Good morning, TSFers. Arsenal are in Champions League action today against Athletic Bilbao. The Gunners are the early match — kickoff at 12:45 ET — so plan accordingly! Today’s CF was inspired by a comment and response from yesterday. As I thought about what I wanted to say and began to do some reading, I realized that it wasn’t something that I could handle the way I wanted to handle it in a CF, on a morning-of decision to write about it and do it justice.
There are layers to Athletic Club’s Basque-only
player policy. Those layers require unpacking and thoughtful treatment. So I’m going think about it more, do some more reading, have some conversations, and maybe come back to it. I’d recommend y’all read the NYT / Athletic explainer piece on the policy. If you’re not a subscriber, there are plenty of other posts across the internet that describe and explain it, including on Wikipedia.
Sidenote: how great is Wikipedia?! I’d go so far as to suggest it is one of the greatest, most important websites in existence.
So instead of diving into Bilbao’s policy, you’ll get something to think about (and hopefully a positive lesson) from me. I’m sure you’re all thrilled!
It’s okay to say “I don’t know enough” and to not have an opinion or a take on something, at least from the outset. It feels like everyone has to have an opinion on everything nowadays, something something 24-hour media cycle, social media culture, polarization etc. It’s easy to get yourself into trouble shooting from the hip.
It can end there, too. You say “I don’t know enough” and that’s that. You can also say that, decide something is interesting / important enough, and go learn more about it. That’s, like, what you should do when you want to form an opinion on something you don’t know much about. Seek to learn more and understand a question or an issue in as much depth as reasonably possible given your time, actual level of concern about it, the importance of the question, etc.
For example, you should probably spend more time looking into the effect a local school board policy might have on your kids than you should spend examining the recruitment and roster policy of a Spanish football club. But who am I to tell you how to spend your time? He said, with a wink and a smile.
That’s where I currently stand with Bilbao’s policy. I know what it states and a little bit about it, but I quickly realized there was much more to learn, unpack, and contemplate before wading in publicly. You pretty quickly reach an ethno-political conflict, allegations of racism, the fine line between cultural pride and xenophobia, to name a few things.
Or maybe I’m way over-complicating it. What do I know? I’ll be the first to admit “not much” in this case. But let’s normalize not having an opinion on everything!
