehend.” Or “I am in favor of deconstructing gender stereotypes, and I consider that transactivism only reinforces them. I observe that men who want to be women, suddenly start to wear make-up, wear dresses and heels. And I consider it an insult to women to consider that it is the tools invented by patriarchy that make us women. We are women because we have vulva. It is a biological fact.” Up to saying: “I interpret this as a new male attempt to prevent women from expressing themselves.“

Why they are wrong

At first, we are not born as a woman but we become one, by building with oppression, and gender stereotypes imposed by society. Imagine being born in a society without what it would really be “to be a woman“? So, to reference Sartre we are not essentially a woman, so a trans woman is a woman. Trans women are also more discriminated than cis women. They suffer daily stigma, sexism, transphobia, sexualization, exposed to physical or sexual assault, domestic violence, rape, unequal opportunities on the job market, to the health system… and many other forms of discrimination due to sexism and transphobia. So how is it possible to speak of less discrimination? In addition, transgender people have never been the starting point for gender stereotypes. Cis women themselves convey these stereotypes, and people don’t blame them to shave, to wear heels, to make up…

@Aggresively_trans, the pseudonyme of Lexie a French transgender woman on instagram, return to this controversy by explaining that, “gender codes are sometimes not a choice but a need for visual inclusiveness, so yes it is partly to join stereotypes but that cruelty to refuse to a person what is necessary for him when himself is estimated to have the right to perpetrate the same stereotypes just because we are cisgender“. Society and the system have interwoven these stereotypes and it is against them that we must fight.

The feminist should not include only white heterosexual cis women, but be inclusive for all women, whether Black, Asian, veiled, disabled, bi, lesbian, intersex, trans, fat, slim, sex worker… we are fighting for the same thing: equal rights and the death of patriarchy!

To end this article, I would like to say that I wrote this article as a white, cis, privileged woman, but as an ally in the fight for recognition and right of LGBTQ + people.

by Aimée Niau Lacordaire

Photo Credits

Marsha P. Johnson, Steven Oldak, CC BY 2.0

“Trans Women are Real Women”, Alec Perkins, CC BY 2.0

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The Polanski affair: Should we differentiate the artist from his work?

Aimée Niau Lacordaire — Mon, 06 Jan 2020 18:16:25 +0000

A big debate is back in France raising the question: “should we separate the man from the artist?”. In fact, Roman Polanski, the famous director, is accused of multiple rapes of minors. On 8 November 2019, the photographer Valentine Monnier accused Polanski to have raped and beaten her in 1975 which he disputes. However, she is the fifth woman to officially declare having been raped by the director since the Samantha Geimer case in 1977. To the case of this 13-year-old girl who Polanski allegedly drugged and raped during a photo shoot for Vogue magazine were added the more recent accusations of three actresses in the end of 2017.

The accusation of Valentine Monnier appeared only a few days before the release of the new movie of Polanski, aptly named “J’accuse”. So the question arises, can we go see this artistic work of an alleged rapist, repeat offender?

While Roman Polanski has been exclude by the Academy of Oscars in the United States, the French cinema community is regularly suspected of protecting. In fact, he was convicted by the American courts in a case of sexual abuse of a minor in 1977. Roman Polanski is considered by Interpol as a fugitive: following his conviction, after having served his first sentence in the United States, he fled the country before being sentenced again in the same case.

This is why some feminists have decided to boycott his movie, and some have mobilized to block the access to the film’s preview at the “Champollion” cinema in Paris. Polanski is protected by the state because he appears as a man of power and a great artist which is not acceptable. The boycott of his film is then the only weapon that the population has to campaign against this injustice and show their dissatisfaction with the French justice.

This problem has already arisen in France with Louis-Ferdinand Céline, notably known for his work “Journey to the end of the night”. But this famous writer was a racist and wrote antisemitic works.

The problem is quite recent because indeed before, it was a taboo and was considered as normal. So those artists, that we know to have done some criminal activity can no longer be tried and can no longer defend themselves in face of these accusations, recalling the presumption of innocence which says that “everyone charged with a penal offense is presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense.“

Understanding is not forgiving

If Polanski is a rapist, I think that as with every criminal, we need to interest ourselves for his history for a better understanding, but to understand is not to forgive.

