Muska Piece Offends First-Year
 
To the Editor:

I read Mike Muska’s column on “Sportsphobia” with great interest this weekend. In it, Mr. Muska detailed the hardships faced by athletes on this campus –– in their dorms, their classes and their social circles. I was especially appreciative of how Mr. Muska put this new, unfamiliar form of oppression into a more familiar context, comparing it to homophobia and racism. 
As a lesbian who was out during high school, I was too caught up in my petty problems of verbal and physical harassment and death threats to have even noticed, let alone thought about, the experiences of varsity athletes in my school. I always thought the athletes were the ones who could break rules with relative impunity, be targeted for nearly every scholarship available and then attend weekly pep rallies celebrating their skills and talents. 
Little did I know that underneath this veil of privilege there was a festering wound of oppression. Now that I think about it, I can recall all the times I’ve turned on the television only to see stories of hate-filled murderers, poised outside sports bars, waiting to ‘gun some jocks down.’ 

For these poor men to be told that their sport is for “losers” must have been devastating. Never have I heard such violating slander! I bet next athletes will be targets of job, housing and employment discrimination, too. I bet when athletes get jobs, they are told, “you only got this job because you’re an athlete.”

Why, just this weekend, the sacred safe space of Oberlin’s male athletes was taken away. Some say it’s because of severe lack of interest and others point to Zeke’s history as a source of violence, rape and abuse, but now everyone knows that this is actually just another example of “sportsphobia.” 

And the residents’ reaction, not at all stereotypical, was to destroy the place; spray-painting male symbols and Greek ZKE symbols, tearing apart ceilings and destroying the women’s bathroom. Especially justified and warranted was the personalized and sexualized spray paint graffiti that read, “[female ResLife staff member] is a whore.”
Thank God we have Mike Muska to speak for the anger and frustrations of this group of loveable guys. 
Sure, racism, sexism, classism and homophobia are bad, but this world will never be a peaceful place until we all unite to fight the pervasive and evil forces of sportsphobia. 

–Myrl Beam
College first-year