NOlympics Syllabus

 

NOlympics LA formed to oppose the Olympic Games coming to Los Angeles in 2028, and is part of a transnational NOlympics Anywhere movement seeking the abolition of the Olympics everywhere. Our coalition’s opposition to the Games is informed by the history of the Olympics, from its roots in white supremacist imperialism to its ongoing track record of destroying host cities. Our opposition is also informed by our analysis of the current conditions of capitalism, in which powerful corporate and political actors have designed the Olympics as a tool to exploit and remake cities in the interest of global capital. The Olympics are fundamentally incompatible with the city and working class power that we’re fighting for.

We created this syllabus as an overview of the extensive (and still-growing) range of evidence that informs our analysis of the problem and our organizing strategies to fight for a better city. It is not a deep dive into the specific conditions in Los Angeles or any other host city, but rather a combination of locally grounded and historical analyses that together trace the structural mechanisms at work wherever the Olympics go. We hope this will be useful for:

    • Professors to incorporate into their curriculum
    • Students who want to teach their own class
    • Students doing an Olympics-based project 
    • Self-taught people who wish to have a toolkit in their back-pocket when discussing the Olympics/understanding the Olympics
    • Reading groups
    • Organizers and activists

This syllabus attempts to provide links for materials where they are available online, and this includes links to articles, books, blogs and other materials. We will check on these links periodically but if they do become inactive please let us know at [email protected]. We also include some films and TV episodes that are extremely informative but unfortunately might require purchase or a subscription. Check with your library resources to see if they have access to some of these resources as well.

In solidarity. 

Download this syllabus as a PDF.

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PART I. OLYMPIC ROOTS


The Olympics are rooted in white supremacy, imperialism, racism, sexism, ableism, classism, and elitism (and have always faced resistance).

  • Jules Boykoff. 2016. “Coubertin and the Revival of the Olympic Games.” Power Games, pp. 21-29 [pdf]
  • Watch: Jules Boykoff talks IOC history in Japan [link] [roughly 7:26 – 9:28]
  • Watch: NOlympics LA. 2019. “A brief history of swolecialism.” [link]
  • David Goldblatt. 2016. “People have always hated the Olympics.” Time. [link]

The Olympics are built around war, not peace (and have always been political).

  • Jules Boykoff. 2016. “Nazi Games.” Power Games, pp. 66-73 [pdf]
  • Molly Lambert. 2017. “My grandmother, the Nazis, and the  shadow of the Olympics.” The New Yorker. [link]
  • Mario Kessler. 2011. “Only Nazi Games? Berlin 1936: The Olympic Games between Sport and Politics.” Socialism and Democracy. [link]
  • Listen: NOlympics LA / KNOCK.LA. 2018. “The Humiliation of the Will.” Rings of Hell [podcast]. [link]
  • Watch: Clip from Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia – [link]
  • Erin Redihan. 2018. “The 1952 Olympics Games, the US, and the USSR.” Process. [link]
  • Watch: “A look at the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program.” YouTube. [link]

 

PART II. THE CAPITALIST GAMES


The Capitalist Games are incompatible with building a just city. They always result in the same groups of winners and losers, widening the chasm between the two.

  • Jules Boykoff. 2016. “The Celebration Capitalism Era.” Power Games, pp. 144-151 [pdf]
  • Listen: NOlympics LA / KNOCK.LA. 2018. “Who wins when the Olympics come to town?” Rings of Hell [podcast] [link]
  • Jules Boykoff. 2016. “LA ‘84, Samaranch, and the Olympic Partners Program.” Power Games, pp. 124-128 [pdf]
  • Kenneth Reich. 1985. “12 minority firms seeking $17 million: Arbitration talks due in LAOOC Suit.” Los Angeles Times. [link]
  • Alan Dawson. 2018. “The Winter Olympics are ‘killing’ some Pyeongchang business owners — here’s why.” Business Insider. [link]
  • Craig Tanner. 2015. “The March of the White Elephants” [link]


There is no such thing as a successful Olympics. ‘Success’ is a myth fabricated by complicit media.

