Sunday, August 30, 2020
Professional Athletes Are Showing America Just How Powerful Labor Really Is
By striking, the players in the NBA, MLB, and beyond have brought their bosses to the table and launched a national conversation.
August 28, 2020 Dave Zirin THE NATION
https://portside.org/2020-08-28/professional-athletes-are-showing-america-just-how-powerful-labor-really
The wave of strikes by athletes against racist police violence is not ebbing. On Thursday night, the New York Mets and Miami Marlins took the field, held a 42-second moment of silence (in honor of Jackie Robinson), and then walked off. They left behind a shirt that read “Black Lives Matter” on home plate.
Numerous NFL teams have canceled their practices, with the Baltimore Ravens, after a four-hour team meeting, putting out a remarkable action statement. NBA referees even organized a march in the Orlando Bubble, wearing T-shirts that read, “Everyone Against Racism.” Even the National Hockey League, after first ignoring what was happening, to the chagrin of many players, canceled a slate of games in solidarity with the events swirling around the sports world.
Pro athletes have shown themselves willing to fight and be heard. Black athletes are saying that they no longer will be a repository of adulation with their uniforms on but a risk to be killed by police when the uniform comes off. It is a historic moment by any measure, and one without a blueprint. We don’t know where this is going, or how long it will last. But folks are already asking what this can actually accomplish beyond raising awareness about the shooting of Jacob Blake.
For now, it’s centering the conversation in this country on racist police violence and not the gaslighting “law and order” bombast coming out of the RNC, and inspiring people to violence during a time of relentless darkness. Frankly, if nothing else came out of it, it would still be important. But the players want more. Supporters want more. Everyone strangled by the absence of political oxygen in this broken country want more.
NBA player leaders want the franchise owners to put some “skin in the game.” They want the billionaire owners—who are not only wealthy but politically connected to every municipality where they have a publicly funded stadium—to push for legislation and using their influence to fight back. As NBA insider Shams Charania from The Athletic reported on Twitter from a meeting between players and owners, “Players challenged owners to be proactive, not reactive, to social justice changes; create actions, not simply financial commitments.”
I’m all for extracting concessions from billionaires. But there is another avenue the movement can take. What these players are doing is nothing less than striking for Black lives. They are using their power as workers to protest not only the police shooting of Blake and the white supremacist terrorism in Kenosha, but also the fact that, as one player put it, “nothing is changing.” After a summer of marches, uprisings, and occupations, scant legislation has moved and police still act with impunity.
By exercising their power as workers, the players are inspiring an incredibly dormant part of the resistance to racism and Trumpism: the labor movement. If the NBA can shut down in protest of racist police violence, why not other industries? Why not cities? Why not entire sectors of the country’s economy? Strikes do not have to be about wages and benefits. There is a long, hidden history in this country of striking for human rights—“not just bread but roses.” It’s a history the players could help revive.
That may sound far-fetched, but I can say that I received half a dozen calls from unionists or union officials last night telling me that they and their members felt like they had been hit with an electric prod. The idea that everyone in the country was talking about this “strike” taking place was making so many of these workers feel like they also had power.
This isn’t just about solidarity. This is about results. If the players want the results they crave, and if the country is as broken as they believe it to be, this is an actual solution: to strike against racist police violence. to strike against Trumpism, to strike for Black lives. Nothing else has worked. But by withdrawing their labor, the players in the NBA have immediately brought their bosses to the table and launched a national conversation. If that message blares across the land—and if labor leaders rise to the occasion and respond with equal courage—we could finally see solutions and not feel like we are all poised with bated breath, just waiting for the next hashtag.
Kareem Abdul-Jabar: Athletes Have Rekindled the Ember of Hope
When I boycotted the 1968 Olympics because of racial inequality I was ostracized. Now white athletes are joining their black teammates in protests
August 28, 2020 Kareem Abdul Jabar THE GUARDIAN
https://portside.org/2020-08-28/kareem-abdul-jabar-athletes-have-rekindled-ember-hope
Do you want to know what it feels like to be black in America this week? Think about Survivor, or Naked and Afraid, or Alone – or any of those wilderness shows in which a person’s survival in a hostile environment depends on keeping that crucial campfire burning bright. Inevitably, some disaster occurs and the fire nearly goes out. Then, on their hands and knees, the person tries desperately to fan one dying ember back to life.
For the African American community living in a hostile environment, that dying ember is hope. Hope that America was finally committed to racial equity. Hope that being black wasn’t a crime and the punishment wasn’t death. The popularity of the Black Lives Matter movement that swept through America this summer after the killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd stoked that hope inside us into a small but powerful sun.
Then this week, a black man, Jacob Blake, was shot seven times in the back by police, a 17-year-old was charged with intentional homicide after two men were killed at a subsequent protests, and the Republican National Convention featured speakers who, instead of voicing outrage over systemic racism and vowing to end it, complained about the audacity of ungrateful black people protesting that their husbands, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers were being murdered by police while President Trump and the GOP conspired to take away their right to vote.
Yeah, hope in the black community took a big hit this week. The small sun set quickly. The dying ember had been extinguished.
