We Don’t Need Sports, We Need Action
By: Baigen Seawell
After three months, George Floyd’s legacy still rings, Breonna Taylor’s Killers (Johnathan Mattingly, Brett Hankinson, and Myles Cosgrove) are still not indicted, and now the shooting of Jacob Blake has forced people to take the blinders off.
Sports is and always has been an avenue to invoke pride and change to matters at hand. It’s brought us together when Katrina ripped through New Orleans, or when we had to recover from the September 11th Attacks.
But on the flip side, for many years, sports and athletes alike have been forced to keep quiet on intersections that affect them personally, race and gender being the top two. As a people, the narrative is that because we had Jackie Robinsons and Michael Jordans and Florence Griffith-Joyners, there is no racism or sexism to deal with, especially not in sport.
Athletes such as Muhammad Ali, Colin Kaepernick, and Serena Williams show time and time again that there are things that need to be dealt with, and they have dealt with them with poise and restraint. But after the constant turmoil and tensions boiling over the symbolic pot holding in all of the extended experiences that Black athletes face before, during and after their participation...there is little restraint in this matter.
Over the past 72 hours, athletes throughout the NBA have boycotted playing in playoff appearances. This is different from mentioning names in press conferences and post game interviews, or wearing HBCU apparel to raise awareness. Sports are going to grind to a halt, whether people accept it or not.
Former NBA legends Kareem Abdul Jabar and Bill Russell went on strike during their time, and as the boycott ensues, this will be the first true strike collectively, excluding the four prior NBA lockouts throughout the league’s history.
This is a major and pivotal moment in athlete activism because acknowledging intersections in athletes has been frowned upon in professional and amateur athletes. Athletes should “just play...” but in a world of social distancing, civil unrest and rising tensions, how can one focus on just playing when you are isolated in thought, in presence (in your respected bubble, or wubble) and in spirit? When the jersey comes off, reality sets in.
Athletes of Color, specifically Black athletes are subject to stacking, targeting, and are faced with sociological backlash regularly. Be it Black athletes being acknowledged for their physical nature instead of intellect, like their white counterparts, or being prevented equal pay and opportunities due to the gender gap… or finally, witnessing violence against our fellow Black people. Things have been sliding for entirely too long over these three months, and it’s time to bring things to a screeching halt.
Policy changes have been delayed for the sake of bringing things back to “normal,” however, things cannot and will not be returning to normal.
Sports can no longer be used to assuage the mind state of those who use it as a tool to keep citizens pacified, as it did for centuries in numerous cultures. We cannot use the dramatic spectacle to pretend that this is normal, because none of this is normal. Sports should not have come back, nor should they have been considered to resume.
As players continue to boycott, tensions keep rising, and the ball is now in the court of policy makers, general managers and league commissioners everywhere to make the decision of how to invoke action and facilitate change...without using sport as a scapegoat.
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