Polanski was born in Paris in 1933, to a Jewish Polish father and a Russian mother. He lived in France for three years, but his family left for Poland after the German invasion of Poland. There, he was forced to live in the Warsaw ghetto where he escaped deportation but his parents and sister did not. His mother died in Auschwitz. He was interested in cinema since his childhood, he notably made one of his greatest successes with “The Pianist” which is adapted from the homonymous autobiographical novel by Władysław Szpilman in which he tells how he survived in the Warsaw ghetto, then after its liquidation, until the insurrection of the Polish resistance, and the Soviet invasion. His childhood story therefore strongly inspired Polanski to make this film.

In 1969, Sharon Tate, the wife of Roman Polanski, was assassinated by repeated stabbing in their house in Los Angeles while she was pregnant. The murder was organized by Charles Manson and perpetrated by his “family”, the name of the sect that the serial killer had founded.

So if we judge the artist in relation to his work it is important to look at and judge it in relation to his childhood and the traumatic elements that he himself suffered. Several artists have been accused of mistreatment like Chris Brown or paedophilia like Michael Jackson … You are free to boycott their works or not according to your convictions.

by Aimée Niau Lacordaire

Photo credits

Devant l’affiche de “J’accuse” (Polanski), Jeanne Menjoulet, CC BY 2.0

missing bricks, Warsaw ghetto wall, Nina Childish, CC BY-ND 2.0

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How Techno music can be militant

Aimée Niau Lacordaire — Wed, 04 Dec 2019 17:53:33 +0000

Techno is a form of electronic music that emerged in the United States in the mid-1980s. During the 1990s, techno developed into a real musical culture thanks to the welcome that England and especially Germany had for the artists of Detroit. Militant since its first days, the techno community has always used its influence to defend its vision of a more just and equal world. By relying on a worldwide network of sensitive music lovers and activists, techno has become a musical genre carrying socio-political avant-gardes.

“Daughter of immigrants”

In the 80s, the birth and the impulse of techno and techno clubs in West Berlin contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall. More and more residents of East Berlin also wanted to be able to listen to and dance freely to the rhythm of techno that they were listening to illegally on Western radio stations. After the fall of the wall techno has also contributed to the reunification of young people from West and East Berlin because they could dance together without worrying about their different identities.

“The techno then releases a promise of freedom that echoes the fall of the wall. Where everyone can create his own universe.”

Techno for the gender liberation

Some clubs are developing the same freedom of techno, especially in Germany and in France. They proclaim a “safe space” where people can be who they want without being judged in particular regarding their sexuality or sexual orientation.

In France, Angel Karel, who is a techno DJ, created The Future Is Female, “a collective propelled by a desire to defend the place of women in the techno scene, hitherto too little emphasis on the local scene in Lyon. This community, in search of a space of freedom to express itself, makes a real turning point for the collective that proposes a first event without any gender rule or identity barrier.“

They organise a “No gender” party, which is a militant and activist, non-conformist event of the french scene, bringing together liberated souls in search of an alternative techno experience in a “safe” space where the rules are respect and tolerance. There, you can be dressed as you wish and free, to not wearing anything without the fear of being judged or touched without consent. Additionally, there is a darkroom where people can go to for privacy where it is forbidden to film or take pictures. This party is rhythm by a brutal and corporal techno, with artistic queers’ performances and only women or queer DJs.

More and more techno DJs are, claim to be politically engaged and militant, for example, Vikken who is a french trans-man and a militant against transphobia. Another example is “La Fraicheur”, a queer DJ and feminist who uses techno to deliver messages, like the speeches of “Angela Davis” in “The movement”. Her speeches denounce racism, homophobia, and transphobia. “Kiddy Smile” is a singer, DJ, producer, dancer and activist for LGBTQ+ rights. He played at Élysée with a T-shirt saying: “son of immigrants, black and gay”. These examples show that music is not only a way to make people dance but also to send strong messages which will make them move in the figurative sense.

These are just a few examples of an ongoing trend. More and more techno nights are queer or/ LGBTQ+ and participants are reminded of the rules (“No racism, homophobia, transphobia or sexism. No touching without asking and no means NO!“) under every facebook event of, for example, the techno club “Ved Siden AF” in Copenhagen.

If techno makes it possible to express who one is and to liberate oneself sexually, it is also a means of conveying political messages.

