Don’t Just Shut Up and Play -

Theorizing Athletic Resistance

by

Patrick Hergott

Thesis Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the Degree of Master of Arts (Social and Political Thought)

Acadia University Spring Convocation 2018

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© by Patrick Hergott, 2018

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This thesis by Patrick Hergott was defended successfully in an oral examination on April 25, 2018 The examining committee for the thesis was: ________________________ Dr. Sandra Barr, Chair ________________________ Dr. Gamal Abdel-Shehid, External Examiner ________________________ Dr. Rachel Brickner, Internal Examiner ________________________ Dr. James Brittain, Supervisor _________________________ Dr. Geoffrey Whitehall, Head/Director This thesis is accepted in its present form by the Division of Research and Graduate Studies as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree Master of Arts (Social and Political Thought)

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I, Patrick Hergott, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to archive, preserve, reproduce, loan or distribute copies of my thesis in microform, paper, or electronic formats on a non-profit basis. I undertake to submit my thesis, through my University, to Library and Archives Canada and to allow them to archive, preserve, reproduce, convert into any format, and to make available in print or online to the public for non-profit purposes. I, however, retain the copyright in my thesis.

______________________________ Author

______________________________

Supervisor

______________________________ Date

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Table of Contents Abstract: v List of Commonly Used Acronyms: vi

Chapter 1: Resistance – 1 Chapter 2: Why Sports Matter – 11 Chapter 3: Revolt of the Black Athlete – 31

Chapter 4: Black Lives Matter – 54

Chapter 5: Taking a Knee - 82

Chapter 6: Conclusion – 106

Bibliography – 115

Appendix - I

List of Figures:

Figure i (John Carlos and Tommie Smith) – 39 Figure ii (Miami Heat ‘Hoodie’ Photo – 59 Figure iii (Militarized police presence in Ferguson) – 66 Figure iv (‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot) – 67 Figure v (Kaepernick taking a knee) – 84 Figure vi (Marcus Peters raising a fist) – 93 Figure vii (Martellus Bennett illustration) – 93

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Abstract This thesis examines and theorizes anti-racist resistance by male Black athletes in North American professional sports. Drawing on the work of Peter Meiksins, Hugo Radice, and Harry Edwards, professional Black athletes are identified as precariously employed, racialized, and exploited members of the working class. Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is employed to explain why acts of athletic resistance are relatively rare given the likelihood of a reactionary coercive response. Several historical expressions of resistance by professional male Black athletes are examined, as well as an analysis of various contemporary examples of athletic resistance and a case-study of Colin Kaepernick specifically. It is concluded that professional sports can and do serve as a site of resistance, particularly in regards to expressions of anti-racist resistance by male Black athletes, though the athletes’ decisions of when and how to resist – or not to resist at all - are shaped largely by the athletes’ status as precariously employed and racialized workers.

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List of Commonly Used Acronyms: CBA – Collective Bargaining Agreement ESPYS – Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards GM – General Manager MLB – Major League Baseball NBA – National Basketball Association NFL – National Football League NHL – National Hockey League NOI – Nation of Islam QB – Quarterback

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Chapter 1 - Resistance

Is Hip-Hop just the euphemism for a new religion?

The soul music of the slaves that the youth is missing

This is more than just my road to redemption

Malcolm West had the whole nation standing at attention

- Kanye West, “Gorgeous.” (2010)

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Bill Russell held no illusions about his position as a Black athlete playing in a professional

basketball league controlled by exclusively White owners. While serving as the defensive

anchor for 11 championship-winning Boston Celtics teams in the 1960s and 70s, Russell

never lost sight of the fact that his interests and those of the Celtics’ owner, while similar,

were nevertheless opposed to each other: “professional sports is a profession. The owners

are never going to be in love with you. Never. They’re in it to make money and you’re in it

to make money, and never the twain shall fully meet, except in the tumult and ecstasy of a

world championship game” (Russell 1966, 64). Russell was also vocal about issues outside of

sports. He criticized the city of Boston for being a “flea market of racism” (Wootson Jr.

2017). He publicly aligned himself with Muhammad Ali following Ali’s refusal to serve in the

U.S. military in Vietnam (Eig 2017). He refused to play in an exhibition game in Kentucky

when he found out that he and his Black team-mates would be staying in a segregated hotel

(Russell 1966). Celebrated for his accomplishments on the court, Russell insisted that he be

respected off of the court as well. He openly aligned himself with the goals of the Black

power movement, and his militancy on affairs of social inequality played a role in the fact

that he did not get a statue outside of the Celtics’ arena until 2013. This came 44 years after

he retired and two years after President Obama said that he hoped there would be a statue

built to honor “not only Bill Russell the player, but Bill Russell the man” (Levenson 2011).

Bill Russell is an icon of both athletic achievement and athletic resistance. Yet in

retirement, he has stayed mostly to himself. He makes appearances at the occasional

National Basketball Association (NBA) game, particularly when it is time to hand out the

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“Bill Russell Award” during the NBA finals, but otherwise stays out of the public eye.1 On

September 25, 2017, however, that changed. It was on this day that Bill Russell joined

Twitter explicitly to make a show of support for Colin Kaepernick, the National Football

League (NFL) quarterback who had begun to take a knee during the playing of the American

national anthem before NFL games just over one year earlier (Russell 2017). The then 83-

year-old Russell tweeted a picture of himself kneeling while wearing his presidential medal

of freedom. This act exemplifies a linkage between the actions of contemporary activist

athletes with those who came before them. Both the form – by 2017 Twitter had become a

significant platform for the broadcasting of one’s ideas – and content of Russell’s actions –

support of Colin Kaepernick, who had recently been vilified by President Donald Trump –

made explicit the connection(s) between contemporary generations of athletic activists and

previous generations. Colin Kaepernick, Michael Bennett, Eric Reid, LeBron James and other

professional Black athletes are now carrying the torch once held by Muhammad Ali, Bill

Russell, John Carlos, Tommie Smith, and others. The specific forms of their resistance may

have changed, but the central concern of combatting themes of injustice and racism

remain, and clearly demonstrate how professional athletes can engage in acts of resistance

via the platform of professional sports.

Through an examination of American professional sports, the premise of this thesis

is to theorize resistance amongst male professional Black athletes.2 This theorization of

1 This award is given to the Most Valuable Player of the NBA finals, and is named after Russell in recognition of his remarkable performances while helping the Boston Celtics win 11 championships during his 13 year career. 2 Each chapter begins with a hip-hop lyric to recognize the ways in which Hip-Hop can serve as a form of

resistance to societal inequalities. The rap group NWA (Niggaz Wit Attitudes) serves as perhaps the most well-known example of this. What’s more, there are long-standing ties between Hip-Hop and professional sports. As Lil Wayne said, “Athletes wanna be rappers, and rappers wanna be athletes” (Legaspi 2014). The reason

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resistance amongst male professional Black athletes contains a very particular

understanding of what theory is, however; Gilles Deleuze once said in a conversation with

Michel Foucault (2004, 208) that theory is like a pair of glasses to view the outside.

