(Hope you have a bit of free time - this post's a mini-blockbuster. :lol: 
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So, is the author above full of #### or has he nailed a bulls eye? Here’s my take.
The Oscar Pistorius story is a consummate, now cautionary tale of white, male privilege. It’s highly likely (at least according to me lol) there would never have been Olympic sports-hero Oscar Pistorius, had he not come from an exclusive, privileged background.
One can talk about equality, “rainbow” societies, social justice all day long anywhere in the world but the ugly truth is that those fine goals will always remain more illusory ideals than reality. The world’s powerful elite do not want equality, social justice, equal opportunity and especially not serious competition. Their often ruthless, exploitative, oppressive, even sociopathic agendas, their crimes and offenses are endlessly enabled, sanitized and hidden by their wealth, class, race ... and all too often, enforced through entrenched patriarchy.
One doesn’t become much more privileged in this world than being a rich, white male.
238 years after the Declaration of Independence, my America is still staunchly dominated (and decimated) by rich, white men (however nameless and behind the scenes they may be - that’s where the real power lies).
Longstanding US culture idolizes the “self-made” man as the highest ideal, a paragon of manly virtue who gains his wealth and status through “rugged American individualism” - one who stoically pulls himself up by his bootstraps against impossible odds.
Except this pervasive, insidious social meme (with rare exceptions) is pretty much all pure HOGWASH.
The vast majority of the rich and stratified in the US are born into or marry into money (one very notable exception are professional athletes). Don’t you believe for one second America doesn’t have royalty - we do ... we just don’t call them that. Like the powerful Pistorius family, these peoples’ extreme wealth and privilege make them, for the most part, untouchable.
The very best (worst? lol) US example I can offer is Mitt Romney, the poster boy for rich, white, male privilege. In my view, he’s the epitome of the unindicted corporate criminal (his shady, tax-dodging, job-destroying deals are legendary public knowledge). IMHO, he’s the ultimate shyster, wheeler-dealer, opportunistic, 100% unrepentant, exploitative, self-promoting predator, who was born with a platinum pacifier in his mouth ... and he’s all too happy to tell you how he did it all by himself ... how he’s a heroic captain of industry, the consummate self-made man. LOL Sorry, NO. One only needs review his 2012 Presidential campaign videos and interviews to see that he, his wife, family, associates and entire upper-crust social circle are 100% clueless to the brutal realities the Rest of Us face all over the planet.
Americans are taught from childhood that if you just work hard enough (if your job isn’t outsourced to some third-world hell hole), you, too, can be rich and famous (maybe even President! ha ha) ... or at least live a post-2008-Wall-Street-Meltdown, scaled-way-down, faux-mini “American Dream”; you’re blamed and scolded that if you’re poor and marginalized and exploited it’s your own fault.
Except it’s all one Big Lie.
The Lie that systematically attempts to indoctrinate, control and exclude the bottom 99%. It’s nothing but pure propaganda that blinds the lower-class “riff-raff” (you and me) to the brutal truth of the rigid system that keeps them down by design and keeps the 1% perpetual winners.
“I’m Oscar Pistorius. I always win.”
Yes, the entire game is rigged from top to bottom - privilege and power operate by the same play book all over the world. Sports, politics, Wall Street, education, healthcare system, prisons, judicial system, labor, etc. - all systematically exploited by those in power to keep power.
So where am I going with all this? What does predator-capitalist poster boy Mitt Romney have to do with sports darling Oscar Pistorius?
They may be many years and continents apart, but they were both popped out of the same exact mold.
Hereditary wealth and privilege do NOT produce “self-made” men.
On the contrary, they mostly produce mindless, hedonistic clones, who are groomed to play and exploit the same system. They produce a rarified social strata of gross self-entitlement, heirs to the throne who feel little to no obligation to anyone or anything other than themselves. It’s a toxic, ‘inbred’ society that inevitably breeds a special type of sociopathy (How could it not? The dirty masses, lesser people, those “others”, anyone who threatens their sovereign power, prestige and fortunes must be held at bay, controlled or eliminated by any and all means, fair or foul.)
Oscar is NOT some magical, self-made man-god, He's not the little guy against impossible odds, some David against Goliath, a heroic underdog. He’s a product of exclusive social and economic privilege, the beneficiary of hereditary largesse he had no hand in creating. Oscar was no rags to riches story; this was no triumph of the spirit over horrific adversity; he did not scrap and hustle to pull himself up by his own bootstraps. He, like the vast majority of the global 1%, was already born on third base.
Does he have a natural gift for sports? Yes, he does. Did he physically work hard to achieve commercial “sports-hero” success? Yes, he did ... but no harder than so many other equally-talented, disadvantaged, all-but-invisible athletes. Do you really think a poor black/brown/purple-with-yellow-dots kid with Oscar’s same disability, same natural athletic talent and equal ambition would have gotten anywhere near the global pinnacle he did? Poor people, no matter how talented or virtuous, don’t have the personal, familial or societal resources to get the best education, the best medical care, access to the Best of Everything.
