Even the Israelis on his team are perplexed by the perceived bigotry. the Israel Swimming Associations is denying the prejudice but this article poses the right questions.
If the allegations are true, this is a black mark on the Israeli swimming body.
From an Israeli news outlet known as Ynet News::
The nationalistic undertone is not new to Israel's swim scene. Swimmer Gal Nevo said after beating his Syrian and Lebanese competitors during last summer's world championships in Shanghai that "Every Israeli knows you must defeat Arabs."
"When I heard what Gal said, I was shocked," Qupty recalled. "Why does it matter if you're competing against a Jewish, an Arab or an Indian?"
Officials at the Greater Jerusalem Swimming Club, to which Qupty belongs, speculated that Ganiel was picked because he belongs to the Hapoel Jerusalem team, which is said to be groomed by the Israel Swimming Association's president, Noam Zvi.
"It's unacceptable for the association to forgo our fastest swimmer due to politics," Greater Jerusalem Swimming Club Chairman Manu Maye said
Officials at the Israel Swimming Associations denied discriminating against Qupty.
[Link]
17 comments:
The United States also discriminates. My area discriminates against white, middle income swimmers.
Many parents (different teams)couldn't figure out why their kids were being harrassed by a particular meet administrator. Some of us came to the conclusion that the meet administrator must not like white kids!
Minorities, foreigners, low income athletes receive preferential treatment. In fact, a group of kids were told that the kids in the area they lived were "spoiled" because they did not have to walk or ride their bikes to practice.
(Many lived 5-10 miles away).
Wait, so what happened? White, middle income peoples are basically the least-discriminated against group in America.
junker,
Tell that to the high schoolers who are US citizens and are being denied entry to public universities even though they have decent GPA's of at least 3.5 while the illegal immigrant with a 3.0 gets accepted.
I can go on and on - I guess it all depends on where one lives and personal experiences.
Perhaps "white" folks need to play the race card more often instead of remaining silent!
During the past couple of years, it has become apparent that racial discrimination against caucasians exists in the swimming community where I reside.
There are numerous instances where the white swimmer was denied the right to compete while the non-whites were allowed entry.
Many instances when non-white officials and meet administrators chose to look the other way instead of helping the white swimmer.
Many instances of non-white individuals lying or not speaking up when deciding the fate of a white athlete.
Non-white individual agreeing that our team would co-host a couple of swim meets with an inner city team and allowing the inner city team to run the snack booth and keep all proceeds.
I was puzzled and trying to figure out what was going on. My kid told me, "People think that because we're white, we're rich" and started telling me things that would happen in middle school and high school. Even one of the club coaches said that the kids in the ________ (about 10 cities)were spoiled because their parents provided transportation to practice.
To add insult to injury, USA Swimming chooses to sit on their asses because the white swimmer does not deserve JUSTICE!!!
Well, that definitely does not surprise me. If you really think about it what does USA Swimming really do at all for the swimmers on deck that send them their monthly tithe?
I've received a couple of apology e-mails from USA Swimming that the process has draged on way too long and that it was an embarrassment.
Do you think that they don't realize that as time drags on the athletes get older and older and more and more opportunities are lost or maybe they just don't give a rats ass!
I wish you luck and I encourage you to view your problem as a regional one confined to the area you live rather than a global one. For instance, in Los Angeles I am not seeing stuff like you have experienced. However, I do see the rich tease the poor though.
Quite often there seems to be some controversy on who swims on relays. Unfortunately it is not always the fastest.
Politics and discrimination play a HUGE part in athletics throughout the world.
All governments have their agendas. How sad was it for the little girl who sang beautifully but wasn't "good looking enough" to appear in the opening ceremonies at the Bejing Olympics.
I believe all governments and governing bodies are corrupt and try to put on a good "SHOW".
been screwed - A cursory Google search only turned up a few states that're starting to legislate illegal immigrants being allowed into public universities, didn't find anything specific like that happening. I'd assume the white kid with the 3.5 GPA can get into college somewhere.
And it's not that college admission is guaranteed to anyone - there's a lot more to an application than GPA and race. But yeah, illegal immigrants getting in-state tuition breaks seems a little off.
Anonymous - Instead of some top-down, overarching discrimination against white folks, that just sounds like there's a kinda racist non-white administrator for a team in your area. Ideal, no, but not something that demands "JUSTICE!!!"
But Tony's right, if USA Swimming isn't gonna do anything about sex abuse, they're not gonna do anything about vague-ish discrimination against white people.
Junker
All ethnic groups are discriminated against including caucasians.
A lottery drawing for employment was held at the unemployment office. A post card had to be dropped in 1 of 7 boxes labeled with different ethnic groups. The least amount of cards were going to be drawn from the "white" box.
My sister was told she should transfer her 1st grader to another school because he was the only kid in the class that only spoke English.
A group of women in my college Women's Studies class said they would never hire a white person.
One evening, about 9pm, my family stopped at a Denny's (way home from an amusement park). The restaurant wasn't even a fourth full. All of the workers in view were non-caucasian. After waiting an hour and not being seated (we were the only ones waiting) it became very apparent what was happening. We had to go elsewhere to eat.
Discrimination affects everybody - some just seems to get more press coverage.
Well, yeah, I'm not saying white people are immune to discrimination - just that it's nearly inconsequential compared to that faced by non-whites.
Regarding those examples:
-Could the jobs have been given out in proportion to the unemployment rates of those ethnic groups? That'd just be making it more "fair."
-Transferring schools seems like it could've been mutually beneficial in that case. Doesn't seem like a racial issue to me.
