How does protest become more visible? How does it become more effective? Are signs and gestures enough, or does more have to happen? After two days of boycott that have shaken US sport to its foundations, questions are slowly being raised as to how things should go next, and whether a strike by professional athletes can really change society.
Yet another cell phone video has thrown the country, and especially African Americans, into turmoil. Last weekend a white police officer shot an unarmed black man in the back in Kenosha. Seven times. The victim Jacob Blake may be paralyzed for the rest of his life. Memories of George Floyd’s murder by a white cop came back to life. In the summer there had been worldwide protests, including in sports. Everywhere people took to the streets and athletes got on their knees.
Members of the NBA basketball league, which is dominated by black players, organized demonstrations all over the country during the corona break – until they were “ordered” to the Florida bubble, where the NBA wants to end its season. The players only agreed after they were allowed to demonstrate there and live on television against police brutality and for social justice. From then on, almost everyone knelt by the hymn, wore slogans on shirts and shoes. The word “Black Lives Matter” is even printed in the center of the field for every game. So the reactions of the players after the latest shots at Jacob Blake were to be expected: none of this brought anything. We are still being shot.
Many players want to get out of the bubble and onto the streets. You feel trapped, wanting to do more than just raise your fist when the anthem plays. The Milwaukee Bucks got serious on Wednesday. In the middle of the playoffs, the title contenders refused and stayed in the dressing room. The NBA has not played since then because other teams joined the protest. The wave of boycotts spilled over to other sports: soccer, baseball, tennis, football and, since Thursday evening, even ice hockey, which is almost exclusively played by whites. The playoffs were also interrupted in the NHL. “Some things are bigger than sports. At some point the time will come when you have to put words into action, ”said Nazem Kadri, striker of the Colorado Avalanche, summarizing the cross-sport atmosphere in the country.
One problem is the visibility of a protest if players only stay in the dressing room where there are no cameras. The New York Mets and Miami Marlins baseball teams solved it in impressive fashion on Thursday. They came into the stadium, played themselves, but right before the first throw they paused for 42 seconds and left the field again. The television stations were practically forced to broadcast the action, in which only a “Black Lives Matter” shirt was left on the face in the end. The 42 was Jackie Robinson’s jersey number. In 1947 he was the first black player in professional baseball after the 63 years of racial segregation there was lifted. In honor of Robinson, 42 is the only number that is no longer awarded in the league. And on this Friday the MLB celebrated the “Jackie Robinson Day”.
The athletes are criticized for their activism by conservative politicians. “It’s good for you that you can afford not to work for a day,” said Jared Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, smugly. Hundreds of baseball players then donated their salaries for unusual games to initiatives that support black children in poor areas. Trump himself claimed he didn’t know much about the protest in the NBA. “But the league has become a political organization. It’s not good for sport. Audience ratings have fallen, ”said Trump, who mentioned neither Jacob Blake nor the boycott wave in his party conference speech on Thursday evening.
For the first time, a boycott came directly from the athletes. But now they also have to answer the questions about how things will continue and what exactly they want to achieve. Miami’s coach Don Mattingly urged the entire sports industry not to let up: “It can’t just be a moment, it has to become a movement.” However, the leagues seem to want to continue playing this weekend.
The athletes demand more commitment from their club owners. After all, they not only have millions or even billions of dollars in their accounts, but also the numbers of influential politicians on their cell phones. Many bosses, especially in football and baseball, are donors to the Republicans and President Trump. You should now apply pressure. How difficult it is to convince them of this was shown in an interview with Dell Hansen, boss of Real Salt Lake football club in Utah, on Wednesday.
Instead of standing behind his striking players, he criticized them for engaging in national politics and disrespecting their own community in Salt Lake City. Shaka Hislop, longtime goalkeeper of FC Dallas, was annoyed by this comment on TV station ESPN: “For years they have wanted to tell us blacks how we should react, how we should feel.”
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