Therefore if the theory is not to one’s liking, i.e. it does not allow one to ‘view’ or

understand the subject of observation, use another. In this sense, I will draw on a number

of different theorists to offer ‘glasses’ through which one can examine sports generally and

the topic of resistance amongst male professional Black athletes more specifically. In the

following pages, I present the work of Jean-Marie Brohm (1978) and Peter Hoch (1972) as

examples of a traditional understanding of sports as an instrument of bourgeois hegemony.

This understanding of sport has its merits, but is also contradicted by the presence of

athletic resistance. While there are many examples of athletes who refuse to ‘just shut up

and play’ there are others who use the platform of sports in a (limited) counter-hegemonic

fashion.3 Choosing to look through the theoretical ‘glasses’ of Harry Edwards (1969; 1973),

and Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Nathan Lamb (2011), I seek to discern how sports may serve

as a site of resistance.

that the lyrics of Kanye West are being used is because Kanye is incredibly relevant as one of the most prominent figures in Hip-Hop in the 21st century, both as an artist and producer. Additionally, Kanye frequently comments on various political issues in his work while also referring to sports and athletes, and using the lyrics of a single Hip-Hop artist also allows for a sort of unity in the lyrics that wouldn’t be possible when citing multiple artists. 3 It should also be noted that much of this thesis draws from journalistic sources. The academic publishing process is notoriously slow-moving, and therefore my examination of relatively recent events draws on journalistic coverage for primary sources out of necessity. The use of non-academic work is not meant to diminish the importance of academic and theoretical work, but rather highlights the ways in which athletic protest and resistance is dynamic and ever-changing, and therefore ill-suited in some ways for academia’s peer-review process to keep pace with. This thesis thus works within a formula that uses both scholarly research amidst a backdrop of recently published journalistic work to complement the other.

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There is a long history of resistance amongst male Black athletes within American

professional sports, which reflects and speaks to the difficulties faced by them both on and

off the field. Hailed as heroes for their athletic accomplishments, once outside the arena

most Black athletes are ‘just’ black men (Edwards 1969; Leonard and King 2012). While

sports serve as a distraction from the realities of life for many fans, this is not the case for

the professional athletes themselves (Rhoden 2007; Abdel-Shehid and Kalman-Lamb 2011).

Sport, itself, becomes the vocation of the professional athlete and although they may be

handsomely rewarded for their labour, the fact remains that owners would not pay such

exorbitant salaries if they were not making considerably more money than the(ir) athletes

(Dignam 2013; Jason Reid 2017e).

Harry Edwards (1973, 93) argued that sports are reflective of society as a whole, and

therefore issues such as racism, social inequality, and capitalist exploitation affect

professional male Black athletes similarly to other members of American society. Being a

professional athlete does not erase the fact that many are also Black men subjected to all

the racialized impacts and stereotypes associated with Blackness in America. Inspired by the

work of Nigel Hayes, a Black man who played basketball at the University of Wisconsin, the

title of this thesis comes from a piece he wrote in the Player’s Tribune. In “Don’t Just Shut

Up and Play,” Hayes sheds light on the importance and validity of the Black athlete using

the platform of fame provided to them as very visible public figures to express the

restricting social and political conditions that they (and others close to them) face (2017). It

is from this standpoint that this thesis seeks to unpack how such expressions can be framed

through the performance of resistance by Black Male athletes therein.

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In no way is the topic of athletic resistance expressed by Black men meant to deny

or underplay other important issue within sports such as gender, sexuality, non-Black

racialization, and so on. Bigotry, homophobia, misogyny, prejudice, sexism, transphobia,

are, sadly, all present in sports today.4 Female athletes continue to be paid far less than

their male counterparts, there are no openly gay male professional athletes in the ‘Big 4’

sports leagues (baseball, football, basketball and hockey), and the overwhelming majority of

coaching and executive positions continue to go to White men (White 2016; Buzinski 2017;

Broudway 2017). In order to effectively examine the chosen topic of athletic resistance by

male professional Black athletes, however, the scope of the project must be limited. A more

comprehensive examination of sports that would incorporate issues related to gender,

sexuality, racialization, representation in the media, and various other concerns is certainly

a hope for future projects, but was not feasible for this project.

It is recognized that examining United States-based professional sports specifically

excludes those in regions such as Europe via cricket, futbol/soccer, rugby, or other salaried

players in non-American venues. Again, including such leagues would simply be too large an

undertaking for a graduate thesis project and could potentially dilute the analysis.

Furthermore, issues of race within the U.S. are distinctive to its historical development and

environment and should be studied as such. 5 To embark on a discussion of either racism or

4 There are countless texts and articles that provide informative analyses of these issues. Just to name a few, see Schultz 2005 for a discussion of the intersection of race and gender in relation to Serena Williams, Cahn 2015 for an overview of issues of gender and sexuality in women’s sports specifically, and Fenelon 2017 for a look at racism involving representations of indigeneity in professional sports. 5 Stuart Hall makes an important point in this regard, saying that when examining issues of race it is vital to look at concrete, historical conditions, and analyze racisms rather than racism in general (Hall 1986, 23).

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resistance beyond that specific to the U.S. (i.e., including global professional sports leagues)

would complicate the research intent of the project.

Throughout the thesis, there is a very particular employment and framing of

Blackness. In lieu of African-American, the term Black – intentionally capitalized – will be

used for three particular reasons. Firstly, Black can serve as a more comprehensive term

than that captured in the idiom ‘African-American’. As Eddie Glaude Jr. has pointed out,

many black/brown-skinned people with no personal connection to the legacy of slavery or

Jim Crow in America, such as immigrants from the Caribbean or Europe, were (and are)

considered Black in America (Glaude Jr. 2016, 123). With race being an imposed social

category, Black bodies in the U.S. are categorized by the essential or symbolic reality of their

skin colour.6 As voiced by Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks, “I am overdetermined

from the outside. I am a slave… to my appearance” (Fanon 2008, 95). In this way, it is the

(White) external gaze that categorizes Blackness. The second reason for using the term

Black draws from the ideas of Harry Edwards. While Fanon noted that the White gaze

categorizes the black-skinned individual as a Negro (Fanon 2008, 95), it is Edwards who

deliberately uses Black as an alternative to Negro. Placing a sentiment of empowerment at

the centre of the title, Edwards makes “a distinction between Negro and Afro-American, or

Black. ‘Negro’ here is used as being synonymous with ‘Nigger.’ It carries the same negative

6 Black/brown skinned people are also categorized by the color of their skin outside of the U.S., but the analysis found throughout this thesis is particular to America.

