ATHLETES TAKE MESSAGE BEYOND SPORTS PAGES
Those taking stand against racial injustice are making history, giving voice to people
With everything seemingly upside-down in the world these days, it only makes sense for newspapers to be turned insideout, too.
Earl Warren — no relation, by the way — surely didn’t foresee this day, a day when a powerful group of athletes would rise up and raise their voices to the point where they actually shut down the vast multi-billion dollar sports/entertainment complex that employs them.
It’s all to draw attention to the far bigger issues of racial injustice outside of their games, with the latest flashpoint being the shooting of Jacob Blake by police in Wisconsin.
Naturally, this has become front page news. Or, for the generation that doesn’t wake up and pore over the broadsheet or tabloid with their morning coffee, the stoppages in the NBA, NHL and MLB have landed as top story alerts on the iPhone or iWatch and trended on Twitter.
Star athletes making loud and proud political statements isn’t new, of course.
From Muhammad Ali to Tommie Smith and John Carlos to Colin Kaepernick, there have been countless individual athletes who have made a long-term impact on the world through their personal sacrifices in the quest for change.
But boxing didn’t stop when
Ali refused to be drafted into the army due to his religious beliefs and opposition to the Vietnam War. The 1968 Olympics went on after Smith and Carlos delivered their Black Power salute to protest poverty and injustice in the U.S. In fact, they were ordered out of the stadium in Mexico City. And, well, the NFL played on, in front of a deeply divided America, after Kaepernick knelt during
The Star-Spangled Banner.
The difference here is that a group effort has caused game schedules to be postponed immediately.
We’re not privy to the inside discussions between the NHL and the NHLPA, but from a distance, there appears to be little doubt that the small association of black players within the NHL made a profound difference in pushing the league to follow the lead of the NBA, which first suspended games on Wednesday.
As of Thursday morning, the NHL games were on.
Come Thursday afternoon, a statement from the Hockey Diversity Alliance — headlined by Evander Kane of the San Jose Sharks and including the Ottawa Senators’ Anthony Duclair — was drawing headlines of its own.
“Earlier today, the HDA formally requested that Commissioner (Gary) Bettman and the NHL suspend all playoff games today to allow players and fans to reflect on what happened and to send a message that human rights must take priority over sport,” the statement read.
Late Thursday afternoon, the NHL and NHLPA issued a joint statement about the need to use hockey to influence “positive change” in society, as it opted to delay the schedule for two days.
“We understand that the tragedies involving Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others require us to recognize this moment,” the NHL/NHLPA statement read.
Where will all this lead? It’s too early to label it a watershed moment, because it will take time to determine if the shutdown of NHL, NBA and MLB games will move the needle on social change.
A couple of days ago, U.S. President Donald Trump attempted to deflect away the actions of NBA players, saying “they’ve become like a political organization and that’s not a good thing.”
It was an intriguing comment. If by giving voice to hundreds of millions of people who otherwise don’t have the power to be heard, to become a force that the population can listen to and look up to for guidance on social issues, we actually agree with Trump that athletes have become a “political organization.”
As for whether that’s a good thing, keep this in mind: A major part of the athletes’ messaging south of the border has been to encourage people to perform their democratic duty and be heard by voting in the U.S. election in November.
Athletes have typically been held up as role models for their actions on the court, on the field, on the diamond or on the ice, which has, in turn, long given them attention on the sports pages.
Now that they’re more comfortable speaking out about politics, race and injustice, it’s their words that are making their way to the front pages.
That’s a statement that speaks all about society’s accomplishments and failures. kwarren@postmedia.com Twitter.com/Citizenkwarren
“I always turn to the sports section first. The sports page records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but man’s failures.” — Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren
WASHINGTON Until this week, 2020 was the year sports seemed to matter least. Now it may become the year sports matter most. Not for games that were played but for those that weren’t — and that continue to be scrubbed as players across all major leagues show solidarity with social justice protesters in Wisconsin.
The NBA postponed its three playoff games on Wednesday and did the same on Thursday, though it intends to resume its post-season at some point.
The NHL postponed its playoff games scheduled for Thursday and Friday.
MLB went team by team — perhaps reflecting the divisions and difficulty in reaching consensus. But with three games postponed on Wednesday and seven more postponed on Thursday, more than half of the sport’s 30 teams joined in the national sports protest.
Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez was emotional on Wednesday after his team’s game, saying, “Proud of the NBA and all the people who stand for justice. You know the way I feel about all this stuff. It’s horrible. We need change. We’re people.”
By Thursday afternoon, the Philadelphia Phillies and Nationals, both unanimously, decided to postpone their game.
“This is a humanitarian issue. It’s time to speak up,” Martinez said. “(Friday) is Jackie Robinson Day. Jackie will be playing (Friday).”
