Wimbledon and the Hypocrisy of Doing Nothing

I have a casual relationship with tennis. Sometimes when I have nothing to do, and Wimbledon is streaming on the BBC website, I may find myself becoming amused at the spectacle of two people hitting a ball back and forth to each other. Sometimes these games last for five hours, sometimes they can be over in fifty minutes. What’s certain, at the end of the day, is that it happens every year.

So I woke up this morning to interesting news that the good people of Wimbledon tennis club are banning any players of Russian descent from playing in their tournament.

Here’s me, minding my own business, thinking to myself, wait a minute, this is sport, not Geo-politics! It’s news to me that the Wimbledon tennis club seems to be the barometer of good taste, and indeed riling up ethnic tensions with the pretense of desiring peace.

I suppose what this reveals is that the people running the cultural programming of the United Kingdom are not malevolent, and indeed if they are all members of some shady elitist club, they are simply some of the most incompetent people that have ever existed in the recorded history of mankind.

I can amuse myself at the thought of people in offices with computer screens in front of them trying to make judgement calls based on their own faulty intelligence, but it doesn’t do me any favours as I stare at my own computer screen in my own office trying to make judgement calls based on my own faulty intelligence.

What I do know, however, is that if a nation truly was desirous of World Peace, they wouldn’t take a side in a conflict many, many miles away and pursue policy that creates two distinct sides, egging each other on as a kind of driver for war.

What do the people at Wimbledon think they will do to the Russian people, once they see that ALL Russians are banned from legitimate sporting competition based on their race, nationality and ethnic background? I’m sure it won’t drive up nationalist sentiment, and SURELY it cannot be one of the drivers behind Putin’s rising popularity at home…

What happened to the memory of Maria Sharapova? Wasn’t she one of Wimbledon’s most popular champions? Is her contribution now deemed ‘problematic’, with internet censors rushing to erase her achievements from the history books?

If I was a young tennis player hoping to take part in Junior Wimbledon, now banned because of my passport, would this not provide motivation for signing up to the Russian military and contributing to a highly concentrated military force that is acting out of righteous fury? If you mix that with general competence and enough man-power, the West seems like it is trying to provoke a Russian super army to decimate the forces of Europe.

If you think about it for more than two seconds on the news bulletin provided to you in your state sanctioned news distributor of choice, what right minded young man would want to give up his life fighting to defend a nation that seems to want to provoke a World War? I certainly don’t, and if push comes to shove I will not defend this government and this nation until I get the feeling that this government and nation want to defend me.

That’s surely part of some kind of social contract, on a basic level. I think it’s fair enough.

I get to wake up every morning to the understanding that because I’m a young white man, all of the contents of history seem to be my fault, and all of the actions and reactions that have taken place in the past are blamed on me. This is a huge weight to bear, and I’ve done my best for around seven years, but there’s only so much one mind can take.

If anyone, from now on, suggests to me that it is ‘problematic’ for a straight white man to be placed into a job, or a cultural opportunity, this is grounds for total ridicule and a total withdrawal of attention, care and labour.

I know precisely how the programming is supposed to go. I am supposed to internalise all of this historical blame, minimise my self and my ability to see potential in my existence, notice that LGBT+++++ individuals get funding to make gay films, become gay, end my family tree and die a well funded ‘non binary’ cultural amusement.

If you don’t agree with this analysis, please, prove me wrong in the comments.

For so many years I thought to myself ‘I don’t need to make a film, it’s now the time for women, or black people to make their films’ and I was so depressed. What am I supposed to do, if I’m a filmmaker who wants to make Some Quality Entertainment, and all the opportunities seem to be stacked in favour of literally everybody in the world except me? Be happy? Take it, like some kind of whipping boy?

I suppose the only way, is to pick myself up, dust down my trousers and ‘go again’, safe in the knowledge that the cultural industries are desperate for novel content, and they are eroding their pipeline of new entertainment. Once the circus runs out and the population is a bit less content, where they gonna turn?

The other reason Netflix is running out of time? Nobody wants to watch yet another moralising lecture about how Victim A was so oppressed by some kind of subjective reading of history, ad infinitum. No one wants to watch Lord of the Rings with casting decisions made by buffoons trying to be edgy in 2022. Why is it so edgy, in this day and age, to make a car commercial with a family featuring a white man and a white woman?

I could go on, and if anyone is actually reading this, I hope you get a little flavour of what it’s like to be a 30 year old white, heterosexual man in 21st century Britain.

Until then, I will go back to my new job, verifying search engine results for $0.05 a correct answer. I would find it humiliating, if I didn’t come from very strong stock.

Enjoy the ‘Ukrainian War’. When Russia wins a total and decisive victory, I won’t say I told you so.

What I’m more interested in is the accusations of ritual civilian murder, child sacrifice and general Satanism in the ranks of the Azov Battalion, as well as the global network of Satanist organisations and where they source their funding.

Maybe I’m reading too much propaganda (don’t we all), but as an expectant father I do not want my child to look up at me and see that I was backing the side that was engaging in ritual sacrifice to engage demonic forces to try and win some war.