On Assimilation Politics: Reflections of an Asian American Athlete
“My name is Aaron Bushnell. I am an active-duty member of the US Air Force, and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest. But compared to what people have been experience in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.” - Aaron Bushnell, February 25th 2024
Aaron Bushnell sacrificed his life in an extreme form of political protest, self-immolation. As he set himself on fire, he screamed “free Palestine,” a call to action for all of us who are complicit in the violence of the United States.
As an Asian American and a member of the Asian diaspora, I see how and why our community often leans on respectability politics (i.e., the model minority myth) to shield ourselves from the racism of the countries we find ourselves in, especially in the States. To survive in the heart of empire, we’ve been told to appeal to, assimilate to, and promote empire (even if said empire kills our culture and humanity). How many of us aspire to jobs at Google, Facebook, and Amazon (all of which are actively building exploitative surveillance machines and violent technology to be executed at home and across the globe)?
The expectations of respectability politics and American exceptionalism compound when you’re an Asian American athlete, particularly one who represents Team USA. The contradictions of being an Asian American Team USA athlete have only illuminated themselves to me recently. How did I represented a country that doesn’t see me as fully human? Who sees me as a perpetual foreigner and a narrative used to continue suffocating Black communities?
I’m currently taking an Asian American Studies course on the South Asian Diaspora, and we discussed the ways in which Asian Americans, and other Asians in diaspora, can contribute to, or be complicit in, the ideologies of empire. Empire (in my words & based on my sociological understanding) meaning the intersection of colonialism and capitalism. As a neo-colonial entity, the United States commits violence across the globe in the name of “freedom” and “democracy.” To do this, the States must position itself as a global cultural superpower worthy of these destructive, expansive (and expensive!) wars: soft-power politics.
Sports and sporting culture are prime examples of the US’s successful attempts at soft-power politics (another example: Hollywood). Sports, particularly amateur sports and world stages like the Olympics, are representative of the neoliberal values that the US prides itself on. Clean competition. Fair victors. With some mental toughness and a lifetime of pain, you can win gold too! And if you’re a person of color, you can overcome institutional racism and become an American Olympian, a symbol of freedom and liberty! I’m reminded of the manufactured imagery of Ibtihaj Muhammed, the first Team USA athlete to wear the hijab during Olympic competition in 2016, juxtaposed against Islamophobic policy and the parallel enabling rhetoric we see at home. If Ibtihaj can podium at the Olympics as a proud Muslim woman and do her mandatory PR for NBC Olympics (complete with her hijab and the stars and stripes proudly displayed on the fencing mask she wears), does anti-Muslim racism cease to exist?
The reality is, sport is not an even playing field, especially in the States, where sporting cultures are inextricably linked to racial capitalism. The media we consume may tell us heartwarming stories of the few gold-medal-winning athletes who overcame adversity to bring glory to the nation. But these manufactured narratives work to conceal the institutional systems in place that work to treat athletes as disposable means to an end.
Aaron Bushnell urges us to see the complicity of our lives in the violence of the US empire. As a member of the military, Aaron saw his complicity clearly because his body was used as a literal device to further the US’s violent aims. In similar ways, Team USA athletes and their bodies (particularly those competing in the Olympics) are strategically exploited to further the soft-power politics that enable Western domination in the Global South. Decades of painful work, impossible goals and dreams, and meticulously produced bodies wearing Team USA logos are used as pawns to prove that the US can and will dominate in all realms. Team USA athletes of color are forced to represent an ideal that ultimately works to destroy the lands we call home and villainize communities who look like us. Our bodies are not the only ones that suffer in the name of American exceptionalism.
Institutions of sport are not innocent. Institutions of sport barely work to protect their athletes’ well-being, let alone disrupt the systems of power that enable their exploitation of young, healthy bodies. How long will we continue to allow passions and dreams to be exploited? How long will we continue to let our governing bodies of sport avoid accountability as they injure and traumatize athletes for the glory of gold? How long will we continue to be complicit symbols of violent US domination? These are the questions I urge current athletes to ask themselves – questions I wish I could have contended with sooner.
If you’re like me and are far removed from representing any sporting institution, as we enter another Summer Olympics season, I urge us to adopt a more critical lens when consuming the constructed media presented to us. And by critical, I mean curious. What are the political, economic, and social implications of this global competition? What are the underlying messages to the imagery and narratives NBC publishes? Whose story gets told? Whose stories have been forgotten? How are those stories told and what do those storytelling choices imply? What ideals, values, and goals are being represented – and how? What's really at stake here?
For more on Team USA athletes and mental health, watch Michael Phelps’ documentary, “The Weight of Gold,” on HBO. A 30 for 30 docu-podcast series revealing the institutional faults of USA Gymnastics also provided context on this writing: “Heavy Medals,” a 7-part podcast series on the rise of Bela and Martha Karolyi in USA Gymnastics.