My Monthly Sports Minute: Sports and Social Justness
Sports and Social Justness.
When it comes to “Black” people, we have sustained a devastating blow to our social constructs. The way we socialize with our own kind, our own families, our own economy, our own educational system, etc. has become something morphed. Morphed from the ideologies of ownership and brutality. When discussing social justice for Black people, we must consider the 400 plus years of mayhem that has bestowed our existence in this idiosyncratic situation. So, what can sports do about long-lasting and deeply rooted social injustices?
Sports gives individuals a large platform to speak and sometimes I think the volume can either be TOO LOUD due to people not being able to see through fandom or TOO LOW based on the White overseers of the sports establishments — derailing any attempt to genuinely bring awareness.
The social justice that is needed in the absence of itself has to come from the platform that we create and thereafter invite the world to see and hear. We deserve more authenticity in our gain of justice, especially socially. Our justice has to be tailor made just as our travesty has been the most tailor of made. We are the tailors of our social justice and no one else has the grit to bare that weight.
Sports organizations are usually owned by Whites and our justice can’t be found on their territory or at their allowing. Colin Kaepernick’s tussle with his Overseers was an unfortunateness that DESERVED interest and OPENNESS not snarl and demotion. In this Modern day, the world has been everyone’s oyster with information, exposure, and change. What we, as Black people, endure is NOT FAIR OR SAFE but we do have the wherewithal to begin building our monuments of social justice.
Social justice achieved on any other platform but our own will only be a bandage to what deserves stitches. Sports lends a beautiful platform for every individual to speak up for themselves and those they represent. As for Black people using this platform to exact justice on an issue that is older that anyone on the planet and was started by individuals that are no longer living, the platform of sports isn’t brawny enough to hold up justice for that many people.
— Ronald Applin
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