USA TODAY International Edition
Will NBA revise its anthem policy?
The NBA has empowered its players to speak out on social and racial issues. Now, will the league allow its players to kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality?
“As has been the case of the last several years, we will work in partnership with the players on important issues like this,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass told USA TODAY Sports.
The NBA rulebook states “players, coaches and trainers must stand and line up in a dignified posture along the foul lines” during the national anthem, which the league adopted in 1981.
Former NBA Commissioner David Stern suspended Nuggets guard Mahmoud AbdulRauf for a game in 1996 after sitting during the anthem and calling the American flag “a symbol of oppression of tyranny.” The NBA then allowed Abdul- Rauf, a Muslim, to stand in silent prayer during the anthem.
Even when former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick knelt during the anthem in 2016, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver affirmed its players must follow the league rule.
In recent days, NBA players have expressed concern over whether a resumed season would help or hurt their efforts to
address racial inequality. But there are no indications the players’ union has asked the league to abolish the rule.
For the past three weeks, NBA players have protested police brutality and racial inequality after a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, killed an unarmed Black man, George Floyd, as three other officers looked on in Minneapolis.
Even the NFL has reversed course on not supporting Kaepernick’s peaceful protest.
“I don’t see how the league can keep the ban,” said David Leonard, a professor at Washington State University who teaches classes on politics of sports and is the author of “After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness.”
“The ban predates Kaepernick’s protest. But the ban in itself and the connection to the treatment of Mahmoud Abdul- Rauf speaks to a history of curtailing and silencing Black voices and Black protests. It fits into a larger history of the NBA wanting to sell a league where race and Blackness was not seen.”
The NBA did not encourage players to speak out on social and racial issues during the 1980s. Bulls legend Michael Jordan infamously declined to endorse Democrat Harvey Gantt, who is Black and ran for the Senate in 1990 against incumbent Republican Jesse Helms, who had staunchly opposed various civil rights initiatives. Following the Palace Brawl in 2004, Stern required players to wear “business casual attire,” a dress code former Warriors guard Jason Richardson considered “kind of racist” since the dress code forbid baggy clothing and jewelry.
Incidentally, that rule led to NBA players wearing colorful and tailored suits during postgame interviews. Those same players have become emboldened to address racial issues. The Heat wore a hoodie in a team photo during the 2012- 13 season to protest a white Hispanic person ( George Zimmerman) killing an unarmed Black man who was wearing a sweatshirt ( Trayvon Martin). In the following season, the league’s high- profile players wore “I Can’t Breathe” shirts during pregame warmups a week after a grand jury declined to indict a white police officer who choked Eric Garner, an unarmed Black man. At the 2014 ESPY awards, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul called for law enforcement to stop killing unarmed Black people. For the past four years, NBA players have often criticized President Donald Trump for his racially divisive rhetoric and for criticizing NFL players who kneeled during the national anthem.
“I don’t think the NBA will contest that,” said Alex Manning, an assistant professor of sociology at Hamilton College. “It is valuable. I don’t want to diminish the symbolic gestures. They matter a lot. We can see that with Kaepernick. Even with that backlash, the gesture has lived and been a part of what we’re seeing right now. It’s very important. It also normalizes that athletics are not removed from anti- racist struggle.”
Despite their increased outspokenness on racial inequality, no NBA players have publicly questioned in recent years why the league has not abolished its national anthem stance. James said two years ago, “My voice is stronger than my knee.” While some NBA teams have locked arms during the national anthem, they have also held events inviting local law enforcement and youths in hopes to spark constructive dialogue.
“The national anthem is just one of the tactics. It’s not the only tactic the NBA could use,” said Herb Ruffin, an associate professor of African American Studies at Syracuse University. “That’s the problem with the NFL. The NFL, it seems like the only tactic they have is the kneel down. The NBA can go in all kinds of different directions.”
The league has taken various directions since Floyd’s killing.
James founded “More Than a Vote,” an organization created to fight voter suppression in the Black community. The board features current NBA players ( Draymond Green, Eric Bledsoe, Trae Young, Alvin Kamara, Udonis Haslem), former NBA players ( Stephen Jackson, Jalen Rose, Kendrick Perkins, Sam Perkins) and WNBA players ( Chiney Ogwumike, Skylar Diggins- Smith).
A handful of NBA players have participated in peaceful protests, including with Minnesota ( Karl- Anthony Towns, D’Angelo Russell, Josh Okogie), Atlanta ( Trae Young), Boston ( Jaylen Brown), Philadelphia ( Tobias Harris), Indiana ( Malcolm Brogdon), the Los Angeles Lakers ( Danny Green), Houston ( Russell Westbrook) and New York ( Dennis Smith Jr.). Some former NBA players have participated too, including Stephen Jackson, Metta World Peace, Caron Butler and Royce White.
Lakers luminary Kareem AbdulJabbar and Raptors president of basketball operations Masai Ujiri have penned op- eds.
During ESPN’s “Return to Sports” panel on Monday, Silver suggested teams might bring guest speakers to discuss police reform once the season resumes July 30 in a quarantine site near Orlando, Florida.
“If the NBA is going to say it fully celebrates protests and this movement, it has to embrace it in all of its forms,” Leonard said. “The NBA’s response in the past has been to facilitate discussion between the police and Black youth as if the issues are about misunderstanding as opposed to power, violence and systemic issues. So the NBA is going to need to recognize Colin Kaepernick and others in the NFL were protesting police violence, and not the flag or the military.”