Sports And Social Issues DO
Intersect-In Honor Of Muhammad Ali, Tommy Smith And John Carlos-Colin
Kaepernick-Same Struggle-Same Fight
By Frank Jackman
It is hard to believe not
that many of the same social issues, the question of racial and sexual equality
in particular, from 50 years ago still haunt the land but that the yahoo, yes,
yahoo reaction is still the same. Today we are talking about the intersection of
sports and social issues but it could have been anything from the #MeToo movement
to voter suppression in Georgia and elsewhere. It has been a while since San Francisco
49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, ah, ex-quarterback “took the knee” to
highlight in a personal way the charged subject of black inequality and police
brutality toward the black community. But given the resurgent flack with the Nike
contract it pays to mention that his work, his political work has a fairly long
pedigree.
That pedigree without going
back further in time got highlighted for me recently by two things I noticed
when I was down in Washington, D.C. on another assignment and on fellow writer
Seth Garth recommendation I stepped into the National Portrait Gallery’s year-long
exhibition on that fateful year 1968 which we are now commemorating the 50th
anniversary of many of the key and shocking events. I have mentioned elsewhere,
as have a number of the old guard writers at this publication who also came of age
in those times, my reaction to the events and so need not detain the reader on
that score. A couple of photographs got me thinking about sports and society if
you will. One was a clip of Muhammad Ali (former Cassius Clay) talking about
his reasoning for refusing draft induction in the U.S. military during the height
of the Vietnam War and the other was the perhaps more famous one of Olympic
champion at the 200m Tommy Smith and bronze medalist John Carlos “taking the raised
black fist” on the medal podium in Mexico City.
Both situation evoked hue
and cry from rabid sports nuts, ravenous sports officials and their hangers-on
in the media and of course the disturbed the boast corporate sponsors of all
things sports. So Colin join the club. What seems weird some fifty years later when
the sports industry, yes, industry cries foul when business as usual, which means
the population consuming what ever sports package is presented is upended by political
and social controversy like this area of life was in some kind of no entrance bubble.
Now I admit I am not much of a sports fan, maybe a little college football because
I have felt that this was one of the least consumer-driven areas although even
that is suspect but whether I agree with whatever tactic is being used sports
is “fair game” as a platform for talking about social injustices and the like.
Hell, the other side, the yahoos, have
been spouting their mores, morals, and bullshit forever. One example takes the
thing in the right direction. At one time early in the 20th century professional
baseball had blacks on major league teams. Then the owners got together and
froze blacks out as a concession to racial animosities among whites. It took
practically a civil war in itself, witness the Jackie Robinson story, to get blacks
back in. Case closed.
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