In 2019, Cindy Ong approached the Malaysian government before starting to prepare for the World Masters Championships, to compete in the swimming category. She requires assistance to pay for her uniform, plane tickets and training, in order to represent Malaysia appropriately. She was rejected.
Ong is a five-time world champion Malaysian swimmer who has been competing since 1989. She, however, has never found the deserved recognition from the government as she is not considered Malay. In Malaysia, 60 to 70% of the country is Malay and receives benefits from the government, like discounts on properties and easier access to education. The remaining are Chinese and Indian, who struggle to find their place in society. Ong was born in Malaysia, and even though she has Chinese roots, she has no affiliation with China.
“My kids and I are 100 percent Malaysian, we were born and raised here,” Ong said. “I’m the fourth generation Malaysian and still being discriminated against and called an immigrant.”
Racism resurfaces in sports in countries that have unresolved racist roots. Athletes are victims of the attacks if they don’t belong to the dominant race of the country they represent. During 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement brought to light Colin Kaepernick’s actions in 2016. He was a quarterback at the San Francisco 49ers NFL team and kneeled during the national anthem before a game, in protest of the police brutality in the country. To this, former president Donald Trump demanded the NFL to not allow these behaviors and asked the audience to not watch “those people.”
Professor Ted Johnson, a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, who explores the interaction between race, political behavior, and policies that result in socioeconomic disparities, considered these tensions were a result of Trump claiming that the actions represented an insult to the United States. Johnson believes that, when a person who belongs to a racial minority mixes politics with sports, and the majority disagree, they are racially targeted; instead of attacking their ideas, they attack who they are and the race they belong to.
“What Trump did was make this a question of whether or not these Black athletes are gracious for being in America and if they are representative of excellence in their pursuits, which is another quality Americans like to put up,” Johnson said.
Racism in sports is a controversial topic and often ignored; games are surrounded by fans, uniforms, and the athletes receive big amounts of money and fame because of their representation to the country. Without realizing it, racist scenarios can start in high school and college athletics. Stanley Thangaraj, a socio-cultural anthropologist with interests in race, gender and class, believes that there is a tendency of believing that African-Amercian and Black athlete-students are “lucky” to be in that position; they are seen as athletes before being seen as students, as it is believed that they are not “as committed to education” and considered “outside the boundaries of belonging in the educational sphere.”
“Anyone that speaks out is seen as not fit for that space and for college, especially Black student athletes,” Thangaraj said. “They are not allowed to speak out about their experiences of marginalization within college settings because they are not imagined as students with the same type of rights.”
The final of the Euro 2020 was not only marked by Italy’s victory, but by the racist slurs the fans threw at the three English Black players, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka, who missed the penalties.
Thangaraj considered that this episode is different from when a person from the dominant race fails a game; his failure is a call to better represent his nation. However, the three English players are blamed to have failed mainly because of their race.
“The slurs we saw on social media after the English loss showcased that these folks have never been considered full citizens, and their failures are a sign that they are not quite seen as English enough,” Thangaraj said.
The heat in the game among fans comes out when there is a loss; to remove that frustration, they take it out on the player. Johnson considered that if the player who failed belonged to the same race as the majority in the nation, they blame his failure on variables like age and health status. However, if the player belongs to a racial minority, they put race at the center of the attacks.
“That’s the problem that we’re seeing; for some athletes who belong to a racial minority, race is what people begin to attack,” Johnson said. “That symbolizes a society’s unwillingness to view a multiracial, multicultural society as one.”
Even though the Black Lives Matter movement highlighted Kaepernick’s actions, and the NFL has now removed the requirement of having to stand up during the national anthem, Kaepernick has still not been signed onto any new team.
After not receiving support from the Malaysian government because of her race, Ong decided to swim with the Singapore team in 2019, who sponsored her entire trip and training. She won five gold medals and two silver ones.
“I felt like I belonged to a team,” Ong said. “If I would have changed the scenario and told the government that I’m Malay, I am absolutely certain that I would have gotten the sponsorship from the government.”
According to Thanjarad, we must address how racism is part of sports and provoke changes to the structure of the community to erase racism. He considered that a lot of companies have “cosmetic and esthetic” sayings but don’t change the actual systems of racism in which they operate.
“The change has to be something that brings in communities to speak and to lead, rather than owners and president of clubs.”