“Who Is The Patriot”

In the chapter, “Who Is The Patriot?”, the author, Howard Bryant explains the corruption in the sports leagues. He writes, “Sports teams had been charging the military to stage their events at ballparks, and the Pentagon had been paying the teams millions in taxpayer money-at least $6.8 million, to that point-to do it”. Bryant argued that all the homecoming ceremonies, first pitches thrown by returning soldiers, and all the support from the sports teams were either staged or paid for by the government. Bryant used many credible sources while making his points and many of them are provable. However, while he used many concrete sources and facts, some of the conclusions he drew had no correlation to his points.

Bryant tried to use the political examples of Donald Trump and the African American sports players kneeling in protest. He wrote, “In the theater of easy visuals, the black players knelt in protest were un-American, and Trump provoked this by using soldiers as the object of the players perceived disrespect”. These two examples have no correlation to his point earlier in the chapter. It seems as though he wanted to make his political views on the two subjects known without tying it back to his original reason for writing the piece.

Contrarily, Bryant made some authentic points. His paragraphs on the connection between the government paying the sports teams for acknowledgements is jaw-dropping. He writes. “The military was using sports to sell the business of war. And the teams? Well, they were in the business of making money…”. His vocabulary and the manner in which he provides evidence for his points, creates a trusting bond between reader and author. He later writes, “Protestors, African American athletes especially, constantly find themselves on the defensive”. Bryant uses this quote to appeal to his audience and evoke certain emotions from them. This also adds a better connection between author and audience because the audience feels as though the author really understands their thoughts and feelings.    

In conclusion, Bryant makes numerous concrete points in his chapter called, “Who Is The Patriot”. However, some of the evidence he uses to try to support his claims do not correlate to his overall point. Overall, this chapter opened the readers’ minds to the corruption in sports teams and allows them to create their own perspectives and feelings towards the issue.