Techno for justice around the world

Sama is a young woman and the first Palestinian DJ. Her idea is to create “An area of artistic and political freedom”, to allow young Palestinians to forget the sadness of their lives on universal beats. Sama became a famous DJ on the European techno scene, because of her political engagement. In Palestine ,the Israeli state has subjected Palestinians to occupation since 1948, with several disastrous armed conflicts. In September 2018, they created the #DJsForPalestine campaign which marked the climax of this nascent relationship between techno and Palestinian resistance. Behind the hashtag, thousands of world-renowned artists, young DJs and alternative collectives around the world are now expressing their support.

In May 2018, in Georgia, one of the biggest techno clubs called the “Bassiani” in Tbilisi was subject of a big police raid. 200 members of the special forces, armed with machine guns raided the club during a legal event because of the recent drug related deaths of five individuals which the authorities claim are linked to Bassiani. But according to the director of the Bassiani this descent had no basis since none of the deaths occurred at the club. Instead it is believed that the deaths are being used to sustain a Soviet-era political regime. Georgia maintains “extraordinarily strict zero-tolerance drug policies.” Random drug tests by police are common, and small amounts of recreational drugs can get people into prison for years. To protest this, a group of hundreds of young people gathered in front of the parliament, demonstrating against the police operation and for their freedom: “we dance together, we fight together”! The most famous DJs from around the world have sent their support such as: “Ben Klock”, “Nina Kraviz”, or “Dixon”.

In France, on June 21st 2019, a techno fan named Steve Maia disappeared and was found dead in the Loire river after a controversial intervention by the police during a music festival. Every year in Paris, the Techno Parade is held. This year, on the occasion of its 21st anniversary, the Techno Parade wished to mount the sound “in a spirit more than ever militant and claiming“. It stood under the motto “Dance for Steve” and was a tribute to him and a way to protest against police violence and to ask for justice.

And for climate

Finally techno is now at the service of the fight against the climate crisis with some DJs who are engaged on the side of Extinction Rebellion (XR), to protest for a climate justice. For example “Inhalt der Nacht”, a German DJ, or the English duo “Orbital” show their support for Extinction Rebellion by mixing for XR Rave, techno nights to support Extinction Rebellion.

On the 1st November 2019, a Rebel Rave was organised. It was a warehouse party by Extinction Rebellion to celebrate and support the London Rebels who were arrested for showcasing the global climate emergency on the streets of London in April and October this year. All the profits of this event went towards legal aid for rebels awaiting court appearances and prosecution.

As the Palestinian DJ Sama said : “music will not bring peace but it unites people, it makes people think, it helps to understand.“

by Aimée Niau Lacordaire

Photo credits :

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“Féminicides”: the new French word to talk about the murder of women in France.

Aimée Niau Lacordaire — Wed, 06 Nov 2019 12:43:05 +0000

They were called Audrey, Chafia, Johanna, Monique, Mauricette. What do all these women have in common? They, and 116 others, were stabbed, burnt, strangled, slaughtered, beaten to death… by their spouse, husband or ex in the year 2019 in France.

The number of femicides in France since the beginning of the year 2019, is 121 as of 16/10/19, but the number grows every week. They were 121 in 2018, which means that we have exceeded the number of femicides compared to the previous year: evidence of a significant systemic problem.

A femicide is: “The murder of a woman or a young girl, because she is a woman.” It is, however, not recognized in the French penal code. In France, the expression officially entered the vocabulary of law and the humanities in 2014, but not in the penal code. According to lawyer Emmanuel Daoud, in the podcast “Pas son genre” on the radio France inter, the integration of “féminicide” in the penal code has lawyers divided. Indeed, for the murder of a woman and a man cannot be distinguished by name in the same way as the murder of a person according to their ethnicity.

There are several types of femicides but we will focus on the “intimate” femicide, committed by the victim’s current or former spouse. According to a study cited by the World Health Organization, more than 35% of women killed worldwide are killed by their partners, compared to only 5% of murders involving men.

WHY? Systemic violence, a patriarchal and sexist society!

A lot of association like Osons le féminisme ! speak about “systemic violence” (character of what is related to a system), and want “féminicide” to be recognized as a “societal fact” when many murders of women are still referred to as “crimes of passion” and relegated to the category of miscellaneous facts.

