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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