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connotations. It is felt that white racists created Negroes as they did Niggers” (Edwards

1969, 29 N.1).7

In this way, self-identifying as Black can be an expression of consciousness and form

of empowerment. Angela Davis, for example, famously grew out her natural (hair) in

defiance of Eurocentric beauty standards.8 One cannot escape the lived reality of Blackness

in the United States, but they can demand to be respected and treated as a human being

and citizen. James Baldwin referenced this in 1963 by saying, “[America] invented the

Nigger. I didn’t invent it. White people invented it… I’ve always known, since the time I was

17 years old, that what you were describing was not me” (twreflect 2010). In short,

Blackness is an imposed social categorization, but in the tradition of the Black Liberation

Movement of the 1960s as articulated by Edwards, Blackness can also be understood as

something powerful and transformative. There is a sense of power to the word Black when

it is used to refer to identity. This thesis will, therefore, capitalize the term Black to

accentuate this premise. Additionally, capitalizing ‘Black,’ when referring to identity, helps

distinguish it from ideas of color. As an identity, Blackness goes beyond a basic

characteristic or simplistic distinction of having dark skin. With this same reasoning when

referring to identity, the thesis will dually capitalize White. This is done intentionally and is

not a typo.

7 It is likely that Edwards was inspired by the ideas of Malcolm X, who illustrated the dehumanizing nature of the term – always referring to “the so-called Negro” – choosing instead to self-identify as a Black man (X 1960, 11). 8 Angela Davis’ pride in her appearance might be encapsulated by James Brown’s famous 1968 song “Say it Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud.” Davis’ natural hairstyle also aligned with the then radical notion put forward by Kathleen Kleaver that ‘Black is Beatiful’ (Musicman Speaks 2015).

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Before beginning an analysis of the research premise , it is necessary to outline the

manner in which resistance is defined and used throughout this thesis. While a method for

challenging power, resistance – at least as laid out in this thesis - is not revolution(ary).

Rather resistance involves challenging or directing opposition at institutionalized

expressions of exploitation, injustice, and oppression in order to bring about some

expression of change. Rather than aiming at “drastically altering or replacing major social,

economic, or political institutions,” the intent of such measures is to offset “aspects of

society” as they exist instead of revolutionizing the totality of sociality (DeFronzo 1996, 8).

As noted by Edwards (1969, 38-39), the goal of resistance as specifically embodied in ‘the

revolt of the black athlete,’ is “equality, justice, the regaining of Black dignity lost during

three hundred years of abject slavery, and the basic human/civil rights guaranteed by the

American constitution and concept of American democracy”. Half-a-century on, Edwards

maintained this stance by suggesting that the purpose of athletic activism is “broadening

the base of democratic participation in American society” (as quoted in Jason Reid 2016).

Leveraging the platforms available to them as professional athletes, popular Black athletes

can engage in acts of resistance that draw attention to issues ineffectively or under-

addressed while also giving voice to those who would otherwise be voiceless (Eric Reid

2017).9 While infrequent, largely due to professional athletes understanding that resistance

puts them at risk of losing their job, professional Black athletes have challenged racism,

9 Michel Foucault noted that subjugation can most effectively be countered when those marginalized fight it “precisely at that point where they experience oppression” (as quoted in Deleuze 2004, 213). Professional Black athletes experience both exploitation as workers in the service of capital and discrimination as Black men in a racist society. When this is paired with the platform available to them as professional athletes, professional Black athletes are uniquely situated to engage in resistance.

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police brutality, and a host of other issues in the hope of bringing about a more equitable

society.

This thesis contains five subsequent chapters. Following this introductory chapter,

the second chapter lays out the use of theory throughout the thesis, which draws from the

work of Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Nathan Lamb, Jean-Marie Brohm, Harry Edwards, Antonio

Gramsci, Paul Hoch, Peter Meiksins, and Hugo Radice. To demonstrate how professional

sports can be a site of resistance, with particular regard to issues of race and class, Edwards’

The Revolt of the Black Athlete (1969) is referenced frequently. Gramsci’s concept of

hegemony also proves useful when approaching the theme of resistance (and its

preemption). The third chapter interrogates six historical examples of athletic resistance.

The acts of resistance of Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, John Carlos and Tommie Smith,

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Craig Hodges, and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf are examined, as are the

reactions thereto. In their own way, each of these men suffered repercussions for their

act(s) of resistance, whether in the form of criminal charges, loss of employment, and/or

being shut-out from paid positions after retirement. The fourth chapter presents seven

cases of contemporary athletic resistance between 2012 and 2017. These are grouped by

causation, as defined by the athletes themselves. Two distinct categories, however,

emerged from the stated causes: i) racism and police brutality; ii) opposition to Donald

Trump. In most cases the reaction to these contemporary acts of resistance differs greatly

from that seen in the historical examples. There is one notable exception, though: the

resistance of Colin Kaepernick, a case study of which makes up the fifth chapter.

Distinguishing itself from other contemporary forms of athlete-based resistance, Kaepernick

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is more akin, both in terms of form and reactionary response, with historical examples of

athletic resistance like that of Muhammad Ali and John Carlos/Tommie Smith. Also

discussed is the way in which Kaepernick has inspired similar acts of athletic resistance and

popular protest. The sixth, and final, chapter will present the conclusions of the thesis

research. The work closes with an assessment of professional sports as a site of meaningful

resistance providing male Black professional athletes with a platform to fight against racism

and other social inequalities.

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Chapter 2 – Why Sports Matter

In the past if you picture events like a black tie

What’s the last thing you expect to see? Black guys!

What’s the life expectancy for black guys?

The system’s working effectively, that’s why!

- Kanye West, “Murder to Excellence.” (2011a)

This chapter lays out the theoretical approaches informing the analysis of professional Black

athletic resistance found throughout the thesis. Within the field of social and political

thought, sport has been considered an instrument of control and/or distraction by-and-for

those in places of power (Debord 1967; Adorno and Horkheimer 2002, 115). According to

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this view professional sports serve as an “opiate of the masses,” that function as a refuge

from the grind of the everyday (Brohm 1978, ix; Hoch 1972, 19; Concepcion 2017). There

are, however, others who suggest that professional sports can serve as a site of resistance.

