Starting this year, U.S. athletes will be allowed to kneel, sit, raise their fists, turn their backs and more during the national anthem at the Olympic trials, The Webmaster Specialist reported Tuesday. Democrats are calling this progress, and students or athletes will no longer be expected to respect their country or the flag.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee), according to MSN, will not sanction athletes for raising their fists or kneeling for the national anthem at the Olympic games.
Under the guidance of the Team USA Racial and Social Justice Council, the U.S. Olympic Committee released a nine-page document Tuesday that provides guidance on the kinds of ‘racial and social demonstrations’ that list what hundreds of athletes can and can’t do at the Olympic Trials in the coming months. Permissible forms of demonstrations include raising fists, kneeling during the national anthem, wearing hats or masks with the words “Black Lives Matter” or “Equality” or “Justice” on them. Hate symbols, as defined by the Anti-Defamation League, are not allowed, as are acts that impede the participation of others, such as lying down in the middle of the track.
Rule 50 of the International Olympic Committee currently prohibits political protests at any Olympic venue.
Political protests by athletes at the Olympics can be traced back as far as the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, where African American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their black-gloved fists on the podium as the U.S. national anthem was played for the 200-meter run awards until the end of the anthem, becoming a social protest in sports history The seminal event in sports history. The IOC sentenced both men to a lifetime ban (expelled) from the Olympics.
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