Success becomes easy when you’ve got all the perfect ingredients dropped in your lap.
* Who among the deserving-but-poor could even dream of hiring hand-picked medical / scientific research teams to promote their personal athletic cause, as privileged Oscar did?
* Who among them could afford attorneys to fight the IAAF ban in the international courts like Oscar did? Such narrow, self-promoting efforts take massive amounts of money and free time - assets poor people do not have.
* Would a poor, black amputee or perhaps Reeva Steenkamp, accused of murder in the same scenario, have been able to afford Oscar’s dream legal team - and his dream VIP prison sentence?
Money, class, gender and yes, race still open doors only to the special few. Make no mistake - the rich and powerful guard those doors zealously.
The sad truth is that money breeds money, power breeds power, privilege breeds privilege. It’s an entrenched, closed system (worldwide) that exists to protect and promote itself at all costs. The Pistorius family is part of that system.
So, why was Oscar worshiped as some heroic, self-made demi-god? (The world is full of genuine, unsung disabled heroes, whose names and deeds will forever remain unknown.) What exactly did Oscar valiantly “overcome” in his life, what trials and tribulations did he conquer - all on his own - to deserve such unconditional accolades and praise?
I say NOTHING.
He was merely a naturally gifted runner who had the great good fortune to have been born into a ready-made army of family wealth, slick family/multinational PR machines, national and international connections, plus other powerful allied interests - all who instantly recognized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in young Oscar. They stood behind him every single step of the way, aggressively enabled and excused his every sin and offense and catapulted him to international stardom.
Funny thing is, he never had any innate interest in track.
Ironically, it was his father Henke who did the sports stats research, who first noted Oscar’s world-class sprint time in high school.
With a hearty push by his rich, well-connected family and the irresistible allure of Olympic fame, even more fortune and glory, privileged Oscar simply sprinted from his Ivory Tower third base to the game-winning, world-series-title home plate.
He did not “overcome” his physical disability.
He did not “overcome” unique childhood trauma (death and divorce are common to many families).
He never knew anything else other than his "legs" from birth (Vorster’s “trauma” indeed).
There was simply nothing to overcome.
By every single account I’ve read - including Oscar’s own words - his childhood was nothing but generally happy and quite normal (if profoundly privileged).
He was handed everything he needed on a silver platter from the minute he was born - he wanted for nothing.
[To keep “hero” Oscar Pistorius in perspective, google Hugh Herr, professor at MIT and Natalie du Toit, Olympic / Paralympic champion - both who lost legs at age 17. Losing limbs as an adult is very traumatic - that’s overcoming true adversity, compared to losing them at 11 months, when one remembers nothing.]
Did Oscar take advantage of his natural athletic gift? Yes, he did.
His rich, influential family guaranteed all avenues open to assure his success. In a sea of disadvantaged, yet gifted people around the world whose names we’ll never know, whose equal or greater talents and potential gifts to the world will die on the vine for lack of critical resources, lack of crucial support networks -
how does that make Oscar even remotely special or exceptional?
Poor people all over the world are graced with natural gifts and exceptional talents of all kinds - but they’re stymied and road-blocked by an exclusionary system, a system designed to keep them out, their dreams all too often crushed by harsh economic, class, legal, racial, educational, etc. realities before those dreams can barely, if ever take root.
(e.g. Go ahead, really smart poor people, apply to the Ivy League universities and see how fast they fall all over themselves to accept you. You won’t mind if they do a background/pedigree/credit check, including your off-shore bank accounts, right?). Do poor folks sometimes make it really big? Of course, but it’s the ultra-rare exception, not the rule.
There’s a reason it’s called the Haves and Have-Nots. The System is designed at every level to promote and maintain the success of the already successful - and one thing most rich, powerful, stratified people with a pathological sense of entitlement hate is genuine competition (monopoly is their ultimate game of choice); they target anyone who dares challenge their narcissistic moral, social and economic superiority.
Oscar never achieved global icon status all by himself.
He never made it big on his own dime.
He never had to fight for anything all on his own.
He enjoyed an endless army of endless resources at every level from day one.
He never honestly risked a damn thing.
Whether he won or lost, he always remained a privileged, rich, white guy.
Even after prison, he will still remain a privileged, rich, white guy.
Before his great fall, the media had damn near portrayed him up there along with Mother Teresa.
His gleaming blades were nothing more than prettied up, metallic spray-painted clay.
Just another very small, very arrogant, very selfish man.
So, where exactly does the “hero” part of Oscar Pistorius come in?
He certainly was no hero to Reeva Steenkamp.
In truth, it is she who should be lauded as a successful, self-made woman on her own merits alone.