  • Caitlin Parker. 2014. “The Capitalist Games: Privatization, protest, and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.” [pdf]
  • Jules Boykoff. 2016. “Hyping the ‘Barcelona Model.’” Power Games, pp. 128-131 [pdf]
  • David Harvey. 2012. “Collective symbolic capital, marks of distinction, and monopoly rents.” Rebel Cities, pp. 103-109. [link]
  • Christopher Gaffney. 2014. “Global parties, galactic hangovers: Brazil’s mega-event dystopia.” Los Angeles Review of Books. [link] 
  • Müller, Martin. 2015. “The Mega-Event Syndrome: Why So Much Goes Wrong in Mega-Event Planning and What to Do About It.” Journal of the American Planning Association. [link]
  • Adam Talbot. 2016. “A Look Behind the Olympic Smokescreen and the Rio 2016 ‘Success Story.’” RioOnWatch. [link]. 
  • NOlympics LA. “How to report on the Olympics: From Tokyo 2020 to LA 2028.” [link]
  • Watch: Vice. 2012. “The dark side of the London Olympics (part 2/4).” Vice . [link] [2’00 – 6’45]
  • Flyvbjerg, B., Stewart, A., & Budzier, A. (2016). The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and cost overrun at the games. [link]


The Olympics exist to expand policing and surveillance.

  • Max Felker-Kantor. 2017. “The 1984 Olympics fueled L.A.’s war on crime. Will the 2028 Games do the same?” The Washington Post. [link]
  • NOlympics LA. 2020. “What is a National Special Security Event?” [link]
  • NOlympics LA. 2020. “You cannot support both the Olympics and the movement for Black lives.” [link]
  • Explore: Pick A Side website
  • Dave Zirin. 2012. “Want to Understand the 1992 LA Riots? Start with the 1984 LA Olympics.” The Nation. [link]
  • Pauschinger 2020. “The Permeable Olympic Fortress: Mega-Event Security as Camouflage in Rio de Janeiro.’ Open Access. [link]
  • Adolfo Gilly. “1968: A Rupture at the Edges.” In UNAM’s “68 + 50” project, pp.27-41 (plus images pp.58-99). [link]
  • NOlympics LA. 2018. “Remembering the Tlatelolco Massacre: 50 Years Later.” [link]


The Olympics exist to displace the poor and pave the way for development and profit.

  • Watch: Clip from Raquel Rolnik interview, 2019
  • Watt, Paul. 2013. “‘It’s not for us’: Regeneration, the 2012 Olympics and the gentrification of East London.” City 17(1): 99-118. [link]
  • COHRE. 2007. “Fair play for housing rights.” pp. 77-168. [link]
  • *Activity recommendation*: This text covers Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, and Beijing 2008. Assign individuals/groups to read about one city and present the key takeaways to the rest of the group.
  • Jonathan Watts. 2015. “The Rio property developer hoping for a $1bn Olympic legacy of his own.” Guardian. [link]
  • Bruno Porpetta. 2015. “The Olympics Serve to Legitimize Evictions.” RioOnWatch. [link]
  • Raquel Rolnik and Niklas Franzen. 2016. “The complete subjugation of urban policy. An interview with Raquel Rolnik. Verso. [link]
  • Check out: Page 17 of LA’s bid book (2014 version) [link].


LA’s Olympics are accelerating and justifying ongoing projects of removal and gentrification.

  • Shirsho Dasgupta. 2018. “Forced out: In Exposition Park, residents face likely eviction to make room for ‘the Fig.’” LA Taco. [link]
  • Cerianne Robertson. 2020. “Homes Are Essential, Inglewood’s New Stadium Is Not.” Knock-LA. [link]
  • Jonny Coleman. 2020. “The Struggle Against A Stadium’s Construction Became a Battle for the Soul of Los Angeles.” The Appeal. [link]
  • Watch: “Lennox-Inglewood Tenants Union fighting gentrification in the shadow of SoFi.” [link]
  • Don Parson. 2005. “This modern marvel: Chavez Ravine and the politics of modernism.” Making a better world: Public housing, the red scare, and the direction of Modern Los Angeles. [link]
  • Ultra-red. 2014. “Desarmando Desarrollismo: Listening to anti-gentrification in Boyle Heights.” Field. [link]


The Olympics create cities for the globe-trotting elite, at the expense of the most marginalized residents.