According to this approach, professional athletes have the capacity to recognize their

condition as precariously employed and exploited laborers, and take steps to challenge this

reality (Edwards 1969; Abdel-Shehid and Lamb 2011, 14). In the case of Black athletes this is

doubly true, as they struggle against racism and social inequality in addition to the

exploitation of their labour (Edwards 1969; Olsen 1968). This thesis finds the latter

approach most effective when theorizing sports and unpacking the topic of athletic

resistance.

The chapter will begin by analyzing the work of Jean-Marie Brohm and Paul Hoch.

Both describe the ties between professional sports and capitalism while also arguing that

sports reproduce the values of bourgeois society in a concentrated form (Brohm 1978, 70).

In this way, sports function as an “instrument of bourgeois hegemony,” that represses

workers movements and helps stabilize capitalist society (Brohm 1978, 55; Hoch 1972, 4).

Both also discuss the concept of ‘hegemony,’ therefore there will be a brief discussion of

Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony, in particular how coercion and consent are used in

concert to defend dominant class interests and power (Gramsci 1971). This lens provides

valuable insight into understanding athletic resistance, and specifically why it occurs so

infrequently.

This will be followed by a turn to a more radical understanding of sports. By drawing

on a multitude of differing approaches, concepts, and ideas derived from both theorists and

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activists alike, the potential for sports to serve as a site of resistance will be explored. Peter

Meiksins and Hugo Radice provide an understanding of class that demonstrates why

professional athletes, despite being incredibly well paid, should still be considered as

members of the working class given their status within the social relations of production

(Meiksins 1986; Radice 2011). The work of Harry Edwards is then used to emphasize the

particular importance of race to Black athletic resistance. Despite being written nearly 50

years ago The Revolt of the Black Athlete remains a seminal text on the topic of race and

athletics (1969). Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Nathan Lamb’s work is then employed as a means

to further explore issues of social inequality in sports while also serving as a bridge to the

Gramscian notion of consent through their discussion of celebrity and high salaries for

athletes (Abdel-Shehid and Lamb 2011, Ch.2).

Sports & Capital

In Sports: A Prison of Measured Time (1978) Jean-Marie Brohm examines sport through a

Marxist lens. He argues that the driving forces of sport – performance, competition, record-

setting – come directly from the social relations of production and the narratives therefrom,

such as profit, rivalry, and efficiency: “All the values of the capitalist jungle are played out in

sport, i.e. physical dominance, racism, sexism…” (Brohm 1978, 15 & 50). Accordingly, sports

should not be analyzed simply as a leisure activity ‘outside’ capitalism but rather as bound

up within capitalism itself. While sports can be, and are, used as a sort of refuge from the

struggles of one’s daily life, they also serve the role of being a diversion for the masses’

aggression(s) (Brohm 1978, 28). This is not accidental. As Jaylen Brown, a 20-year old Black

man who plays professional basketball for the Boston Celtics noted: “sports is a mechanism

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of control. If people didn’t have sports they would be a lot more disappointed with their

role in society. There would be a lot more anger or stress about the injustice of poverty and

hunger” (as quoted in Mcrae 2018). This script defines (and develops) sport as a “new form

of control,” which socializes people to respect power: the flag, social hierarchies, the State,

and so on (Brohm 1978, 75).

Brohm (1978, 55) places heavy emphasis on the role of sports as an instrument of

bourgeois hegemony. Witnessing how nations promoted nationalistic tendencies through

sport, he argued how it is “a central political issue in the central conflicts of our time”

(Brohm 1978, 6). So, too, has sport been used in the creation of docile citizens.10 Athletes

are taught to pursue success at all costs, to the point that their bodies become specialized

tools in the service of achievement. As a professional, the athlete’s drive to succeed is

transformed into something that first and foremost benefits their employer (via profit). By

organizing sports around imperatives of capital, athletes are, most accurately, workers who

devote themselves (even their ‘leisure’ time) to reproducing capitalist value(s). Much like

Taylorism specialized the workplace, athletes themselves become “Taylorized”11:

bodybuilders bulk up, swimmers strive to be lean and long, cyclists develop incredibly

strong legs but emaciate their upper body, etc. (Brohm 1978, 107). Fans, too, are impacted

by Taylorization. While fans cheer-on their favourite athletes in the hopes of victory (or

10 Brohm directly cites Foucault when he discusses docility, even going so far as to say that sports are the social practice which “best exemplifies” the disciplinary society Foucault underscores in Discipline and Punish (Brohm 1978, 18). 11 Taylorization, or Taylorism, refers to the scientific management of the workplace in order to increase

efficiency. It involves a thorough review and analysis of the workplace environment and production process, followed by adaptations to the workplace’s production methods to maximize efficiency, often times at the expense of workers’ comfort, job security, or even health.

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demonize the opponent), the values of competition and success are both internalized and

propagated. Even recreational sports become embroiled in profit-creation as a lucrative

industry.12 Such insights call into question whether sport can be used as a site of resistance,

since the very values of sport impinge revolutionary consciousness (Brohm 1978, 64).

While in agreement that sports are engrossed by and serve capitalist functions, Paul

Hoch subtly disagrees with Brohm’s stance that sport is inherently an instrument of

bourgeois hegemony. In Rip off the Big Game: The Exploitation of Sports by the Power Elite

(1972), Hoch clearly articulates how monopoly capitalism has taken over professional

sports. He contextualizes the subject through a historical examination of how professional

sports and the mass media developed simultaneously during the early 20th century in

America - in many cases because the owners of professional sports teams were also the

owners of media corporations (Hoch 1972, Ch.3) Primarily concerned with profit associated

with team success, the owners used their media outlets to promote their sports teams. As

fascination and interest in the sports teams increased, so too did this drive media

consumption, which in turn further increased interest in sports, thereby creating a sort of

virtuous (vicious) circle. To further drive home the prioritization of profits, Hoch recorded

how professional sports teams were also used as tax write-offs by their owners. Even if a

team under-performed and/or failed to turn a profit, the invested (negative) revenue can

be claimed as a tax write-off and offset against the owner’s other businesses (Hoch 1972,

Ch.4).

12 As an example of this, Nike reported revenue of $32.4 billion (USD) for the 2016 fiscal year. (Nike 2016)

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Hoch shares Brohm’s regard towards the impact of sports on one’s critical

consciousness. While both considered sports to be an opiate of the masses (Brohm 1978, ix;

Hoch 1972, 19), it was Hoch who detailed how sports socialized workers while

simultaneously functioning as a pressure valve for resentment that might otherwise

potentially be aimed at the capitalist mode of production itself (Hoch 1972, 18).