-Not hiring a white person just because they're white is super racist, yeah. But, ya know, doesn't seem like that could be proven via academic study: The authors find that applicants with white-sounding names are 50 percent more likely to get called for an initial interview than applicants with African-American-sounding names. Applicants with white names need to send about 10 resumes to get one callback, whereas applicants with African-American names need to send about 15 resumes to achieve the same result. Source.
-You stood there silently for an hour? Yeah, from the information you've provided it doesn't sound great. But next time you wanna go out to eat, put on a turban and see what happens.
You mentioned that some discrimination seems to get more press coverage - why do you think that's the case? Honest question.
junker23
I'm not talking about 1. I'm talking about 4 people who had the power, opportunity and duty to minimize the damages caused to the white athlete and chose not to.
Junker,
"You stood there silently for an hour"?
We sat in the waiting area and had no reason not to believe these employees when they told us that it would be a 15 minute wait, then only 10 more minutes, then 10 more minutes. At this point, we started reasoning that we already waited a half hour - what's another 10 minutes. If we drove somewhere else, it would take longer - so we waited - and came to the realization that we were never going to be seated. At this point my kids were sleeping on the benches.
Actually, the twice daily 20 mile roundtrip was a hardship for my sister. She eventually moved. So it's alright for a public school in the United States to teach the first grade class in a foreign language and send the English speaking kid packing?
My 13 year old brother was beaten (unrecognizable) by a group of (5) non-whites on his way home from school. The police didn't do anything.
My caucasian friend got assaulted by a Caucasian police officer. An attorney told my friend that if the races were different they would take the case, but this case would not bring enough money.
I had to interview women for an office job. I chose an African-American girl. The secretary of the Armenian owner told me that he did not allow black women to work in the office. I told the secretary, in that case, I would no longer be part of the hiring process. This owner was a jerk and I left shortly after.
I get it - discrimination exists, but it exists for EVERYBODY - even caucasians.
I believe you answered your own question in regards to why some cases receive more press?
Anon1 - All 4 people were just as vehemently anti-white? I'd assume it'd be more likely there's 1 legitimate racist person in that group and the other 3 just don't want to have to voice their disagreement, to avoid confrontation. I'm not making an equivalency here but similar to the Penn State thing - Joe Paterno's generally credited as a good guy, but didn't do nearly as much as he should have. Was it because he condoned child-rape or because he didn't want to rock the boat too hard? Obviously these aren't analogous situations, but there are plenty of cases of far worse things being ignored by a group of administrators thanks to the poor behavior of one of them.
Anon2 - Ah, I thought they just like, looked at you guys standing in the doorway for an hour. Did other people come in after you and get seated? Because yeah, that's crappy service.
The next closest public school was 20 miles away? Feel like that's the bigger problem. And I mean, it does make sense to only disrupt one kid versus affecting an entire class. I don't think there's any requirement that classes be taught primarily in English.
And that beating's a new development! Though, from my limited knowledge of police work, those cases aren't always easy to investigate or a high priority, so I dunno if that's the police playing favorites with race. Like if you reversed the races there, do you think that would've sufficiently motivated the police to do more? I don't.
And sure, discrimination does exist against all groups, but that doesn't mean it's somehow balanced or anything. The reason it might seem the press covers more cases of discrimination against minority/non-white groups is that those groups have literally been discriminated against in a systematic, top-down way in this country as recently as what, 50 years ago? As a white male, I literally can't think of a single example where I've been discriminated against due to my whiteness. I'm fairly confident just any ole black guy could come up with a list of instances similar to that of even the most discriminated against white person.
I don't know, to me complaints about discrimination against Caucasians is just a step away from "WHITE POWER!" bumper stickers and wanting to move back towards "Separate but equal." (I'm not saying that's what you're doing, just why it kinda scares me.)
Junker23,
There were two separate incidents where flagrant decisions were made. Two individuals at each incident had the power to do the right thing and chose not to. I truly believe that if the athlete were not white, different decisions would have been made.
Junker,
While you may not be able to think of a single time you've been discriminated against because of your whiteness my examples were just the tip of the iceberg of what I've experienced.
When I was 28 years old, while talking with a group of co-workers, I was shocked that not one of them had ever been hit as a kid. I thought all kids got hit. I would set goals - see how long I could go without getting hit. The tupperware handle hurt like hell - leaving welts on my body.
Recently, the subject of suicide came up. Once again, I thought that everybody has thought about it at least once in their life. For me it was a constant thought as a kid through young adulthood. The person I was speaking to just could not understand why I would have those thoughts and I, in turn, couldn't understand how they never had those thoughts.
Perhaps since you were never discrminated against, you can't understand how other's have been.
The womens studies class was also an eye opener for me. There were only a few caucasians in a class of about 30. During the open disussions, the hatred towards caucasians was very apparent, even by the Middle Eastern instructor.
In many, many cities Caucasians are the minorities. I'm not trying to minimize the struggles of any one group. I know that all groups have suffered throughout history and that NO one is immune from discrimination. It's also not right to minimize discrimination that caucasians experience.
For many people, me included, sports was an outlet. I loved my high school teams. The miserable school day didn't seem so bad when I was practicing with the team.
I believe that racism, politics, favortism, corruption, etc. should not be a part of sports.
Jowan Qupty has the fastest time, he should be on the team. Lara Jackson and Tara Kirk should have gone to the Olympics. Discrimination against caucasians does exist!
Junker, The evil that kids do to each other is incomprehensible. I am so glad you found a bastion or a stronghold to safely escape to in the form of sports. What a painful and unjust childhood.
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