When It Comes To Race And Sports, Who Owns An Athlete’s Opinions? – NPR

Many owners, initially offended at Trump’s directive, have changed their tune.

The dispute comes as attendance and television viewership for the NFL have been sliding. And while it’s unclear what effect the protests might be having on this, it’s pretty clear the league is worried.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who linked arms with his team two weeks ago and took a knee before the anthem, has now promised all his players that anyone protesting while the anthem is being played will be benched and fined. Maybe worse.

All this doesn’t surprise Colorado College historian Jamal Ratchford. He’s African-American and studies the nexus of sports, race and protest.

“Self-determination of black athletes has always been a challenge and infringed upon,” Ratchford says.

Think Muhammad Ali, who protested the Vietnam war by refusing to be inducted into the military, and was stripped of his title, fined and banned from boxing.

Or Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Gold and Bronze track medalists respectively, who stood with upraised fists as the anthem was played during the Olympics in Mexico City in 1968. They were stripped of their medals, and upon their return home, Carlos was under FBI surveillance for years afterward. There were death threats, public shunning.

Amira Rose Davis of Penn State believes a lot of spectators aren’t interested in athletes’ political opinions.

She adds that the kneeling protests as the anthem is played are being conflated with disrespect for the flag and the military; she believes the conflation is erroneous — and purposeful. Especially when it’s used by prominent critics, like the president.

“Not about the flag or the troops”

The bended knees aren’t about the flag, Davis says. “This is about police brutality. This is what we experience as black people in America. This is not about the flag or the troops.”

Davis notes that, over and over, athletes have made that point. “They’ve penned Op-Eds, done town hall debates and talked on news shows.”

What the anger is actually about, Davis believes, “is what happens when black bodies don’t conform to what white spectators and consumers want them to be or do or say.”

Jeffrey T. Sammons agrees. Sammons, an African-American professor of history at New York University, has looked at the role race plays in boxing and baseball, among other sports.

He believes football in particular has always had a militarized veneer: the playing of the anthem, the color guard that bears the flag on the field, the flyovers of fighter jets at some games all contribute to that.

“And there is a level of conformity that’s imposed upon our athletes, who are supposed to be sort of like weaponless warriors.” Players — especially black players — who don’t conform are often criticized for being “spoiled, rich, undeserving brats.”

What’s often lost in the noise, Sammons says, is the fact that these “brats” are earning their lofty salaries for a few short years, while the injuries accrued during that time have lasted many for the rest of their lives.

All three historians note that the money the players make is infinitesimal compared with what owners reap from their labor.

White fans see red over black protest

The implications of all this go far beyond football.

Colorado College’s Jamal Ratchford says the protests have been valuable as a tool to raise public awareness, but he’s wondering about the long-term. He believes a collective effort to address grassroots concerns in black communities might be more effective than the kneeling demonstrations.