Searching for Middle Ground: LZ Granderson’s Juggle with Sports and Politics
The opening to First Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: “Congress shall make no law…”, proceeding to list the five freedoms of our country that Americans have come to know and love. What American citizens don’t realize is that their very first amendment does not guarantee nearly all the freedoms that we expect.
In fact, the only employer who must guarantee these freedoms are Congress and the government itself. According to a 2015 survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 7 percent of the population falls in this category. The other 93 percent are left with restricted rights and may risk their job when exercising one of these freedoms that their company does not agree with. As the political world begins to mesh with sports, athletes and journalists are struggling to strike the balance between using their platform to their advantage or taking a backseat to comply with their league’s desires.
NFL players are often fined for expressing their views while NBA players get supported. Some journalists thrive off of political action while others get fired. Many media platforms encourage activism while others try to remain as neutral as possible. Why isn’t there a standard? What’s stopping people from sorting through the blurred lines of politics in the sports world? America is stuck in a pointless loop of tug-of-war in balancing political activism with their employer’s requests and public image, resulting in a chaotic uproar that has caused the protest itself to overshadow its purpose.
Take Colin Kaepernick for example. The former 49ers QB has been out of a NFL roster position for almost two years, yet many agree that he is better than most backup quarterbacks and possibly deserves a starting role. His legacy is now defined by the kneel that ended his career.
The NBA is different. In 2014, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Derrick Rose and many other players supported the same cause as Kaepernick, wearing “I can’t breathe” warm-ups to honor the late Eric Garner, who was choked and killed by a police officer earlier that week. The NBA let the players express their opinion openly, and none of the athletes received any punishment, let alone lost their job.
This problem is not limited to athletes. LZ Granderson is a senior writer for ESPN and a prominent TV host on ESPN’s Sportsnation. Granderson is no stranger to the juggling of politics and his job, and because ESPN has developed a liberal reputation, he, along with many other journalists, has to make sure his words are selected in a way that express no preference in politics in order to reverse the company’s reputation. At the same time, though, Granderson said he believes in using your voice to express your views is essential, especially when he has the platform to do it.
To find the happy medium between the two, Granderson has labeled himself as a “factivist” — someone who advocates for facts and truth.
“You can’t be afraid to speak the truth and the facts. There is a climate in journalism now, unfortunately, in which some of us are being hesitant to talk about the facts because we don’t want to appear biased,” Granderson said. “If we surrender that power, then we might as well take the Constitution and shred it.”
Granderson, an openly gay man, has faced a lot of pressure as a black gay man in a straight white industry. After taking a chance on USC and barely getting in, Granderson worked hard to gain respect from other journalists and professors. Before coming to ESPN, he worked at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Grand Rapids Press as a columnist. As he was jumping from job to job, Granderson faced a lot of scrutiny from his readers regarding the blending of politics into his sports writing.
“Often times I would get something from a piece that says ‘Hey, stick to sports, don’t talk about politics, but my worldview is that there is no separation of the two,” Granderson said. “Politics dictate so much of sports that this notion that they exist on two separate plains seem foolish.”
Granderson encouraged the students to become aware of their local administrations and government to become a stronger, reliable “factivist”.
“I always encourage young people to be informed,” Granderson said. “As you go through life, be aware of who is on your city council or school board. A lot of things happen in or society because people aren’t paying attention, which allows for these crimes to happen.”
Granderson concluded by saying that it truly is up to the athletes whether they want to use their platform to express their opinion or not. When it comes to himself, though, there is no doubt that he is going to let his opinions be heard — but unlike a lot of athletes, he’ll have facts to prove it.