  • Adam Talbot. 2016. “A new Olympic sport: City cleansing.” RioOnWatch. [link]
  • Jenna Chandler. 2017. “LA ‘sterilized’ its streets for the ’84 Olympics—how will it treat the homeless in 2028?” Curbed. [link]
  • Watch: Raquel Rolnik on Airbnb and the Olympics [link]
  • Naomi Williams. 2020. “Canceling the Olympics Has Always Been a Queer Issue.” KNOCK.LA. [link]
  • NOlympics LA. 2019. “The Olympics and Airbnb: A match made in synergy hell.” [link]
  • Lawrence Vale & Annemarie Gray. 2013. “The Displacement Decathlon,” Places Journal. [link]
  • Select clips from episodes of John Singleton’s Snowfall (dramatization of LA 1984 policing) [link]


The Olympics are an exploitation machine. Part 1: environment and Indigeneity.

  • Christine O’Bonsawin. 2010. “No Olympics on stolen native land’: Contesting Olympic narratives and asserting Indigenous rights within the discourse of the 2010 Vancouver Games.” Sport in Society. [link]
  • Janice Forsyth. 2016. “The Olympics’ exploitation of Indigenous people has to stop.” HuffPost. [link]
  • Christine O’Bonsawin. 2009. “An Insincere Celebration Is the Olympics’ use of Indigenous symbolism imprudent?” The Dominion. [link]
  • Christine O’Bonsawin. 2014. “Showdown at Eagleridge Bluffs: The 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, the Olympic Sustainability Smokescreen, and the Protection of Indigenous Lands.” [link]
  • Rebecca Kim. 2014. “They went and did it! 500-year-old primeval forest at Mount Gariwang unlawfully destroyed for 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.” Games Monitor. [link]
  • Ian Johnson. 2015. “Scientists Question Environmental Impact of China’s Winter Olympics Bid.” The New York Times. [link]
  • Elena Hodges. 2014. “Rio’s Olympic golf course will trample a protected ecological gem.” Next City. [link]
  • David Goldblatt. 2020. “Playing against the clock: Global sport, the climate emergency and the case for rapid change.” [link]


The Olympics are an exploitation machine. Part 2: athletes and labor.

  • Will Hobson. 2016. “Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps athletes poor.” Washington Post. [link]
  • NOlympics LA. 2018. “The Olympics and Exploitation of the Working Class.” [link]
  • Listen: NOlympics LA / KNOCK.LA. 2018. “The Exploitation Games.” Rings of Hell [podcast]. [link]
  • Ryu Honma “Black Volunteer” book in Japanese [link]
  • Watch: Athlete A (Netflix)
  • Watch: “The Lords of the Rings.” Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. (HBO) (With a focus on segments on athlete exploitation and volunteer exploitation.
  • NOlympics LA. 2019. “Non-profits, taxes, and plutocracy: How the Olympics and the LA84 Foundation bring them together.” [link]
  • Jonny Coleman. 2019. “Who does Los Angeles’s Olympic legacy really serve?” Deadspin. [link]


PART III. THE MOVEMENT TO ABOLISH THE OLYMPICS


Meaningful change is not in the interest of the Olympics industry. 

  • Andy Bull. 2018. “Nobody can afford to host the Olympics but at the IOC the largesse never stops.” The Guardian [link]
  • Brian Steinberg. 2019. “NBCUniversal Expects More Than $1.2 Billion in Ads for Tokyo Olympics.” Variety. [link]
  • Watch: Segment on Oslo bid from “The Lords of the Rings.” Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. 
  • Adam Taylor and Samuel Blackstone. 2012. “Here’s who will get rich off the London Olympics.” Business Insider. [link]
  • Jules Boykoff. 2015. “Boston beware: The Olympics are a destroyer of cities.” Al Jazeera. [link]
  • Katherine Hampel. 2019. “Whose Fault Is It Anyway? How Sexual Abuse Has Plagued the United States Olympic Movement and Its Athletes.” [link]
  • Haley O. Morton. 2016. “License to Abuse: Confronting Coach-Inflicted Sexual Assault in American Olympic Sports.” [link]


Attempts to negotiate have always failed. Olympics boosters and city leaders always break their promises.

