“SHUT UP AND DRIBBLE”

                              "I'm looking for a commitment for change, even if it isn't done officially."

Former Georgetown basketball coach, John Thompson, 1/15/89

 

In February of 2018, on her nightly Fox cable news program, The Laura Ingraham Show, the conservative host attacked comments made by the 14-time NBA All-Star LeBron James on his Uninterrupted website. James had stated that Trump “doesn’t understand the people.” Ingraham blasted James and other socially active Black players as “barely intelligible,” “ungrammatical” and “ignorant.” This episode has gained notoriety as the “shut up and dribble” rant.

In fact, Ingraham was not expressing anything new.  There is a long history of White Americans criticizing Black athletes for expressing their views on important issues of the time.  

Early on, Black athletes were symbols of social justice and civil rights rather than spokespeople like track star, Jesse Owens, at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. In addition, baseball great Jackie Robinson quietly became the first African American to break the color barrier in 1947; Kenny Washington, the same, in the National Football League.

In the 1960s, Black athletes shifted from being silent emblems of social justice to becoming participants in the conversation. Muhammad Ali went to jail for his outspoken anti-war beliefs.  He received vocal support from Jim Brown, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  Medal winners Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave the black power salute at the 1968 Olympics.  Curt Flood challenged the Major League Baseball reserve clause in 1969 on behalf of all players. More recently in 2016, NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick gave up a lucrative professional career by kneeling during the National Anthem. (In 2020, many players in all professional sports, Black and White, chose to kneel before games.)

The political awareness of Black players has increased exponentially with each new generation of professionals. Today’s athletes understand the power each holds through social media to make their opinions heard. They are grateful for those who came before them to make their careers possible.  Many stay connected to their old neighborhoods where the scars of inequality are everywhere.  Most importantly, Black athletes continue to experience systemic racism in their own lives.  

While Black awareness has become more open and vocal, the White response to Black athletes involved in social issues remains “shut up and dribble.” The widespread view is that Black athletes are paid large salaries to entertain the sports fan and that their opinions are irrelevant.

With this background in mind, a critical landmark in American social justice took place on August 26, 2020 when the NBA Milwaukee Bucks cancelled a scheduled playoff game against the Orlando Magic. The action was taken in response to yet another shooting of an unarmed Black man in, Kenosha Wisconsin, only miles from the Buck’s home court.  All NBA players were  confined in an isolation bubble at the Disneyland sports complex to gain protection from the pandemic. They looked each other in the eyes and realized that basketball was not the priority until the NBA could reach a collective agreement on how to respond.  The consensus was; if not now, when.

Within hours the NBA was effectively shut down for several days giving the players, coaches and owners time to reflect on racism in America and to develop a plan.  In solidarity, games in other major professional sports (WNBA, MLB, MLS and NHL) were also cancelled. Many professional and college football teams suspended practices to show their support.  White players backed their Black teammates without hesitation.

Prior to the shut-down of professional sports, the main event for the week was the Republican National Convention.  While President Trump and Laura Ingraham attempted to ignore the events under the NBA bubble, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner could not help himself. He was quoted as saying that the NBA players refusing to play in protest of the police shooting “are lucky to be rich enough to be able to take a night off from work.”

For two days, I divided my attention between the NBA channel, ESPN and the sports talk shows on SIRIUS-XM during the afternoon hours and the Republican Convention at night. The sports talk was profound, emotional and cathartic. One after another, strong, proud, normally stoic athletes bared their souls and explained what it is like to be a Black man in America. Five time NBA all-star and now businessman/sports analyst, Chris Weber, gave a powerful message and had me close to tears.

The Republican National Convention was well described by Esquire Magazine as “an entire break with the world of observable reality. A matrix designed by and for those with Fox News brain poisoning where the COVID-19 pandemic is over, where the recording of all economic data stopped in early March—but also, the president is single-handedly bringing jobs back—and yes, where Donald Trump is a loving family man.”

As Laura Ingraham feared, there was a great deal of barely intelligible,

ungrammatical and ignorant discourse on display the week of the

Republican convention. However, it was coming from a host of Trump family members and supporters, not from the NBA bubble. The kind of gibberish that exemplifies right-wing politicians and not Black basketball players sharing a profound message with America. 

After the Republican convention the new slogan for those in the White House and Republican Senate could easily be: “Shut Up and Govern.”