Furthermore, sports encourage workers to identify both outside and beyond categories of

class. Take, for example, Hoch’s critique regarding the constructed make-up of team

identities. There are national teams, professional teams in major cities, and even university

teams in many other towns. “In other words,” Hoch writes, workers “are being asked to

identify with every team but the real team, the only team in the only contest that can really

make a difference – workers versus capitalists” (Hoch 1972, 82). Professional sports can,

therefore, be seen as a tool wielded by an economic (and political) elite to socialize workers

through themes of obedience which shelve their individual or collective class interests for

the sake of a class-controlled “team” (Hoch 1972, 4).

Brohm and Hoch truly come together through their mutual agreement that sports

defend the interests of capital. For Brohm this is intrinsic to the very nature of sports, since,

as noted, they have developed as part of the capitalist system and directly share the values

of capitalism - competition, record-setting, performance/profit, etc. (Brohm 1978, 50). Hoch

does not believe that sports inherently defend the interests of capital but does argue that in

the 20th century capital has taken over professional sports to the point that they have

replaced religion as the “opiate of the masses” (Hoch 1972, 19). Interestingly, both also

bring up the concept of hegemony when discussing sports. Where Brohm describes sport

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as, “an instrument of bourgeois hegemony,” Hoch places emphasis on the “hegemony of

alienated work over play” (Brohm 1978, 55; Hoch 1972, 162). As both employ hegemony as

central to their critique, so, too, will this thesis now pivot to the work of Antonio Gramsci as

a valuable lens with which to approach the topic of athletic resistance.

Gramsci & Hegemony

Hegemony can be understood as the ideological and material dominance of a particular

group. In the Prison Notebooks Gramsci (1971, 12) argues that the two separate

superstructures of society – civil society (private) and the State (political society) – interact

with each other to produce a hegemonic edifice within society. This hegemonic structure

maintains “the supremacy of a social group,” which “manifests itself in two ways, as

‘domination’ and as ‘intellectual and moral leadership’” (Gramsci 1971, 57). Therefore, one

might understand the exercise of hegemony as involving “the combination of force and

consent, which balance each other reciprocally, without force predominating excessively

over consent” (Gramsci 1971, 80 n.49). In this way, hegemony does not come about

accidentally – it must be constructed/established – and is in continual need of maintenance

and protection (Hall 1986). This maintenance and protection obviously takes place on the

economic and political fronts, but also involves cultural activity (Gramsci 1985, 106).

In Cultural Writings Gramsci notes that culture is an important consideration to the

maintenance of hegemony (Gramsci 1985, 106). Yes, the superstructures of society are

primarily based on matters related to the economic and political, but culture also plays a

role in the upkeep of hegemony. This is important to note since sports are a sound

expression of cultural production. Their very intent, as previously noted in the work of

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Brohm (1978), is to defend bourgeois interests.13 In this way culture becomes a covert site

of hegemonic protection (see Eagleton 2016). From here one can review Gramsci as

articulating the overt use of ideological extension as a medium to maintain hegemony

(Filippini 2017).

In this vein, a ruling class will employ a variety of measures to defend their interests,

taking the form of coercion or consent (Gramsci 1971). Generally, consent is preferable to

coercion as it avoids overt confrontation.14 Hostile by nature, coercion, if used frequently,

can foster resentment which might threaten the very hegemony it is intended to protect

(Hargreaves 1982, 116). Nevertheless, it must be recognized that consent exists only against

the backdrop of (a latent) coercion. It is like the classic example of the carrot versus the

stick. You can try to get something done by offering a reward, or by threatening

punishment, but so long as the other party knows that the stick might be used, they are

more likely to accept the carrot.

In a contemporary context, one can understand the practice of hegemonic

maintenance through the example of Colin Kaepernick. While addressed in far greater detail

in Chapter 5, the example of Kaepernick is informative when unpacking the concept of

hegemony amidst the political-economic and racialized climate of American society. For the

Kaepernick example involves all the markers of athletic resistance in the face of hegemony

13 The work of Guy Debord in Society of the Spectacle is also helpful in this regard, since Debord notes how the ‘spectacle’ is a place where people go to “fall asleep” and marks both the outcome and goal of the dominant mode of production (Debord 1967, 6; Abdel-Shehid 2017). 14 Gramsci points out the difference between military tactics and politics, and notes that politics must take priority over the military because it allows for greater room for maneuver/movement (Gramsci 1971, 232). But the military aspect is also critical, since military superiority allows one to define the bounds of the conflict (Gramsci 1971, 183 & 234). Soft-power is most effective when backed up by hard-power.

20

as laid out in this thesis. Firstly, Kaepernick plays in the NFL, the most popular professional

sports league in America, and therefore a critical cultural instrument in the service of

hegemony. As noted in the important work of Gramsican theorist Michele Filippini (2017,

10) ideology becomes (and is) an essential battleground concerning hegemony. By kneeling

during the national anthem before NFL games, with millions of people watching, Kaepernick

repurposed the NFL as an instrument of hegeomy to serve a more subversive purpose. A

new ideological terrain is furnished by such symbolic representations of meaning that stir

opposition to the conventional order (Filippino 2017, 18). Secondly, this act was an explicit

expression of dissent towards what he considered to be the continued oppression of Black

bodies – as encapsulated by the frequency with which non-White men and women are

killed at the hand of police officers throughout the US – Kaepernick engaged in a statement

of protest by refusing to stand during the singing of the National Anthem before NFL games

(Wyche 2016). Thirdly, Kaepernick experienced very clear coercion when he refused to

consent to what was expected of him. When it was noted in the popular media that he had

decided to protest during the playing of the anthem before NFL games, Kaepernick was

ruthlessly attacked. Labelled as disrespectful, selfish, and stupid, he was even told by then

presidential candidate Donald Trump that he should “find a country that works better for

him” if he would refuse to obey the norms associated with the ceremony/ritual (Hauser

2016; Inman 2016b; NFL.com 2016). Additionally, after kneeling during the national anthem

before every regular season game in 2016-17, Kaepernick was unable to get a contract with

any team for the 2017-18 NFL season (Johnson 2017b).

21

It could be argued that this outcome was a hegemonic exercise on the part of NFL

team-owners to discipline other players to ‘act accordingly.’ NFL players were effectively

told that they, too, would not be (re)signed – and enjoy the celebrity, fame, pay, and status

that comes with being an NFL player – if they repurposed the cultural instrument of NFL

games by engaging in acts of dissent similar to Kaepernick. The teeter-totter of hegemony,

which balances coercion and consent to sustain a continuity of existing power was made

clear.15 As Rishard Matthews, a receiver for the Tennessee Titans, said, “I know there are

guys who want to take a knee or stand up as well, but a lot of people come to this league

from nothing. Job security is everything. It is not a secret that guys who protest on teams

might be gone” (Wolfe 2017). In short, through a combined use of coercion and consent,

those with structural power (be they within the NFL, various sports leagues, or otherwise)

seek to control their investments and protect class interests.

