Researchers Have Found That Dodgeball Isn't Just Problematic, It's An "Unethical Tool of Oppression"

The games children play in schoolyards are famously horrible, if you stop and think about them.

Tag, for example, singles out one poor participant, often the slowest child, as the dehumanized “It,” who runs vainly in pursuit of the quicker ones. Capture the Flag is nakedly militaristic.

This is satire, right? There’s no way that this is a real life article that is being published from research done by a college professor. I know times are a changing and we live in a rather soft world, but to say that playing tag “dehumanizes It” and that Capture the Flag is “nakedly militaristic” may be the most absurdly snowflake take I’ve ever heard. This isn’t just a politically correct way to phrase the objectives of these childhood games, this is being so intentionally overly-sensitive that you’ve lost the point. This person is literally trying to find a problem with the world. Regardless, Tag and Capture the Flag are not the biggest culprits here, according to this professor. This is not a War on Tag or a War on Capture The Flag. This is a War on the most disgusting, vile gym class game ever invented: DODGEBALL.

Brrrrr. I get the chills just thinking about the game. I don’t know how we participated in such a repulsive activity three times a week in grade school and still came out as functioning members of society. For those of you that need a quick refresher course on dodegball, here’s how it is described in the report:

But none rouse the passions of reform-minded educational progressives quite like dodgeball, the team sport in which players throw balls at each other, trying to hit their competitors and banish them to the sidelines of shame.

Stop it. The sideline of shame? What an over-the-top way of saying that someone needs to stand on the sideline when they get out.  The “passions of reform-minded educational progressives” despise dodgeball because competitors try to “banish” each other to the “sidelines of shame”. How would he describe baseball? How would he describe any sport for that matter? Well, according to these passionate educational reformers, anything with a winner and loser is a tool of oppression..

Wouldn’t grades be a tool of oppression then? Should we get rid of grades? We can just give everyone a participation ribbon at the end of the school year, and then move them on to the next grade. Honestly, the person who wrote this article probably thinks that’s a great idea (even though I’m sure he’d still find 10 dreadful flaws in the idea). I thought the replies to this article were going to be a long list of survival of the fittest supporters and “back in my day” hardos. I thought we’d have a strong push back. But there were way too many people in agreement for my liking. The anti-dodgeball coalition was out in full force.

Shut up, nerds. People like you were my favorite target in dodgeball.