It's taken me a while to write this. The actual event that prompted my thought process happened about a month ago -- the Olympics. But even before that, there were some things that made me think about perspective. Now that those thoughts have perculated a while, here's my post...
Scene 1: Chicago
I had the good fortune to attend a conference this summer in Chicago. There were representatives from across the US and Canada in attendance who deal with public relations, and have a broad segment of the population they represent. They represent this group to a wide target audience, so there's a lot that has to be considered in their messaging. Within this group, I found the perspectives about diversity very interesting.... more specificially the Canadian/US differences in the perspctives about what is "diversity".
In my home area of southern Ontario, we experience diversity as recognizing, respecting and appreciating differences in race, culture, abilities, religion -- really, all differences. In the US, I was surprised to find a much narrower focus -- not on all aspects of diversity, but primarily on race. This came up for discussion at several workshops -- making sure there was visible representation in videos, facilitation groups specifically targetting the different racial groups, and the socio-economic differences within these racial groups.
I understand how hundreds of years of history -- more noteably the past several decades -- has shaped this perspective, but isn't diversity more than that? Should diversity be measured in more than just black and white?
Scene 2: Rio Olympics
I watched a lot of the Olympic coverage from Rio. It was wonderful to see the comraderie between athletes, the joy of the medalists, and the enthusiasm from the fans. I took great delight in the side-stories -- how the medals were made from a percentage of recycled metals, and the ribbons from recycled materials; how the water in the diving pool created a sensation -- and the back-stories of the athletes.
But what made me think of the diversity issue again was when Canada's Penny Oleksiak won her fourth Olympic medal in a tie for gold with the American swimmer Simone Manuel in the 100m freestyle. The commentators with CBC (Canada's Olympic broadcaster) had been totally focused on a different diversity angle in their coverage to that point -- specifically how Canada's medal haul had been entirely at the success of its women athletes. That didn't mean they weren't sharing the background stories of the male athletes, but it was their 'hook' on Canada's Olympic story to-date.
That was until the shared gold medal win by Simone Manuel. In an interesting side story, CBC followed up on the major storyline being pursued by the US media -- that Simone was the first black/African-American woman to win a gold medal in an individual event. Now I'm not saying the gold medal wasn't a
huge accomplishment -- it was. And I'm not saying the efforts of any athlete achieving gold in an individual competition isn't worthy of recognition. What I am asking is why is it important to centre out Simone's race and/or culture to make it newsworthy?
One of the interviewees spoke to the CBC reporters and commented that socio-economic conditions of black/African-American children often don't provide opportunities to advance in competition sports, and this was a huge boon to children who would now have a role model as they pursued their dreams.
Okay. An interesting perspective. But I'm not convinced.
There are kids of all races and cultures who haven't had the financial support, or coaching -- or even family encouragement -- to pursue whatever athletic dreams they may have had. I wonder what the US media coverage would have looked like if they'd talked to the gymnasts from Ukraine and asked what their gym looks like, and what equipment they access for practice or training. I doubt there's huge financial support for them to participate in competitions leading up to the Olympics. Yet they were competing despite socio-economic advantage (or disadvantage), political turmoil and any number of other factors. Were they lauded for their accomplishments based on race? Nope.
Was there any US media headline about a potential disadvantage for the Egyptian beach volleyball women who, because of their cultural norms, had to deal with the Rio temperatures in their team uniforms that were more significant than the skimpy bathing suit attire of other countries? Nope.
Other than the pre-Olympic coverage about the Refugee Team (a brilliant move by the IOC, by the way), was there any follow-up about their successes, even if they didn't garner a podium finish? Nope.
Of course, the US media coverage of the Olympics is well known for its narrow scope. If you're not a US athlete, you don't exist. If it's a sport without a US athlete, it's not important. (
note: the fiasco with Ryan Lochte's "exageration" did hijack much of the last few days of the US coverage. And by the way, I'm still wondering how you can 'exagerate' a lie?!). But even with those parameters, the headlines still were focused on Simone's race when she won gold.
So why does diversity in the US have to be so black and white?
I wonder if the CBC coverage would have been different if a gold medal had been won by one of our First People. Would the headlines have mirrored what we saw in the US? "First Nations Athlete wins medal" vs. "Canadian athlete wins". Would we have shifted our focus from the "women athletes", to single out one athlete's race or culture? Or are we more diversity-saavy than that?
There is one area where the lines will no doubt become blurred in future Olympic games. It'll be interesting to watch the Olympics in future years as the lines between gender become more blurred. I wonder what the headlines will be when a transgender athlete wins a medal. Or if that athlete is black/African-American, or First Nations, Inuit or Metis? I wonder if there will be a difference in how countries report it. Will the US continue to focus on race?
I really do hope the lines will become more blurred in future Olympics, so it won't matter what colour you are, what your religion is, or what your socio-economic status is. What matters is that sport should be accessible for all, and this opportunity exists for people from all countries to join together in competition. It should reflect the comraderie and conduct we saw in Rio, where fellow sprinters stopped to help those who had fallen, where hugs given as often as medals on the podium. It should be more than black and white ...it should be the colours in the flags of every country!
Not all patterns are created equally. I understand the need for brevity, and an expectation (based on the level of complexity of a pattern) that not everything has to appear in print, but I found it interesting what different people view as "necessary". Viewed through a positive lens, this has made me appreciate the skill set I have, and inspired me to learn some new things. And discovering knitters are a group of compassionate and enthusiastic people is no surprise, but it is a delight every time that comes to light!! Yarns. Well, that's been interesting. These are some upscale names that lead you to believe the quality is synonymous with the brand you've heard about....so imagine my surprise when one of the yarns bled -- during blocking.
That was an eye opener for me... no issue with running when soaking pre-blocking, but the cowl (which was to be opened up to a single layer while blocking), had the burgundy yarn run/bleed into the cream coloured yarn while waiting to be blocked. Hmmmpffff! Inconvenient? Yes. Unexpected? Yes. And I refer back to my earlier comment about knitters being understanding and compassionate. I soaked as much as I could from the 'bleed', and it is faint but still there... and frustrating because this is not how I like to present my work. Sigh.
The next project was using an alpaca blend and it was delightful! This is the first opportunity I've had to use a "chained" yarn... like a little tube of knit stitches creating a yarn that is sproingy.... (there is no other word that describes it as aptly!). The pattern... fun! But there were some stitches that could have been described a little more clearly. For instance, one of the architectural features has what appears to be a slipped stitch running up through the cowl. It's created by moving the yarn in front and then slipping purl-wise the next stitch. Clear enough. But what wasn't made clear was how to handle these two loops when you are on the return row... an important piece of the puzzle if you're a beginning knitter. I figured it out, and here's the result....
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