Sports & Labour

Interestingly, it is possible to look at this not as an example of the difficult position that

players are in, but rather the incredible power they wield. Again, hegemony must be

maintained, hence why the power elite – NFL team-owners – have refused to sign

Kaepernick and have taken steps to limit athletic resistance. But simply by acting against

Kaepernick, NFL owners have also revealed potential cracks in the system. Owners profit

from professional sports because of the performance of the athletes; without the athletes

there are no sports events for the owners to profit from. This is a limitation of Brohm and

15 This is what makes the actions of various NFL players like Michael Bennett, Eric Reid, Marcus Peters, and others so powerful. They are fully aware of the precarity of their position, yet continue to resist.

22

Hoch’s view that sports serve exclusively as an instrument of bourgeois hegemony. Given

their status as Black, exploited, workers, it is entirely possible that Black professional

athletes might use their positions to repurpose sports to push for change and a “broadening

[of] the base of democratic participation in American society” (Harry Edwards, as quoted in

Jason Reid 2016) rather than serving as a cultural instrument of hegemony . Granted, this is

difficult since this sort of resistance is actively thwarted by the owners’ use of coercion and

consent, but it is possible.

To ground this argument, it is important to define the professional athlete – despite

their lucrative compensation – as a member of the working class. 16 In, “Beyond the

Boundary Question,” Peter Meiksins deconstructs the question of how class is distinguished

(1986). An essential question when critiquing the social relations that constitute a capital

system, class membership is tied to one’s social relation to the means of production

expressed through ownership. While income may be considered central to class identity,

such factors are more accurately indicators of status and stratification (Naiman, 2012).

From a position of socioeconomic status, it is obvious that a professional athlete, who earns

millions of dollars annually, has more wealth than a so-called blue-collar worker earning

under forty thousand dollars a year. So too may the professional athlete acquire differing

advantages than the latter with regards to income-tax policy and so forth. However,

16 It should also be recognized that not all professional athletes are well paid. In fact the majority of professional athletes play in ‘minor’ leagues, and are paid wages that are barely (or sometimes are not) above the poverty line (Abdel-Shehid & Lamb 2011, Ch.2; Babb and Castillo 2016).). Since this thesis focuses on Black athletes in the NBA or NFL, though, the athletes that are being examined are incredibly well paid: The minimum NFL salary is $465 000 annually, and in the NBA it is $815 000 (USD). There are some complexities to this, for example practice squad players in the NFL or 2-way contracts in the NBA, but the contracts compensate players incredibly well.

23

fundamentally, both the blue-collar worker and the professional athlete coexist within the

same class position amidst the social relations of production, as they each sell their labour-

power for a wage due to their absence of substantive ownership (Callinicos, 2011).

Meiksins echoes a long tradition that frames class as defined by one’s relation to the

production (and reproduction) of capital through a definitive relation to ownership. One’s

income, celebrity/fame, and/or material acquisitions do not define class but rather status; a

sociological factor that has perverted the long-standing meaning of class (Naiman, 2012;

Radice, 2011; Workman, 2011). It is not one’s income, education, accreditation, or title that

defines their class position, but rather their expendability in relation to ownership (or lack

thereof). So long as the laborer’s position is under constant threat of removal by an

employer, underscored Meiksins, they share a seat alongside other members of the working

class (Meiksins 1986, 112). Class, then, is determined by who has, controls, and directs the

means of production. Many people have no other option but to sell their labour-power for a

wage based on their inability to independently choose the direction of said power outside

those who command those means. It is this bloc, then, that are workers regardless of their

status or wage (Callinicos 2011, 98).

Hugo Radice (2011) makes a similar point in, “The Prospects for Socialism: A

Question of Capital and Class.” Radice argues that the key class difference to consider is not

those within the working class, i.e. distinctions between lower/middle class, but rather the

difference between labour and capital (2011, 147). He points out that class analysis has

come to be centered on status rather than one’s role in-or-to the economic system via

control over the means of production. With class determined by one’s relation to the means

24

of production, enjoying ‘high’ status and/or income does not bar one from being a member

of the working class. Rather what qualifies one as a worker is the sale of their labor-power,

the central tenant of class analysis (Radice 2011, 149). Arguing that professional athletes

are not workers due to their lucrative compensation and/or popular celebrity perverts the

theoretical foundational pretext of class. Yes, (major league) professional athletes are well

paid and enjoy the benefits derived from this agreement (Abdel-Shehid and Lamb 2011, 14;

Jackson 2014). However, this does not negate the common denomination of alienation, as

these athletes remain exploitable in their (shared) disposability due to the precarious

conditions related to their employment (see Hoch 1972, 162). Injury, poor performance, or

even protest can end their careers at any point. Through an earnest review of these

theoretical underpinnings one comes to understand that the professional athlete is, too, a

member of the working class. This is a vital pretext when moving forward in the analysis of

athletic resistance.

Sports, Race, & Social Inequality

Apart from their exploited relation as laborers, the thematic of race must also take priority

when unpacking the subject of resistance amidst male professional Black athletes. Here, the

work of Harry Edwards is invaluable. A former university athlete himself, Edwards

experienced the racism of high-level sports first-hand and subsequently worked to combat

it throughout the entirety of his life, both in the realms of academia and sport.17 Edwards’

analysis of the potential for sports to serve as a site of change is a crucial tool with which to

17 Edwards has served as an ‘advisor’ for the San Francisco 49ers professional football team for many years now, which is particularly interesting given the team’s handling of the Colin Kaepernick situation. Edwards may be an advisor, but clearly does not have the final say on team decisions.

25

theorize Black athletic resistance, and his work will be drawn from heavily throughout the

entirety of this thesis.

It could be argued that Edwards falls in line with the aforementioned traditional

criticisms of sport. In one case, Edwards (1973, 265) notes that sports can serve as a, “social

sedative process whereby America dulls black consciousness of the totality of the impact of

white racism and oppression”. He further suggested that sports act as a conservative force

defending traditional values by arguing that sports are a reflection of (and on) society as a

whole (Edwards 1973, 93). For example, within a society plagued by racism and sexism,

sport will house these same issues, as it is not a distinct silo outside the societal construct

but rather very much within it. While Edwards (1969, Ch.3) echoes the sentiment that sport

is inextricably bound up with the ruling interests of society (see also Brohm 1978; Hoch

1972), he breaks with such approaches by asserting that sports can be used for change, as

exemplified through his work with the Olympic Committee for Human Rights (OCHR).

