NBA Campaigns Double Up on Racism
The players boycott one day of the finals and put the best basketball in the world at the service of ethnic minorities. The final decision is to end the competition but they have set a historical reference with their protest against the racism that left the games scheduled for Wednesday unplayed.
#Europe
Neither in 9/11 nor in 9/11, nor the death of fans at the gates of the stadiums, nor the racist shouting or insults to the players. Nor an attempt at independence in Catalonia with the streets taken over by the riots. A pandemic is the only thing that has managed to stop soccer in Europe... for a few months. Social tragedies do not have much influence on sport on this side of the Atlantic. The minute of silence, the jerseys with denunciations (previously consented), some gesture in social networks and little more.
#SportsBubble
The European footballer understands his sport as the business that feeds him. A task that he cannot and must not miss and for which he lives every minute of the day. Not only in training, but also in his diet, in his outings, trips, rest, friendships, family... a perfect bubble that does not admit leaks and that provides him with a substantial salary from which many people who advise him live. What happens in society does not concern him. Bale barely knew anything about Brexit, Messi has never sided with independence, and Real Madrid has never made a move on political issues. It is unthinkable.
#LutherKing
In the United States, racism is still present in society decades after the dream that cost Martin Luther King his life. Black citizens and white citizens. The death of a black man and the death of a white man. In a society where all kinds of races are cited, where they live together and bring wealth to the country, there is the most primitive racism that they have not managed to extirpate. The one that permeates everything and cannot be seen. The one that fills the statistics with all kinds of discrimination. In American sports the black player is an important asset of the staff. In basketball African-American players have found a way to make a living. Seventy-five percent of NBA players are Black, and the vast majority have experienced racism at some point in their personal lives.
#FloydBlake
The death of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake have once again unleashed the wrath of American sport. Two shocking cases of abuse of black citizens by white police. Two cases that are the tip of the iceberg of complicated racial coexistence in the United States. The Confederate flag is still proudly used by white natives from southern states, but with that stench of defending the enslavement of African Americans.
#BLM
The return of the NBA was conditioned by the players who wanted the games in the Orlando bubble to be a showcase for social denunciations under the slogan "Black Lives Matter". José Manuel Calderón, as assistant to the executive director of the players' union, was an important player in that negotiation.
#Kaepernick
Colin Kaepernick was the first athlete to kneel when the U.S. anthem was played in an NFL game. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the same city where the Milwaukee Bucks, the NBA 2020 finals, were held. Kaepernick still hasn't played, no offers, and the U.S. media says he won't wear his helmet again. Some speak of a physical decline, others of a veto because his gesture did not please many fans who do not identify with the defense of human rights and racial segregation. Even Trump charged against him on social networks.
#Revisionism
America is also experiencing a crisis of principle embodied in the revisionism of important figures who are branded as slaveowners. It cleans up its historical legacy while tombing statues of Christopher Columbus or trying to censor "Gone with the Wind" because of the way it presents black and white relations in the early 20th century. Judging the past from the present is an act of ignorance that attempts to rewrite history. It is the quickest way to forget and repeat mistakes.
#SecondGrade
The NBA and the United States Soccer League (MLS) have prioritized the racial problems suffered by society to their competition. What in Europe are official banners, patches on the sleeves of the jerseys and advertisements with the slogans "Say no to racism" and "Respect", in the USA is a boycott of one of their flagship sports and the demand to the authorities that laws be toughened against police who commit racial abuse. Something that already happened when the prosecution increased the charges against the officer responsible for Floyd's death and charged him with second-degree murder.
#Ensanity
From a distance we can criticize the use of sport in the United States to denounce social injustices. A judgment that we base on the fact that European culture is not used to mixing these issues in such a radical way. We can demand that we continue to watch the NBA and that justice be the judge of whether the seven shots that Blake received are cruelty and an act of racism. But there they make sport available to society and to abused ethnic minorities. We can also go to the statistics and discover that 13% of American citizens are black and that the chances of a black citizen being killed by the police are 2.5 times higher than those of white citizens.
#Trump
The new order of sport in the USA is involved in the problems of its citizens. Solidarity awakening can be dangerous, it can look too much into the gallery and lose arguments along the way. But the disproportionate violence suffered by African-American citizens is a hot potato in a country with a Republican president who said the most outspoken thing about racism was in Dallas last June: "We must work together to fight intolerance and prejudice wherever they are, but we will not progress or heal our wounds by wrongly labeling tens of millions of honest Americans as racist or bigoted," said a president who must face an election in a few months with racism on the table.