But then along came the Milwaukee Bucks, my old team, who announced they would boycott Game 5 of the NBA playoffs, explaining, “Despite the overwhelming plea for change, there has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball.” They demanded that the Wisconsin state legislature, after months of inaction, “take up meaningful measures to address issues of police accountability, brutality and criminal justice reform.” And just like that, the ember of hope was flickering to life again.
Other NBA and WNBA teams followed. Games were postponed. That both leagues spoke out immediately was courageous, especially given the hundreds of millions of dollars involved and all the expense and effort it took to create their sports bubbles. But it wasn’t that great of surprise because 81.1% of the NBA and 88% of the WNBA are black and their families and friends don’t live in a protective bubble.
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Wave of postponements as US sports join Jacob Blake protests – video report
As LeBron James explained, “I know people get tired of hearing me say it, but we are scared as black people in America. Black men, black women, black kids, we are terrified.” As tired as white people may be of hearing it, black people are even more tired of living it.
For me, what really brought the hearth fire of hope back to life was the instantaneous support of other sports teams and athletes. Major League Soccer, in which only 26% of players are black, postponed five games that day, with players from two teams, Inter Miami and Atlanta United, locking arms and refusing to play. Major League Baseball, with only about 8% African American players, also joined in with players from the Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds sitting out their games and the Seattle Mariners voted unanimously to postpone their Wednesday game. More baseball teams joined the boycott on Thursday.
In tennis, perhaps the whitest of all the sports, former US Open champion Naomi Osaka walked away from her semi-final match at the Western & Southern Open on Thursday, tweeting, “I don’t expect anything drastic to happen with me not playing, but if I can get a conversation started in a majority white sport I consider that a step in the right direction.” Professional tennis organizations USTA, ATP, and WTA issued a statement in support of her stance and postponed tournament play on Thursday. I have never been prouder of my athlete colleagues.
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Kareem Abdul Jabbar in 1968 before his boycott of the Olympics: ‘I was met with a vicious backlash criticizing my lack of gratitude’. Photograph: Barton Silverman/Getty Images
In the past, these mostly white sports would have taken days, even weeks, to respond, let alone join in any form of protest, especially boycotting games. When I boycotted the 1968 Olympics because of the gross racial inequities, I was met with a vicious backlash criticizing my lack of gratitude for being invited into the air-conditioned Big House where I could comfortably watch my community swelter and suffer.
For those who think this isn’t personal for elite athletes because they are highly paid, read Sterling Brown’s story in the Players’ Tribune in which he describes being confronted by police over a parking violation in 2018 that resulted in them using a stun gun on him and one officer stepping on his career-dependent ankle. Body camera video shows the police worrying about the publicity of what they’ve done, then calling their commander to inquire about receiving overtime pay while one officer sings the “money, money” lyric from the O’Jays’ For the Love of Money. What amusing scamps the police can be.
Our work is not done because, as we see on nearly a weekly basis, the threat to black lives is real and imminent. The Kenosha police have been recorded giving water to the armed civilians, many from out of town, who roamed the streets during the protests, telling them, “We appreciate you guys. We really do.” One of those appreciated was the 17-year-old kid who has been charged with killing two protestors.
The threat is exacerbated by the GOP, who have made it their mission to equate protestors with looters in order to dismiss their proven concerns. In his keynote speech at the RNC, vice-president Mike Pence commented that “in the midst of this global pandemic ... we’ve seen violence and chaos in the streets of our major cities.” He’s right. But it’s been caused by the kind of racism the Trump administration has promoted.
In Pence’s speech, he told America: “Dave Patrick Underwood was an officer of the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service, who was shot and killed during the riots in Oakland, California.” What he neglected to mention was that federal authorities say Underwood was killed by Steven Carrillo, an Air Force staff sergeant who was a member of a right-wing extremist group whose purpose is to start a race war.
It’s Los Angeles Clippers coach Doc Rivers who so powerfully expressed the feelings of most African Americans, myself included. Both our fathers were police officers, which we are proud of, though we cringe at how the systemic racism in police departments across the county tarnishes their accomplishments. “It’s amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back,” Rivers said. “It’s really so sad ... I’m so often reminded of my color … We got to do better. But we got to demand better.”
This week American athletes demanded better. And rekindled our hope in America.
Kenosha Tells Us More About Where the Right Is Headed Than the R.N.C. Did
The conservative media’s embrace of Kyle Rittenhouse speaks volumes about its priorities.
August 28, 2020 Jamelle Bouie NEW YORK TIMES
https://portside.org/2020-08-28/kenosha-tells-us-more-about-where-right-headed-rnc-did
The most revealing thing to happen in conservative politics this week did not involve the Republican National Convention, at least not directly. Instead, it took place in Kenosha, Wis., in the aftermath of a shooting on Tuesday night that killed two people and wounded a third.
The suspected shooter, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old from nearby Antioch, Ill., was in Kenosha with a group of armed counterprotesters. After several days of rioting — sparked by the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man who appears to have been paralyzed after police shot him seven times in the back — so-called militia groups arrived on the scene to defend businesses and other properties from protesters. Rittenhouse was with one of those groups when, according to a visual analysis by The New York Times, he was seen running away from several people.