In Revolt of the Black Athlete, Edwards details the progression from the “Negro”

athlete into the “Black” athlete (Edwards 1969, Ch.1). Writing in the late 1960s, Edwards

said that Black athletes were increasingly determined to be treated as Black men, by any

means necessary (Edwards 1969, 120).18 Gone are the days when Black athletes would

submissively accept the racial limitations placed upon them. This is what the OCHR set out

18 Of course the line, “by any means necessary” is famously associated with Malcolm X. Edwards’ discussion of the Black vs. Negro athlete is also directly traceable to Malcolm’s distinction between the ‘Negro’ and the ‘Black’ man, which was meant to relay a sense of consciousness or awakening that dispels the ignorance and obedience that Malcolm X associates with the ‘Negro.’ (Malcolm X 1965) This terminology is gendered, and problematic because of the way that it attaches a value to masculinity while overlooking femininity, but the point that both Edwards and Malcolm X are trying to make is that the ‘Black’ person has a sense of consciousness that the ‘so-called Negro’ does not.

26

to do with its Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR). Discussed in more detail in Chapter

3, the OPHR marked an effort by various Black athletes to use their status as high-level

athletes to push for social justice. The famous image of John Carlos and Tommie Smith with

their fists raised on the podium encapsulates this principle. Carlos and Smith recognized the

(literal) platform available to them as Olympic medalists and used this stage to shed light on

issues of poverty and racism in America.

More contemporary approaches have built upon or expanded Edward’s

interpretation of sport as a site of social inequality and potential site of resistance. Focusing

on political economy and race, the work of Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Nathan Lamb have

broadened the critique to include themes of gender and sexuality (Abdel-Shehid 2005;

Abdel-Shehid and Lamb 2011). In their examination of social inequality in sports, Abdel-

Shehid and Lamb (2011, 7) make the crucial point that inequality is not accidental or neutral

but rather is produced to facilitate the creation of winners and losers. Challenging this script

is seldom available or palpable to professional athletes, as many enjoy a variety of benefits

that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Nevertheless, there are periodical moments

when segments of this group do resist. Hence, while professional sports are a site of

oppression, they also house the potential to be a site of resistance (Abdel-Shehid and Lamb

2011, 9).

When considering the subject of race, sport holds a particular relevance in regard to

resistance. Both Edwards and Shehid can be employed to better unpack the issue of race in

sports. As noted, Edwards organized the OCHR largely in response to racism. While less

overt than it was in the 1960s – for example ‘stacking’ and the outright barring of Black

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athletes from teams are no longer issues19 – racism continues to be an issue in sport. For

example, Black football players continue to be funneled to positions considered “less

cerebral” (Reid and McManus 2017). Furthermore, despite the fact that over 70% of the

players in the NBA and NFL are Black, the majority of head coaches and general managers

are White, and Michael Jordan is the only Black majority owner of an NBA or NFL team

(Spears 2016; Chalabi 2o14).20

In many cases, Black athletes are presented and treated as heroes on the field or

court. Once they leave the arena/stadium, however, they return to being “just another

Black man,” and subjected to all the stereotypes attached thereto (Edwards 1969, 16;

Abdel-Shehid 2005, 32). Days before the 2017 NBA finals started, LeBron James, possibly

the most famous athlete in the entire world, had “NIGGER” spray-painted on the gate of his

home in Los Angeles, California (Adande 2017). In the same year, Michael Bennett was

violently arrested at gunpoint in Las Vegas, Nevada, and it was only upon the revelation that

he was a well-known NFL player that he was released (Jones 2017). Anthony Morrow, a

shooting guard who played in the NBA for nine years, was pulled over for a “window tint-

violation” and had his car searched by a drug sniffing dog when he refused to consent to the

inspection (ESPN.com 2017a). Each athlete named here is Black. Despite the fact that Black

professional athletes make hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars, they cannot

19 ‘Stacking’ refers to playing athletes at designated positions. In the 60’s, Black football players were almost exclusively played at positions associated with physicality, such as running back or outside linebacker. Furthermore, they would be ‘stacked’ at these positions, meaning that there would be 3 Black running backs, but they would not be permitted to play other positions, thereby limiting the number of Black players on the field. 20 The case of Michael Jordan is very interesting, since in many ways Jordan transcended race. Similar to OJ Simpson before, Michael Jordan was seen not as a ‘Black’ athlete, but a dominant athlete and businessman. See David Andrews’ Michael Jordan Inc. (2001) for a terrific exploration of this.

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escape their blackness. As Stevie Wonder sang, “You might have the cash, but you cannot

cash in your face” (Wonder 1980).

Sports & Resistance

Apart from their nuanced writing on themes of struggle, Edwards, Abdel-Shehid and Lamb

are also helpful for understanding the varied nature of resistance. When one thinks of

resistance, it is possible for revolutionary images to come to mind. Resistance may even

hold revolutionary qualities in many cases. With consideration to athletic resistance as

informed by the authors above, however, resistance proves socially significant but not

structurally substantive.21 Athletes engaged in acts of resistance have not demanded that

the capitalist system be overthrown but rather have supported reformist measures for

greater equity within a capitalist framework. There are many examples of this. In 2012,

every player on the Miami Heat basketball team wore hoodies with the hood-up following

the murder of Trayvon Martin (Reitmeyer 2012). Two years later, five players from the St.

Louis Rams walked onto the field with their hands raised – in solidarity with the “Hands Up,

Don’t Shoot” mantra challenging police brutality – to protest the shooting of Mike Brown

(Gajanan 2016). As noted, in 2016 Kaepernick had decided to take a knee because “there

are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder” (as

quoted in Wyche 2016). Edwards frames such actions as working to bring about equality,

21 This could be a somewhat contentious point, since it can be argued that pushing for racial equality and justice in America is/was revolutionary given the prevalence of White Supremacy. This is an intriguing line of argument, but tangential to this thesis. The term ‘revolutionary’ is used here in the sense of structural change, specifically in terms of moving away from a capitalist economic system.

29

justice, and a more democratic American society, thereby making it clear that resistance can

take a variety of forms (Edwards 1969, 38; Jason Reid 2016; 2017d).22

Framing resistance this way better articulates how such methods lean into rather

than thwart existing power relations. Afforded a platform with which to act and express

themselves that is unavailable to most, professional athletes can bring attention to a cause

that may otherwise be hidden or seldom addressed. With professional sports being a refuge

from the economic or political ordeals of everyday life for fans, it could be argued that some

may be more prone to listen to a famous NFL cornerback like Richard Sherman (who is

regularly interviewed by popular media outlets) than their local State bureaucrat. These

interviews provide outlets through which athletes can highlight issues that move beyond

the sports event at hand, enabling athletes to re-direct a discussion outside the sphere of

sport itself.