  • Watch: State of Exception. 2017. [film]
  • Matthew Ponsford. 2017. “Five years after London Olympics, Games’ legacy is off-track for locals.” Reuters. [link]
  • Maria Luiza Belo. 2019. “Vila Autódromo Plans Occupation to Demand Renaming BRT Station and Fulfillment of City Promises.” RioOnWatch. [link]
  • Sami Bhusal. 2020. Community Benefits Agreement Report. [link]
  • LA Tenants Union. 2019. “Dropping the hammer on YIMBYism.” Medium. [link]
  • LA Tenants Union. 2020. ““Affordable Housing” is a scam!” Medium. [link]

 


Abolition is the only viable path forward.

  • Watch: “NOlympics Explaining True Cost of the Olympics at the FCCJ of Japan.” [link] 
  • Travis Waldron. 2018. “You realize the Olympics don’t have to exist, right?” HuffPost. [link]. 
  • Dvora Meyers. 2020. “The Endgame of the Olympics: What if the Olympic Games Never Came Back?” Longreads [link]
  • Ruth Wilson Gilmore. 2020. “The Case for Abolition.” The Intercept [podcast]. [link]
  • Watch: [short clip on abolition at Pick a Side event] [link]
  • NOlympics Anywhere movement. 2019. “A Joint Statement in Solidarity.” [link]

 

The movement to abolish the Olympics must be transnational.

  • NOlympics LA. 2019. “Gentrification, Greenwashing, and the “Games”: Diary of the First Anti-Olympic Summit in Tokyo.” [link]
  • Cerianne Robertson. 2019. “NOlympics Anywhere: A transnational movement to stop the Olympic Games is gathering strength.” Play the Game. [link]
  • Spike Friedman. 2019. “The Olympics Are Coming To Tokyo, And So Is The Movement To Kill The Games Forever.” Deadspin. [link]
  • Anna Vogelpohl and Sybille Bauriedl. 2018. “Hamburg’s bid for the 2024 Games: Political misconceptions of citizens’ concerns.” Play the Game. [link]

How you can get involved:

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Non-English language sources:

  • Anti-Tokyo 2020 group Okotowalink’s resource on ableism [link]

English-language sources:

  • Boyle, Philip, and Kevin D. Haggerty. 2009. “Spectacular Security: Mega-Events and the Security Complex.” International Political Sociology 3, 257-274.
  • Denton, Jack. 2018. “Meet the grassroots organizers trying to keep the Olympics out of Los Angeles.” Pacific Standard. [link]
  • Gaffney, Christopher. 2014. “The mega-event city as neo-liberal laboratory: The case of Rio de Janeiro.” Percuso Acadêmico 4(8): 217-237.
  • Kennelly, Jacqueline and Paul Watt. 2011. “Sanitizing Public Space in Olympic Host Cities: The Spatial Experiences of Marginalized Youth in 2010 Vancouver and 2012 London.” Sociology. [link]
  • Lauermann 2014 “Competition through Interurban Policy Making: Bidding to Host Megaevents as Entrepreneurial Networking”. https://doi.org/10.1068%2Fa130112p
  • Raco 2012 “The privatisation of urban development and the London Olympics 2012”. Open Access. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2012.696903
  • Watt, Paul, and Penny Bernstock. 2017. “Legacy for whom? Housing in post-Olympic East London.” In Paul Cohen and Paul Watt, eds. London 2012 and the Post-Olympics City: A Hollow Legacy? London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Zimbalist, Andrew. 2015. Circus maximus: The economic gamble behind hosting the Olympics and World Cup. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution.

 

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