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Jessie Owens Stereotypes

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Jessie Owens, who was a famous African American sprinter, fought back against Hitler’s racial stereotypes of Blacks by winning four gold medals and becoming one of the worlds most successful athletes. Owens challenged Nazi ideology that African Americans were inferior because he used his skill to win four gold medals, which disproved the idea that African Americans were unsuccessful athletes. The biggest blow to Nazi ideology about African Americans was that the German crowd treated Jessie Owens as a hero whereby they chanted and cheered his name whenever he entered the arena, which was reported to embarrass Hitler. In addition, Andre Kabos who was a Jewish-Hungarian fencer almost gave up his fencing career due to anti-Jewish propaganda in Hungary and was pressured by Jewish organizations to boycott the German games. However, Kabos chose to have one last run and performed in the 1936 Berlin games where he had his best performance ever and used his Jewish pride to strengthen his motivation to beat a German fencer and won a Gold medal in fencing. Kabos completely destroyed the Nazi ideology that Jews were the inferior race because not only did he win a gold medal, but he single handily beat a bloody German! Later during the Holocaust, Kabos was forced into a labour camp where he died, but to his grave he must have died with Jewish pride because he defeated a German right in front of Hitler’s eye’s. Even though both Jessie Owen and Andre Kabos did not politically protest

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