Systemic violence comes from a sexist and a patriarchal society. In our society women have “always” been considered inferior to men. Gender stereotypes reinforce the appearance of the weak, sweet, gentle woman and the strong men, manly, who think they are justified in abusing their spouse. In 1975, the National Audiovisual Institute (INA) released a video of men’s speeches about the violence they inflict on their spouses. We can hear sentences like: “If I want to hit my wife, I’m sure she will make love better” or, “There are women who like it, I don’t know, out of habit, maybe.” Even if it would be forbidden to have such public discourse, this reality is not so far from view of the number of femicides.

In many cases of femicide, there is domestic violence in the home. The patriarchal violence of judicial and police institutions ignore and diminish situations of violence reducing them to simple “marital disputes” whose violence is normalized. A lot of victims had told the police about the violence they were suffering, and now they are dead.

France is not the only country with a lot of femicide. 43600, this is the number of women and girls killed in 2012 worldwide. Countries such as Romania, Ireland, Finland, Germany and Mexico have the same systemic violence. For several months, thousands of Mexicans have been protesting, on social networks and in the streets, against the authority’s inaction in cases of femicide and sexual violence.

In Spain, since 2003, “machismo violence” has been erected as a great national cause. Faced with the resurgence of this violence in Spain, the socialist government of José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero wanted to strike hard, and put in place measures that today passed in the world. It’s novel in Europe, Spain have put in place a victim support offices, legal and psychological assistance and legal proceedings. Moreover, the government has unlocked an XXL budget to end femicides. The results are that in 2018, 47 women died at the hands of their spouse, compared to 71 in 2003.

So why does the French government not do the same?

Action in France and repression by the government!

Some actions by collectives, such as Noustoutes (“allofus”), Féminicide par son compagnon ou ex (“femicides by our spouse or ex”), or the Femen have been set up.

Féminicide par son compagnon ou ex use a Facebook page to register all the victims of the femicides in France. Noustoutes organized marches, demonstrations, to support, to inform, about the violence and the crimes that undergoes to the women. But nothing has changed in view of the number of femicides that are growing day by day.

A new form of protest has been put in place. Since August, feminist activists have posted them in the streets of Paris. They put up messages such as, “She leaves him, he kills her“, “More listened dead than alive“, or in commemoration of the victims: “Georgette was strangled by her husband the 21.03.19 “ as in the photo below. This movement has now settled in many cities of France.

“Georgette was strangled by her husband the 21.03.19”

Célia Maurincomme, feminist activist, who participates in the collage of signs in Lyon, said, “By putting up this sign against femicide, we want to inform people about those murders. And we expect a mobilization of citizens to put pressure on the French state! All this is illegal, we can be taken into custody for putting up posters.“

Many feminist activists have complained about police repression of collages or tags. As said by Célia Maurincomme, police can put you in jail if you put up collages or spray tags on walls about femicides. “One activist put up a sign that said ‘117 femicides, Macron reaction!’ outside of her window because Macron was coming to Lyon. Two armed policemen came to her house and confiscated the sign.” “Some girls were arrested by the police when they put up signs, the police humiliated them, and took their names, addresses, etc.” said C. Maurincomme.

A crackdown is put in place by the government, to punish women who are fighting against their own potential murder. “We’re being killed and you’re talking about tags on walls” said a feminist activist in Mexico.

Saturday 5 October 2019, hundred Femen, demonstrate at the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris. With their skin and hair grayed with clay, wearing messages written on their torso like “I didn’t want to die“, to denounce feminicide and to claim that the government needs “a stronger mobilization.”

Each had a black stele-shaped sign, with the names of women killed by their spouse or ex since the beginning of 2019. They wanted, with this strong act, to call out the “power in place‘,’ explained one of them in a statement. “We recall that most of these women, before being murdered, had been victims of domestic violence and had alerted civil society, police, justice, threats to them.”

by Aimée Niau Lacordaire

Photo credits

0001 by Alvaro Tapia CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Paris 2019, Ithmus, CC BY 2.0

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They move their body to move politics

Aimée Niau Lacordaire — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 12:42:07 +0000

How the movement of the body in sport can lead to a political movement…

Fists raised in protest

It’s a historical event, at the Mexico Olympic games in 1968 two African-American sprinters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, raise their fists on the podium during the American anthem in protest against racism. The segregation is not allowed since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but is still present. Intolerance and racist crimes still poison the integration of the black community in the US. Their actions are relayed by a lot of media, and will have a huge impact on their career, such as banishment from the Olympic Village, and being banned from competition for life. They need to wait until the end of the Eighties so that the world deigns to recognize their action. Their courage will be truly honored only in the years between 1990 and 2000.