The Phillies’ Rhys Hoskins spoke for his team, noting that the New York Mets’ Dominic Smith had broken down in sobs the previous night discussing the pervasive fear among Black people that they or their families could suffer from police brutality.
“He’s a strong Black man,” said Hoskins, who is white. “If that didn’t hit you differently, well, it should hit you differently . ... We’ve had team conversations this year, and things have come up that I never knew about. As a white person, we need to listen.”
Of the bonding through difficult conversations this year in MLB, where some clubhouses are divided internally, the Nationals’ Josh Harrison said: “Remember the movie 42. Pee Wee Reese (a Southern white player) stood up for (Robinson) when times were tough.”
For decades, sports was a field of quiet crickets when it came to social consciousness. Until this week, the United States had never seen multiple games in several sports postponed simultaneously because athletes refused to play to call attention to injustice.
Underscoring their anger, these postponements came during the Republican National Convention.
“What stands out to me, watching the Republican convention: They’re spewing this fear ... You hear (U.S. President) Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear. We’re the ones getting killed. We’re the ones getting shot,” Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers, the son of a policeman, said Tuesday night as he grew emotional. “It’s amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back.”
Much of the importance of these protests was in the ability of well-known athletes, such as Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James, to reach white fans and get them to see entire groups of people who often remain invisible or else ignored.
To illustrate, Abraham Lincoln, 19 feet tall when seated and made of marble, has his own memorial. Lincoln didn’t have to understand the enslaved person experience; he couldn’t, because he was white. Abe just had to understand, with the help of his conscience and his Bible, that slavery was profoundly wrong — then lead the Union in a Civil War so that the enslaved people could be emancipated.
America needs more of Lincoln’s understanding today. We white people don’t have to face the daily biases and injustices Black people experience. Nor do we have to live with the fear that we or a loved one might be choked to death or shot in the back multiple times by a cop for a minor or imagined wrong. We just need to know it is profoundly wrong, and we need to stand and be counted against it.
The solution in any society in which one group oppresses another is dependent on the majority viewing the afflicted minority as fully human and then saying: “Wrong. Our fault. Must be fixed.”
Much of the progress in the United States in the past 60 years has been rolled back in the four years of Trump, who defends the Confederate flag, and a Republican Party that offers cover to racists with gaslighting.
Anybody who can crack through this political disinformation to see more of the reality of Black lives is doing a service. Ironically, it is society’s gifted entertainers — its famous movie stars, singers and athletes — who often transcend invisibility. For reasons I will leave to psychotherapists, tens of millions of Americans think of James, Rivers, Clayton Kershaw, Martinez and others who have spoken up as “real” — someone at their mental dinner table. And sometimes they’re more inclined to listen.
That, in itself, is not change. But it’s a precondition for change, especially the kind that outlasts headlines.
When such people speak up, their words, their facial expressions, their honest human anguish and, at times, their angry exhausted tears forge a connection with a common humanity.
To be blunt, a year of video recordings detailing police killings of Black people across the country has done more to change and galvanize opinion than anything else. Those videos, in fact, are part of why athletes now feel so strongly, almost compelled, to be counted. Deny THIS.
Obviously, countless people of all races and backgrounds have “seen” everybody in our country and truly felt that “their lives matter” for generations. This is all about shifting consensus and needed awakening.
The predominantly Black
NBA always has been the most progressive league, the NFL the most right wing at the ownership level, and MLB a sport in which many clubhouses trend conservative, even if there is diversity within them. And MLB has gone from a sport of great Black stars long ago to a sport that is constantly and correctly scrutinized for its lack of Black players, managers and executives.
That’s why MLB voices deserve credit for backbone. They’re seldom preaching to the choir. The sport talks about equality but tends to practice indifference. Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun, his team close to the violence in Kenosha, noted that players have worn Black Lives Matter shirts but “sometimes actions speak louder than words.”
In a Reese-like gesture, the great lefty Kershaw said, “If Mookie Betts plays tomorrow, the Dodgers will play.”
If Trump’s tweets are often dog whistles, then postponed games, entire leagues showing solidarity with protesters and soul-baring interviews from famous athletes about racism are a tip to the national mood.
Ron Rivera, coach of the Washington Football Team, cancelled Thursday’s practice — a statement. The NFL, weeks ago, supported Black Lives Matter. Athletes around the country in many sports have aligned with what the NBA began.
Trump “lost the clubhouse” of American sports months ago. Athletes, coaches and entire leagues took positions opposed to his, often openly criticizing him, ignoring the tantrums on his Twitter feed.
Now that same American clubhouse went from disagreement to open revulsion on the same day Trump was nominated again by his party for the presidency. No one says it. Everyone knows it.
When wealthy, famous pro athletes, a cautious group that makes about a dozen political statements per generation, fight to get to the microphone, attitudes are changing. That can be contagious.
“We’re in this together,” Phillies manager Joe Girardi said. “There needs to be change in this country. This is forever.”
The Washington Post