Dhani Tackles The Globe (Sorta)
Okay, first, I realize that I’ve posted about race several times lately. And I realize no one is hugely interested to hear another white feminist’s super speshul (and quite possibly dumbass) thoughts on race. And thank god, there are hundreds of people on Tumblr who speak on this topic with a thousand times more experience, eloquence and authority than I have.
But holy shit. I am annoyed right now.
My family and I have been enjoying a show on Netflix streaming called Dhani Tackles The Globe. We’re not sports fans, we know very little about football, but it’s a travel show hosted by a very charismatic and likable player for the Bengals, Dhani Jones.
Dhani is a REMARKABLY handsome guy, big smile, great hair, great physique, the camera absolutely loves him. The point of the show is, he goes to a different country each week and takes a crash course in the local sport, be it mountain climbing, long boat rowing, or Luchador wrestling. He also spends some time meeting the locals and experiencing a bit of local culture.
I find the show very compelling because very few people on Earth could actually host this show in the way Dhani does, most travel hosts can’t compete (and acquit themselves beautifully) in a strongman competition in Iceland, for example.
I travel a lot, and the best experiences always seem to happen off the beaten path, when you are just meeting the local people and trying not to be an asshole tourist to the best of your ability. And there’s a real sense of that in this show, that Dhani is genuinely trying to understand a bit of the local culture. He is a guy who likes Sprite and Twinkies, but he’ll eat bugs if that’s what the locals do. He won’t enjoy it, but he’ll try it.
And being a fierce competitor, he tries some sports he has no aptitude for, some that are actually pretty dangerous (climbing Everest, fighting angry muy thai fighters with something to prove). It’s a really enjoyable show.
And one of the nice things is, there’s a real feeling that sports makes competitors brothers, all over the world. That Dhani can go to Russia and fight with the martial artists there, and they will come to respect each other and find some common ground beyond race and country. It’s kind of a hopeful message.
Except, no, apparently.
There IS some of that, but the whole show appears to be edited to make white people feel comfortable, just like that.
I liked the show, so I bought Dhani’s book, the SPORTSMAN. To his credit, he talks about both his good and bad qualities…he’s very ambitious, very competitive. He had remarkable parents, and a bit of a rebellious teenhood. He can get angry. He can be stubborn. He acknowledges all of this.
But his parents, both remarkable people, instilled in him a desire for excellence and achievement. He talks about how race affected him growing up (somewhat), and he very candidly speaks about the countries he traveled to on the show.
It turns out that, even if you are a celebrity, a sports hero, a millionaire, a ridiculously good looking guy, an educated man, and a television personality, to some folks, you’re still just a “black guy.” And in their eyes, that makes you suspect.
Dhani talks about how some of the countries never warmed up to him at all, countries where he went where he never saw another black person, where he was greeted with hostile eyes just for being there.
On one show, they show Dhani before a fight, and there are all these smiling little old ladies watching him fight, apparently rooting him on. No. It turns out, they were actually saying (quote), “Fuck you, you stupid motherfucker.”
I want to stress that some countries, places like Italy, immediately embraced him as family…the cyclists in that episode say Dhani is their brother now, and meant it. Neat. But other episodes completely whitewash the uncomfortable racial issues that came up in Dhani’s visits.
And that’s what pisses me off here. Dhani is not hugely focused on race, at least not according to his book. It’s part of his life, he’s aware of it, and he strives to present a different face to the concept of a black sports figure. He has a company that makes designer bow ties, he owns an advertising agency, he wants people to know that there are a lot of black athletes who don’t make headlines for the good work they do. Fair enough, a great message.
More importantly, he sees his show as important, because there are so few black travel show hosts. He speaks about that with some real heart, it’s important to him.
And the show never even TOUCHES on any of that, never even raises the possibility, in fact, it goes out of its way to imply that race is never an issue on the show anywhere in the world. Even when Dhani goes to South Africa and Jamaica, you get the impression that the only message the white audience wants to hear (or that the show is convinced they want to hear) is that things are ‘getting better.’ Dhani is full of insightful things to say about those countries and his experiences there…the show itself betrays him on that at every opportunity.
In short, all his efforts have to be undermined over the POSSIBILITY of white people experiencing a moment’s discomfort at the truth.
I understand that sometimes, the trailblazer is packaged to be as palatable to the mainstream as possible. But the truth is always better to know, always.
It’s still a worthwhile show…it shows aspects of cultures that many Americans never get to see, let alone experience. But like a lot of things, it could be a lot better if it didn’t have to worry quite so much about discomforting ignorant white people.