40 years later, Barack Obama is elected President of the United States, the first Black American man in power, so we can think that the gesture of Smith and Carlos has helped to change attitudes in the United States. But we know that nothing is acquired, and that racism remains nested in mentalities, especially with the arrival of Trump in power. That’s why recently, some athletes did the same protest against Trump’s politics, and for minority rights.

Those athletes who revolted

In 2016, the American football player Colin Kaepernick knelt several times and refused to put his hand on the heart and to sing the American anthem. He said : “I will not show pride in the flag of a country that oppresses blacks.”

Then, on September 2016, Megan Rapinoe, a LGBTQI+ woman, became one of the first white sports figures to ‘take a knee’ during the national anthem in support of Colin Kaepernick. She also protested against the difference in wages between male and female players. At the 2019 World Cup she refused to sing the American national anthem and to go to the White House in protest against Donald Trump’s minority policy. She described herself as a “walking protest when it comes to the Trump administration.” And she described Trump as “sexist,” “misogynistic,” “small-minded,” “racist” and “not a good person.”

More recently, Race Imboden, a white fencer for the USA team, knelt on the podium during the national anthem at the 2019 Pan American games in Peru. He said, he “took a knee — following in the footsteps of Colin Kaepernick, Megan Rapinoe, Muhammad Ali, John Carlos and Tommie Smith: black, LGBT, female and Muslim athletes who chose to take a stand. I’m not a household name like those heroes, but as an athlete representing my country and, yes, as a privileged white man, I believe it is time to speak up for American values that my country seems to be losing sight of.” “Racism, Gun Control, mistreatment of immigrants, and a president who spreads hate are at the top of a long list”.

We can therefore see a surge of protest among athletes, whether they come from the black community, are women or less publicized sports athletes.

But what do all these gestures mean?

The raised left fist is a gesture of salute and a logo mostly used by leftist activists, such as Marxists, Anarchists, Communists or Pacifists.The raised fist is generally perceived as an expression of revolt, strength or solidarity. After the action of Smith and Carlos the raised fist became in the United States a symbol of Black Nationalism.

Kneeling is above all a sign of respect used during Mass, and also the forced position of the slave and the servant. But since this gesture was repeated in 2016 by American football players including Colin Kaepernick, this gesture has become a symbol of the fight against Trump’s policy.

So why use this position?

In some countries standing means pride and respect, you get up when someone important enters the room, you stand during the national anthem played at sport events …so we can make the hypothesis that kneeling would be in opposition to this position of pride, and perhaps even a reference to black slavery.

Sport can have a very important media coverage, sport makes people gather together, some people are a fan of it, they watch and support their favorite athletes on TV every day. That is why acts like these can have a strong impact on the people following the sport, as did the act of Smith and Carlos which helped to change mentalities. By standing up against Trump, these athletes show to the rest of the world their disagreement with the policy put in place by the president. They are trying to change mindsets and hope others will do the same.

Democracy in danger?

But as for Smith and Carlos, this gesture can have a huge impact on their career. A repression is made by the state to prevent this kind of act from happening, Kaepernick was blacklisted from the NFL, Rapinoe was singled out for criticism by the president. He said on twitter: “Megan should never disrespect our country, the White House and our flag. ” And we don’t know if Race Imboden will be able to participate in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

If such a repression is put in place by the state, if it prevents athletes to show their political positions and to assert their fundamental right which is the freedom of expression, are the United States really a democratic country?

Written by Aimée Niau Lacordaire

Photo Credits

Black power…, Vision Invisible, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

นักกีฬา NFL หลายคนร่วมแสดงออกประท้วงเหยี ยดผิวต่อเนื่องจากกรณี ‘โคลิน แคเพอร์นิค’, Prachatai, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Alyssa Naeher & Megan Rapinoe, Jamie Smed, CC BY 2.0

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