As a side note, I love that the Olympics is wrapping itself in the blanket of charity and "progressive values" to try to guilt anyone for holding anti-Olympics values, it is a really clever sleight of hand. Its not the Olympics (a corrupt event that lost its surface level amateur athlete values long ago, promotes nationalism, and often fucks the finances of the host city) and its not those who directly gain from Olympic skateboarding who are selfish... it is
you, the local skater who wants to keep skateboarding from being institutionalized and developing a formal top-down hierarchy who is being selfish. By not embracing an event that gives a select and small subset of skaters power, you are being selfish. You are personally ripping skateboards out of the hands of poor children and you should feel bad that you questioned the validity of Olympic skateboarding.
The Olympics itself has a long history of human rights abuses and often decimates the local economy of the host country. Rio bulldozed poor people's homes to create Olympic sites, Sochi was built with trafficked labor, Sochi Olympics created a perfect opportunity for the wealthy to embezzle money from the gov., the games nearly bankrupted Montreal and accelerated Toronto's ability to become the economic capital of Canada, the London Olympics were used to gentrify the East End, and so on... but it is ok cause when Hendrix wasn't (possibly) touching children, we gave a couple boards away, governments will build parks across the world (like they weren't doing this before the Olympics), and now for the first time ever women will get to skateboard (because before the Olympics, women weren't getting gaining coverage and support in street skateboarding and no one associated with the Olympics possibly molested a would be athlete gymnasitics style and the male Olympic skaters are super supportive).
The Olympics are lame and any spin that someone is selfish for not wanting to see an institutionalized version of skateboarding on the world stage or doesn't want to see a small subset of skaters plug themselves into the corrupt IOC money pipeline, connect with government officials and private businesses by declaring ownership over skateboarding is bullsiht. This event is beyond lame.
And any comparison to the X-Games is off base... the X-Games were a sideshow on ESPN, and, as promoters of the Olympics like to point out, the Olympics can actually change how governments view skateboarding and how they spend tax money. When we are talking of the benefits of the Olympics, we are told how powerful it is and how it can benefit skaters across the world, but when discussing the cons, we are told, "It is not a big deal. It is not going to affect anything." Amazing, it can change everything, but it is also too weak to change anything. Cool.
Edit: And, before someone questions "What have you done for skateboarding?" With my limited access to other people's money, I've brought boards to kids in Cuba; I've worked on trying to get the city to revitalize my local park; I've met with head of the parks and rec dept of another city to eliminate the fees they instituted to use the park; I donate my used boards to local shop; and when working at a shop, I'd traded a poor kids skate goods for whatever nicknacks they could offer me (best deal was a sheet of grip for a few Black Cat fireworks); and I can't count the number of times I've played the role of old dude free skate teacher at the park.
Edit II: This
isn't an attack on Brink and shouldn't be seen that way. Instead, it is a critique of the talking points Ream thought up long ago. Brink and I often don't see eye-to-eye, but I like the fact that his views are often different from my own. It makes for an interesting, albeit sometimes heated discussion.
Topic: Rob Brink Interview (Read 9554 times)