Eyewitness testimony fills the gap. Rittenhouse was approached by Joseph Rosenbaum, who threw a plastic bag in his direction. He ran, and turned to face Rosenbaum with his AR-15 in the ready position. Nearby, an unknown gunman shot into the air. It’s at this point that Rosenbaum reached for the barrel of Rittenhouse’s rifle. Rittenhouse then fired four rounds, one of which struck Rosenbaum in the head. Rittenhouse then fled the scene. Several people chased him, some shouting to identify him as the shooter.
As Rittenhouse is running, he trips and falls to the ground. He fires again — four more shots — as several people run toward him. One of the people in that group is hit in the chest and falls to the ground. Another, who is carrying a handgun, is struck in the arm. Rittenhouse then gets up and walks toward several police vehicles with his hands raised. Although bystanders identify him as the shooter, police pass him by. Rittenhouse is arrested the next day, in Illinois. Authorities charged him with first-degree murder.
This is a complicated situation, but a few things are clear. Wisconsin isn’t a “Stand Your Ground” state, and Rittenhouse was in illegal possession of a weapon — under Wisconsin law, it is a Class A misdemeanor for a minor to carry a deadly weapon in the open. There is also no legal right in the state to use deadly force for the protection of property you do not own. And in any case the “Castle Doctrine” only applies to the use of deadly force in one’s home, vehicle or business.
To the conservative media, however, what happened in Kenosha was eminently justifiable and even cause for celebration. “Are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder?” Tucker Carlson said on the Wednesday broadcast of his Fox News show. “How shocked are we that 17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would?” Carlson, who has an average nightly audience of more than 4 million viewers, blamed local political leaders for the killings. “Kenosha has devolved into anarchy because the authorities in charge of the city abandoned it. People in charge in Wisconsin from the governor on down refused to enforce the law,” he said. “They stood back and watched Kenosha burn.”
Ann Coulter, a conservative author and provocateur, said that she wanted Rittenhouse “as my president.” Graham Allen, a contributor to Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, called the Kenosha killings a “justified shooting” in a video that has garnered more than 150,000 views. Katie Pavlich, another Fox News host, declared that, “When you have no police around to defend businesses, and people who are being attacked, then there is a void that is filled.” According to The Guardian, “fund-raisers, messages of support and celebratory memes” for Rittenhouse are being “shared widely” on social media platforms. And Paul Gosar, a far-right Republican congressman for Arizona’s 4th District, said it was “100% justified self-defense. Do not try to take a weapon away from a man or bear the consequences.”
What happened in Kenosha was a tragedy. Rittenhouse should not have been there, and we should agree — all of us — that the shooting should not have happened. We should also be troubled by police action, or the lack thereof, against armed militias. Tacit support from Kenosha police (at one point, an officer thanks the group for being there) almost certainly contributed to the permissive environment that led to the shooting. It is reminiscent, in that way, of the events in Charlottesville in 2017, where an official review found that law enforcement failed to “maintain order” and “protect public safety” leading to fights, skirmishes and the vehicular murder of a protester.
We should be appalled. But it appears only some of us are. Others are prepared to elevate Rittenhouse as a symbol of self-defense. It’s an ominous reaction, not the least because it might inspire other Rittenhouses to do the same, to travel to protests ready for the use of lethal force against protesters. Put differently, the extent to which Carlson and Coulter and Turning Point are representative of conservative thought on violence against protesters is the extent to which we may have to prepare for further Kenoshas.
I said, at the start, that these events lack a direct link to the Republican National Convention, the headline event for conservative politics this week. They do, however, have an indirect link. The night before the killings in Kenosha, Mark and Patricia McCloskey delivered a prime-time address from their St. Louis home as part of the convention’s opening program. The McCloskeys aren’t politicians or activists, they’re trial lawyers, famous for just one reason: brandishing firearms (Mark an AR-15, Patricia a pistol) at passing Black Lives Matter protesters. Their celebrity in conservative circles has everything to do with their threat of violence against people the president has denounced as a threat to the country itself. However ridiculous the McCloskeys may have looked in the media, the fact of the matter is their actions led to a reward. For threatening protesters with death, they were given a chance to speak to the entire nation.
One other thing. Earlier this summer, as the first protests against the death of George Floyd unfolded, President Trump took to Twitter to warn of consequences for those who damaged property. “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” Trump tweeted on a Friday morning in May. “Any difficulty and we will assume control, but when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Although Trump backpedaled in the face of criticism — claiming, implausibly, that he was making a descriptive statement of what would happen if looting began — his meaning was clear enough: that “looters,” however defined, would and should be shot.
The bully pulpit matters. Presidential rhetoric matters. Rittenhouse was a fan of the president — he took a front-row seat at a January rally in Des Moines — but that connection is less important than the atmosphere created by Trump’s words. A president who speaks of shooting people in the street — who elevates those who threaten to shoot people in the street — cannot be separated from the individual who does, eventually, shoot people in the street.
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