The following is satirical.
Tomorrow is the 75thanniversary of D-Day and thousands of academics are meeting in Vancouver to discuss why Dodge Ball is oppressive. Over 2,500 American men died fighting fascism on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944, and the academics are meeting at the annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences to present a paper about Dodge Ball which says, [this is a real quote] “As we consider the potential of physical education to empower students by engaging them in critical and democratic practices, we conclude that the hidden curriculum offered by dodgeball is antithetical to this project.”
The presentation of the Dodge Ball paper is led by Joy Butler, professor of curriculum and pedagogy at the University of British Columbia and thus otherwise unemployable. Butler says that Dodge Ball reinforces the “five faces of oppression.” These five faces of oppression are, of course, Happy, Sneezy, Bashful, Sleepy and Doc. Dopey and Grumpy are excused because they identify as females who are dopey and grumpy.
Actually, I was just making a wildly offensive joke. The Five Faces of Oppression are actually Marginalization, Exploitation, Cultural Domination, Sleepy and Doc. Which explains why women are always so dopey and grumpy.
On this upcoming anniversary when men raced up beaches in the face of a murderous hail of machine gun bullets, mortars, bombs and underinflated red rubber balls that don’t even hurt when they hit you, the Vancouver academics will also be discussing other oppressive games like tag, in which a child is dehumanized by becoming “It,” Capture the Flag, which is obviously militaristic, and British Bulldog which has offensive colonialist overtones.
By helping children avoid playing these brutal and competitive games, educators will insure that never again will our children grow up to be adults who engage in war, but instead will become adults who are simply wiped out by whatever hellbound fascist bastards have been teaching their children to play Dodge Ball like normal people.
