The pointless endeavor of comparing different tragedies or histories of oppression to one another by attempting to quantify the suffering and/or injustice of each, so as to determine which tragedy was more tragic, or which oppressed peoples were more unjustly oppressed.
Jamie: Did you heard about the bombing in Boston?
Frank: The Arab world suffers violence like this every day as a result of US foreign policy.
Jamie: ...let's not play the Suffering Olympics.
--------
Alan: The fight for LGBT rights is this generation's great civil rights movement.
Rob: Their is no comparison between the struggles African-Americans faced and the struggle of the LGBT community.
Allison: Neither compare to the struggle women have faced.
Alan: Do we really need to play the Suffering Olympics?
Actually means: actions taken solely for the feeling (or the appearance) of doing something about an unavoidable situation; actions that not only accomplish nothing but *blatantly* accomplish nothing.
"Oh, look, nowGM is trying to fire Wagoner. It's like shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic."