What?

    This week, we talked quite a bit about Marginalization and how racial and ethnic groups were marginalized in the U.S. Now, the Olympics are designed to promote Unity, bring the world together, and fight against discrimination but how do they hold up to that standard when they ban the 2nd most populated country from competing? 

On Friday, my family and I are watching the Olympic opening ceremony and wait for India to march in the parade of nations. But India didn't. At first, I thought that someone skipped them and obnoxiously commented "Well, Somebody's getting fired." I soon forgot about it, but then the "Independent Olympic Participants" began to march and I came to the realization that they were Team India. So I grabbed the computer and Binged it. It turns out India was banned because they had kept corrupt officials in their ranks. Now corruption in India is not surprising; in fact, it is kind of expected. It really happens all the time and it is pretty embarrassing.  For example, take the Commonwealth Games. In 2010, India hosted the Commonwealth Games. They were a failure. My family and I went to Delhi two weeks before the games started and on the road where the bicycle race was supposed to take place, there were pot holes everywhere and bricks out of place. This was due to the corruption in the organizing committee. Instead of spending money to make sure that events could take place, the committee in charge spent 9 lakhs per treadmill and 4 lakhs per AC Unit. 9 lakhs equals 900,000 rupees which equals 14450.4 US dollars. 14450.4 dollars for One treadmill. When asked to justify these purchases, the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee said that the treadmills were from Germany and came with a German technician and acted like that justified everything.       However, I still don't think that it is fair to ban a country for corruption as nearly all bans are reserved for human rights violations like South Africa 40+ years ago. It doesn't really punish the corrupt officials as much as it punishes the athletes that have worked tirelessly and the people of India that haven't really done anything wrong. I feel that it is wrong to ban India when other countries have only been banned after committing heinous crimes that make corruption look benign. There is talk that the ban may be lifted before the games are over and hopefully the Indian athletes will be able to compete for their country.