Why Sports Should Be Politicized
Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem to protest the systemic oppression of African Americans in the United States on September 1st, 2016 sparked a national debate surrounding the role of politics in sports. The NFL’s treatment of the 49ers quarterback exposed a deep desire to silence athletes, especially those demanding progress. Kapernick was crucified by right-wing media outlets and Presidential candidates, becoming one of the most polarizing personalities in the American political dialogue in 2016.
Ever since, as athletes from every major sports league in the United States have begun explicitly supporting candidates, joining the dialogue surrounding race, or spearheading politically based projects, the American right has insisted they be quiet. After Lebron James spoke candidly about the struggles of being a black man in this country and called Donald Trump’s actions “laughable and scary,” Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham told the decorated basketball player to “Shut up and dribble.”
However, a few weeks ago, when white,” all-American” quarterback Drew Brees stated that he would “never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country,” amid the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, Ingraham defended Brees, declaring that “He’s allowed to have his view about what kneeling and the flag means to him. I mean, he’s a person, he has some worth I would imagine.” The glaring grammatical mistake aside, her tweet has revealed the right’s double standard: only Republican athletes can share their opinions, others (aka black and liberal athletes) need to untangle sports and politics.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that turning on a game is relaxing and an American pastime. Still, the harsh separation between the political and athletic realms just isn’t realistic or fair to the marginalized communities represented in the sports industry. Remnants of systemic racism affect athletes in their professional and day-to-day lives.
The NFL fundamentally could not function as an industry without African-American players, yet team owners openly and ardently support the Trump administration, and as Martellus Bennett pointed out, few white football players showed their support for the BLM movement until it was “trendy.” NASCAR stadiums were full of Confederate flags until the June 8th ban. Regarding the Major League Basketball (MLB), 26.3 percent of players on opening day rosters were born outside the U.S. during the 2014 season and a mere 8.3 percent of the Americans were black. The sport is thus incredibly whitewashed, and players have explained that this leads to a need for non-white, non-American players to conform, in some cases abandoning their language, music, and mannerisms. There is no question: the major sports leagues in this country are racist, and athletes of color pay the price.
Furthermore, people of color in this country do not magically turn white and escape institutionalized discrimination when they step off the field or court. Athletes reserve the right to express themselves; it’s enshrined in the First Amendment. Their struggles shouldn’t be ignored because us white people want to watch the game without thinking about the deeply rooted racial injustice that our athletes and fellow Americans face.
