Sociology Essay

Lysvette Rodriguez

Soc-303

Dr. Boudon

11-25-2020

Interview Memo

The only thing that has consistently continued to portray people as one race community is sports. Generally, players participating in different sports come from different races, ethnicities, countries and belong to diverse religious backgrounds. But despite this diversity, we have not missed seeing a black gold medalist hugging a white runner up colleague after the race. Regardless of where one comes from, sports have mostly depicted themselves as the best form of the melting pot, celebrating all world races collectively without biasness. An eighteen-year-old Kenyan Eliud Kipchonge denying Moroccan Hicham ElGuerrouj the gold medal chance by a whisker did not prevent the two Olympic champions from hugging and congratulating each other after the race, despite their racial, ethnic, and religious diversity. Athletes from different sports have exemplified love beyond ethnic and racial boundaries, and it is an aspect I find exciting.

Regardless, I thought getting somebody and requesting to interview them would have been very difficult for me to do and come out of my shell. When this project was first mentioned, I thought the most challenging part would have been discovering somebody to interview who knew my range consummately. Since I chose a discussion topic that I really like, I had the option to make it fascinate for myself and knew the ideal individual to interview when I reached my determination of a base persona. I wound up interviewing somebody who we were not amazingly close. It was incredibly simple to request for an interview just after mentioning my subject about minorities in sports. We both realized she would be the best individual to go to for my interview theme and would know precisely what the two closures of my exploration field resembled. Since I knew the individual, it was not as hard as I expected and made the interview significantly less nerve-wracking and more pleasant for the two of us. When requesting the interview, I ensured I clarified the project incredibly well, essentially indicating her the rules to ensure she comprehended what she was getting herself into. I enlightened her precisely regarding the fields I had explored, why I needed her mainly, and how anything shared was in all probability going to be imparted to a professor and different understudies. I think being this straight-forward is the thing that got me her permission. Likewise, since she is an open and sparkling individual, I realized I would undoubtedly get a yes from her whichever way since she genuinely appreciates this subject and is generally a massive talker.

Moreover, I accept my genuine interview reflected well with my interview plan. Since I was the person who investigated most of the information on the topic in the sports, my research inquiries were structured as expected in the guide, and at the same time, had the option to keep up on target with my inquiries and project topic. The primary interview questions were centered on my interviewee's personal information, where she grew up, how it felt like being a black American, and the rise and struggles to an Olympic champion. This was a huge discussion aspect knowing how hard it is to grow up in the U.S as an African American female. Thus, even though I thought the base inquiries would have been restricting, it helped manage a significant number of my best inquiries questions and discussions introduced in my task that focused in on our theme and indeed gave a genuine look at the games around our school and how our locale related with it. If I somehow happened to reexamine my guide for another interview, I would make a point to focus more on sports generally than only the athletics games alone.

I would portray my interview strategy as relaxed and comfortable. I think the interview looked relaxed and comfortable because both of us seemed interested in the subject of discussion. Becoming more acquainted with different aspects of the athletics game, this interview was very enlightening and simple to tune in to, making it amuse to conduct. Additionally, since I chose to pick somebody whom I was a huge fan of, I knew precisely what to ask and could most likely think about what her reactions were; it gave me an extremely relaxed feeling. While I did genuinely appreciate directing this interview, glancing back at my transcript, I understood that if I had not researched or had a clue about the individual, I would presumably appear to be less cold and way keener on her responses than how I initially was. Investigating the transcript, I saw I would not elaborate on much she said despite t that she had plenty to share about everything I asked her about. Understanding this now, considering that I did this with another interviewee, they would most likely become sick of me, stop the interview, or basically, offer me one-sentence responses back and make the interview not as comfortable or energizing as I was anticipating that it should be. To ensure I got her full truth and best data, I would consistently keep a smiley face and node her on, or at times fake laugh to make she felt at ease and got a positive spectrum about my research topic. A few things I actually need to explore much on at as an interviewer is structuring a more coordinated set of inquiries for my interviewee, ensuring that they feel good, and giving them as much input and excitement as they give me. While directing the interview, I had a bunch of base questions that I had formed and staying focused on them helped me stay relevant to my project topic throughout the interview. Another enormous issue I understood was my tone and responsiveness to my interviewee, which, again, if I did not have any acquaintance with her, would have been a major issue. Although these specific setbacks happened, I am still exceptionally content with the response and data I got from this project interview.

Altogether, numerous inquiries were raised after conducting my interview, explicitly on the topics and issues encompassing challenges faced by minorities in their Athletics career journey. Coming into this theme, I was confident as a huge fan of the athletics games, and it became even more intriguing discussing a sport's career of a person I am a huge fan of. What got from my interview and research coincided with what I was anticipating. Sports is generally a contested space. For the African Americans to become the best athletes, they had to be the best and perform beyond levels where racial biasness could be used to disqualify them and cut their careers short. Think of a person like Jack Johnson, who never hesitated to tell people that they could kiss his ass, and more interestingly when Joe Louis fights Hitler's favorite boxer, Max Schmeling, in 1938. Dr. Martin Luther King, he called Jackie Robinson a "sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom-rider before freedom rides " (Zirin & Jhally, 2013). This gives you an instinct into why most of the best performing athletes in the U.S are from the black community. To me, this depicts how powerful the sports are, since it forces people to face ideas and scenarios that they would instead be mentally separated from. Everyone one of us has a role in understanding racism and how it works in our society, and as well as a role in understanding how sports and race connect. Our ability to have this understanding or not have it marks the difference between us being liberated or us being shackled. The underrepresentation of black Africans in sports is based on the racial thought that channels them into probably athletics as whites gravitate to sports and tasks that need intelligence. One of the noticeable leading bizarreries today is that majority of the star athletes are mostly blacks. The ultimate irony is that in a country where blacks in the past decades were barred from institutional sporting activities and voting, the majority of the top athletes waving high our national flag are the blacks.

Reference

Zirin, D., & Jhally, S. (2013). Race, Power & American Sports.