But is it free speech?

What I read

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I normally put them on the right, but 

you might prefer a different position. 

The BBC Sport article "Awer Mabil: Australia forward is hoping to raise awareness of mental illness" (2019), says that Australian footballer Awer Mabil, who overcame racism to make Australia's national football team, the Socceroos, hopes that raising public awareness about mental health problems will help those suffering such illnesses to talk about them and seek help, rather than keeping their problems secret. According to the article, he explains that this is the reason "he covers his mouth with both hands whilst pointing to his forehead" every time he scores a goal for his team. He hopes that the gesture, which he says expresses the idea of bringing peace to the minds of those suffering mental illness, will be picked up and spread on social media.

125 words is safely within the 130 word limit for the summary paragraph. Three full stops for three sentences is within the four sentence limit. Since we do not know the name of the author, only the title of the article is given in the first sentence. This time I've also copied and pasted a few words from the source, which are in "quotation marks" as they must be. 

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My response 

I almost never read the sports section of the BBC website, but this article was highlighted on the BBC News homepage, where it caught my eye because I was looking for a bit more variety as an example of blogging the news to post here on our class blog. When I read it, it was actually interesting and raised a few ideas in my mind, and that is enough to make a good choice to blog. 

Another image from the BBC article

At first I was a bit confused about where Awer now plays football, but I guess that although he is now signed to play for a team in Europe, he remains a member of Australia's national football team. I don't follow football, but I remember similar examples. David Beckham still played for the English national team even when he had moved to join the Galaxy LA team in the US. (Is that right? This is response writing, so I haven't taken the time to stop and do research to check, but am relying on my memory.) I thought it was a great story of someone overcoming obstacles to become a success. I know that Australians, and I suspect every other nation, have a lot of ugly racist attitudes, but the very black Mr. Mabil stuck with it and succeeded in going from refugee child to football star. 

Although I don't entirely agree with Mabil that people with mental health problems keep them secret only out of embarrassment, I like his idea of using his success to send a message on an important social issue. It reminded me of the African American US footballer Colin Kaepernick, who has angered many in the US, including the current president, Donald Trump, by refusing to stand for the US national anthem when that song is played at the start of every football game. Instead, he kneels down to express his feelings about the persistent racism that African Americans continue to suffer in the US today. Kaepernick has done this for a couple of years now, and it has cost him a lot financially, although many Americans also support his peaceful protest. President Trump, perhaps not surprisingly, wanted to make it illegal to show what he and many see as disrespect to the American flag and national anthem, but thankfully, they US has a strong constitution that protects the right to free speech. The US Supreme Court would never allow the president to do anything so undemocratic as pass a law that criminalized disrespecting the flag or other national symbols. 

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My question

What do you think of sport or other entertainment stars using the fame to promote their ideas on social or political issues? 

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Reference

• Awer Mabil: Australia forward is hoping to raise awareness of mental illness. (2019, January 16). Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/46892072

• When the author's name is unknown, the title moves up to first place in the reference citation.