I chose my topic for my digital project as an analysis on racism and the treatment of black soccer players around the county in “statistically non-black countries.” I define this for the sake of my project as a country that, quantitatively, has black people as a minority in their population, or a country that historically and culturally has seen and treated black people as a minority. With the tool I used, StoryMapJS, I used the value of showcasing location aswell as placing my points in a chronological point to showcase the evolution of the treatment and acceptance of black players into their respective societies over the years, taking information all the way from the late 19th century all the way to just a few years ago to truly encapsulate the time aspect of how racism and acceptance of minorities develops. This combination of the chronologic factor aswell as the geographical factor showcased by the map and it’s pacing is a beautiful and sturdy combo that I hope people will appreciate and understand.
While there were some other places I did plan on researching for this project, such as East Asia, Australia, and maybe a bit more coverage into North America, I believe this research project does a successful job of showcasing the evolution of this issue aswell as how this issue is different, but also extremely similar in different parts around the world. I am sure that these places I listed would have supported my research, and I also believe that examples of racism both early on and nowadays in the global soccer world is not hard to come by, and showcasing even more examples for this project would have strengthened my research.
I chose this topic after some thought when this project was introduced to us because I feel it’s something important to highlight. I find that for alot of these much older athletes in my project, being able to defy societal norms and get up on extremely large stages, knowing that there were going to be dissenters and people that were going to hate them almost solely based on skin color, and still doing it anyway is extremely moving to me, and shows their strength and power.
I hope you take the time to look through this work of mine and appreciate both the time I placed into it, aswell as understanding and sitting with the stories and examples I present in this Storymap and how the things I talk about affect our world today. I look forward to hearing from everyone and also seeing everyone else’s work!
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