The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Remember Aug. 26? Remember Obama, MJ, Popovich and Kerr
Aug. 26, 2020. The date in sports that never will be forgotten. Aug. 26, 2020. The date that forever changed the way athletes view themselves and the power they wield. This is what we heard and read.
While it is true Aug. 26 was the date that the athletes did not shut up, did not dribble and the show did not go on, we must also beware of the hyperbole of the moment. After a few tense, reflective days, the NBA, WNBA, MLB, MLS and the NHL did pick up the balls, the bats, the pucks and the show did go on.
There is no doubt of the dedication of many athletes, particularly in the NBA and NFL, to continue the fight to end social injustice. There also is every reason to question the intensity of sports fans’ support — if some support at all — and the long-term effectiveness of any player-led movement.
If Aug. 26 is to be long remembered for sports making a substantial, material difference in American society, I offer the four most important names in sports in 2020 to make that happen. Barack Obama. Michael Jordan. Steve Kerr.
Gregg Popovich. Saturday night, I already found myself clicking among the Islanders, Red Sox, NBA and WNBA games and, yes, the Austin Peay-Central Arkansas college football opener. While I’m a crazier sports fan than many, I’m not nearly as crazy as all.
Three nights earlier, in reaction to Jacob Blake and the latest in the long list of police shootings, the Milwaukee Bucks led teams in multiple sports away from the games we play and into the realities of our lives. I felt nothing other than a fear for Blacks and the support of a 65-yearold white ally. My only tweet was with hockey continuing to play, it was the first time since April 13, 1997 that I was happy the NHL had left Connecticut. The next night the NHL, thankfully, did
pause play.
Yet on Saturday night, only when I saw the television clip again of Mets first baseman Dominic Smith talking though his tears about the hate in people’s hearts and how people don’t care, only when I saw Clippers coach Doc Rivers saying, “We keep loving this country and this country doesn’t love us back.” — did I feel the same emotional chill of three nights earlier. That is not intentional lack of support. That is human nature.
The voices of professional athletes are vital. Their platform in our society is immense. Yet at a certain point, signs and shirts and even marches can become white noise, elevator music from the best intentioned. And sadly, the more violent and destructive protests become — even if much of it is from anarchists who get their jollies from chaos — the more it plays into the hands of those who have no intention of backing the BLM movement, question only the most rogue of police and would prefer to whitewash the entire matter as a breakdown in law and order.
Two things can dash the effectiveness of the gains made by the NBA players, coaches and owners in recent days: 1. An erosion of commitment. 2. A spike in fear. President Trump is counting on the second reason to get re-elected.
This is why Obama, Jordan, Kerr and Popovich are so important. Together they are in position to deal with some of the richest, most influential people in America, black and white, and directly with the player leadership. They are in position to do it in a way that can get people who insist Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter or All Lives Matter to at least find some common ground and make some gains together.
It’s hard to tell Black folks who have 400 years of racism as a counter argument that the angrier they get and the uglier they turn the more others will prey on fear. I don’t pretend to walk in their shoes. So instead, let me stress great leadership can help pave a path toward more organization among sports, systematic goodness against systematic injustice. The NBA players are the most coordinated athletes in the world. They can walk and chew gum at the same time. As much as Black Lives Matters, so does jointly pushing for a sane, workable solution to the kind of gun control that will help keep Blacks alive.
Obama was called for advice by LeBron James, Chris Paul and a small group of other players last week. The former president, who knows lots of people in the game, reportedly was in favor of the players returning once they worked out a joint course of action on criminal justice and police reform with the owners.
Michael Jordan, the only Black majority owner in the NBA, reportedly had an important role as a go-between for the players and owners before their summit meeting. He talked to Paul. He talked to Russell Westbrook. He urged the owners to listen to the players before offering opinions and solutions.
The result was a social justice coalition, among select players, coaches and governors, that will focus on matters such as voting access, civic engagement and meaningful police and criminal justice reform. In the cities where franchises own the arena, for example, all attempts will be made to use the facility as a safe place during COVID for the general election.
The NBA already had announced it will donate $300 million over the next 10 years to bolster economic grown in Black communities. These all are good things, a good start. Obama is in position to encourage and build on that commitment with powerful business and political people. Jordan’s profile, nurtured by the ESPN documentary “Last Dance” when all sports were shut down by the pandemic, is the highest it has been in 15 years.
Jordan was well known and sometimes heavily criticized for eschewing politics as a player. Here he was in June with an announcement he and Jordan Brand will donate $100 million over 10 years to organizations dedicated to racial equality, social justice and access to education. Emerging as a voice of reason this past week, the greatest in the game is in a unique position to serve as a bridge between management and labor. Teams, of course, must buttress all this at the local level with committed and coordinated organization.
Sickened by Sandy Hook and so many Sandy Hooks, Obama has said the biggest regret of his presidency was a failure to secure more gun control legislation. He said the U.S. is the one advanced nation on earth that does not have sufficient common-sense gun safety laws. Here is a great second
chance.
Before anyone pulls out a legal hunting rifle and hits me over the head with a copy of the Second Amendment, allow me to say the most responsible gun owners know the answer is universal background checks, better funding for mental-health treatment and restriction of semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines that have nothing to do with hunting deer or protecting your home.
No coaches are respected anymore than Kerr and Popovich. Nor stauncher advocates in sports for sensible gun legislation. Remember when gun violence, mass shootings, was The Plague of 2019? Why did you think the scourge of school shootings stopped? COVID, of course. And with so many stressed as a result, what makes you think schools across the nation will be one giant safety zone when they reopen?
Frustrated 97 percent of the nation is in favor of comprehensive background checks and the Senate wouldn’t even vote on it because of majority leader Mitch McConnell, Kerr, whose own dad was murdered by gunfire in Lebanon, said, “The NRA has bought him off. We have to have elected leaders who are willing to value human life over their own jobs and their contributions from the NRA.”
Popovich was glib: “It’d be a lot better if the people in power got off their asses and got something done.”
White allies wonder what they can do beyond lending a sympathetic ear. Stopping gun violence is a clarion call. This isn’t only about mass shootings by deranged suburban teenagers. It is about keeping police safe, too. And Black Americans are eight times more likely to be killed by firearms than whites.
This is a difficult, sensitive area. So many murders in our nation involve Blacks killing Blacks. A police state, with stop and frisk on every corner, isn’t the answer. Yet illegal weapons by repeat felons, violence by the economically oppressed and those without hope are an urban fact of life that only increased educational and economic opportunities ultimately will help solve. Black neighborhood leaders and Black athletes need so urgently to carry and continue that conversation.
In the meantime, I offer four names that can make Aug. 26, 2020 the date that will not be forgotten.