Folks, I don’t know how it’s possible, but it gets funnier.

Absolutely — and it’s a terrifying move for creativity. Frankfurt school like told you so but also wtf

What is truly wild about this is that Vince Gasparro was essentially copying the depraved behaviour of Marco Rubio, but with even LESS authority to do so, which is to say none whatsoever!

They are literally claiming in public that writing about Israel’s athleticide/genocide in a *peer-reviewed academic journal* is somehow a careerist grift.

The delusion is almost unparalleled.

If we as scholars of sport are to meaningfully confront “systemic injustices” and contribute to “social change” we must, as a professional and moral imperative, seriously engage with both the theoretical construct and the material realities of genocide.

journals.humankinetics.com/view/journal...

And we must deeply consider, more expansively, the ways that sport could be rendered useful for community healing and survival under extreme conditions such as a genocide funded by enabling governments.

journals.humankinetics.com/view/journal...

And while we call on sports scholars to seriously consider these genocidal tactics, we must (more importantly) reflect on sport’s historical complicity as an alibi in the violence of Western colonialism and imperialism.

And while genocide studies often ignore sport & sport studies often ignore genocide. We push for a sociology of athleticide to explain how state violence can target sport as one modality of genocidal campaigns.

Our group shows how sport in Gaza faces systematic erasure. Athletes lose their lives. Stadiums and clubs fall under attack. Records and history vanish. This violence targets a community and a future built through sport.

journals.humankinetics.com/view/journal...

We trace how the killing, arrest, detention, and disabling of athletes, coaches, staff, officials, and administrators, alongside the destruction of facilities and sporting history, forms part of the US funded Israeli genocide of Palestinians since at least October 2023.