Remarkable powers of sport can speed up the healing process

Regardless of how many books Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam writes on basketball stars and football coaches, sports are still dismissed as childish in intellectual circles and as the toy department in media circles. They fail to understand the significance of sport. Sure, I love the action, but the world of sport is a fascinating cultural barometer which often leads to social change. It bears repeating as we sit on the eve of the most ballyhooed and over-hyped annual get-together on the sporting calendar: the Super Bowl.

In a country renowned for overindulgence, no event makes Americans overindulge like the Super Bowl. This year, we will see African-American coaches leading teams into the game for the first time. The Indianapolis Colts' Tony Dungy and the Chicago Bears' Lovie Smith will simultaneously break the coaching colour barrier in Super Bowl XLI. Considering the majority of players in the NFL are black, this shouldn't be a story. But it is and millions upon millions of viewers will have a constant reminder of the mistakes of their forefathers while they watch the Super Bowl. That's OK.

Imperfection is not the bane of humanity; it's the essence of humanity. We make mistakes, we try to correct them. Sports are a high-profile platform for correcting mistakes of the past and nothing is more high profile than the Super Bowl. You don't have to wander very far either to see what sort of impact an event like the Super Bowl can have. The proof is right here in our own backyard.

By creating the Equal Opportunities Commission, the government of Hong Kong has acknowledged that racism exists. No question, we live in an overtly racist society. But despite that, parents of children who are of mixed ancestry, be they Eurasian- or African-Asian, also acknowledge that few places are as accepting of them as Hong Kong.

In South Korea, that has hardly been the case. It is so steadfast in protecting its homogenous culture that children of mixed ethnicity have been routinely outcast and ridiculed. With a number of American army bases, as well as expats working in the country, children of mixed race are hardly rare these days.

There are an estimated 35,000 Eurasian and African-Asians living in South Korea. One of those children was Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward, who was born in Seoul to a black father in the military and a South Korean mother. Before his second birthday, his parents left for the US because they could not take the taunts and public disapproval of their mixed child.