Millions of people tune in to NBA or NFL games, and athletes’ actions on the

court/field will be relentlessly examined, whether these actions take place during the

course of play or outside of it (Abdul-Jabbar 2018). Moreover, professional athletes have

extensive social media followings that further allow them to extend issues to millions at any

time. Take LeBron James’ tweet calling Donald Trump a bum, for example. This singular

communication was retweeted more than 600,000 times and ‘liked’ by over 1.5 million

(James 2017). While it could be said that athletic resistance is, at best, a reformist measure

22 Edwards notes that forms of resistance, and the reasons for it, change over time. In 2016, Edwards articulated that there have been five “waves” of athletic resistance over the course of the past century, each with distinct yet similar characteristics (Bell 2016).

30

of social critique, professional athletes have proven to utilize said platforms to engage in

acts or articulations of activism and resistance.

Analytical Framework

It has been shown that sport generally functions as a mechanism of control which upholds

values of bourgeois hegemony (Hoch 1972; Brohm 1978; McRae 2018). Yet, the attention

that is paid to sport as a cultural instrument meant to defend hegemony can also allow it to

serve as a site of resistance. As noted, professional athletes have a platform available to

them as celebrities and highly paid labourers that most people do not have access to. Also

shown is that despite their lucrative contracts professional athletes are exploited laborers

who are best understood as members of the working class (Meiksins 1986; Radice 2011).

Then there are professional Black athletes who have the compounded experience of racism.

Though they can make millions of dollars, professional Black athletes are unable to fully

escape the lived reality of their skin (Edwards 1969; Leonard and King 2012). Professional

Black athletes understand the persistence of racialized inequality within sports specifically

and society more generally. Consequently, it could be argued that professional Black

athletes are uniquely situated to engage in acts of resistance. Their holistic experience

enables an intimate ability to empathetically highlight issues of injustice and inequality in

the pursuit of equality, justice, and a more democratic and equitable society (Edwards 1969,

38; Jason Reid 2016). In this way, sport can be used in a way that counters its intended

hegemonic function.

To make explicit the analysis found throughout this thesis, an analytical framework

is employed. The first component of this framework is the exclusive analysis of resistance by

31

professional Black athletes. It has been argued that Black athletes understand the

persistence of racism in a way that non-Black athletes cannot, and as professional athletes

they have a platform available to them with which can highlight the need for change. This

component is considered a pre-requisite for all of the examples chosen in the analysis. The

second component is that resistance, as analyzed throughout this thesis, must target racism

and/or racial inequality. There are a number of reasons for athletic resistance, be it injury

rates, exploitative labor practices, or lack of attention to issues of mental health (Srinivasan

2017; Murphy 2017). These reasons are all legitimate and warrant further examination.

Incorporating all of these reasons for athletic resistance would, however, dilute this thesis’

analysis of resistance centered on racialization and racism. The analytical framework

developed here addresses resistance as targeting racism and racial inequality/injustice

exclusively. The third and final component of the framework specifies that the act of

resistance must involve the athlete leveraging their platform as a professional. Professional

athletes have a platform available to them as pseudo-celebrities and millionaires that most

people do not, and this platform can be used to draw attention to issues that the athlete

deems important. Professional sports are intended to serve as a cultural front defending

hegemony, but professional athletes can repurpose sports to serve a more subversive (and

in this case, anti-racist) purpose.

An example that can be used to express the above mentioned analytical framework

is that of Malcolm Jenkins (a Black man who plays safety for the Philadelphia Eagles NFL

team) regularly went on ‘ride-alongs’ with police officers during the 2016-17 and 2017-18

NFL seasons to build a relationship with officers and try to combat the issue of police

32

brutality (Tanier 2017a; Lott 2017). Jenkins also raised his fist during the playing of the

American national anthem before NFL games during those same NFL seasons to draw

attention to the persistence of police brutality and highlight the need for change.23 Raising

his fist during the anthem is a very visible act that leveraged Jenkins’ position as an NFL

athlete and subverted the hegemonic purpose of professional sports by forcing the millions

of people viewing the game to reckon with Jenkins’ act of resistance. The ride-alongs did

not do this. According to the analytical framework laid out here, Jenkins raising his fist

during the anthem qualifies as an act of resistance while going for ride-alongs with police

does not, though both acts have the same goal of decreasing or ending police brutality.

There are thus three criteria for the analytical framework used throughout this

thesis. Only two will be referenced henceforth, as the first is a pre-requisite for the

remaining two and, hence, is already met. These criteria are: 1) The act(s) of resistance

must be led by a male professional Black athlete; 2) The act(s) of resistance must target

racism and racial inequality/injustice; 3) The act(s) of resistance must leverage the athlete’s

platform as a professional athlete. These three criteria serve as the core of the theoretical

analysis found throughout this work. There are other considerations, for example whether

or not the athlete(s) defended their act of resistance in the face of criticism, the reaction to

the act(s) of resistance, and the impact of the act(s). All of these considerations are

supplemental however, and complement the core of the analysis, which is centered on

professional Black athletic resistance targeting racism and racial inequality/injustice.

23 Jenkins’ decision to raise his fist during the anthem was inspired by Colin Kaepernick’s decision to take a knee, which is addressed at length in Chapter 5.

33

Conclusion

While Brohm and Hoch make a strong case that professional sports are closely aligned with

promoting specific political-economic interests (i.e., values such as nationalism, militarism,

obedience, while functioning as an effective ‘pressure valve’ for workers’ frustrations),

others have shown how sports can be an effective site of resistance. There is no better

expression of this than the case of the professional Black athlete. Even though well-paid,

professional Black athletess remain racialized members of the working class. Their interests

are therefore often in fundamental opposition to those of the(ir) largely White employers.

As discussed in the following chapters, there are many examples of Black professional

athletes who have dared to resist. From Jack Johnson to Colin Kaepernick, many Black

professional athletes have fought against injustice. Whether this resistance came in the

form of dating White women in Jim Crow America or kneeling during the playing of a

national anthem to bring attention to the issue of police brutality, Black professional

athletes have engaged in acts of resistance by using sport as their platform. To subscribe to

the solitary premise that sports cannot serve as a site of resistance is to ignore history, a

subject more closely examined in the next chapter.

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Chapter 3 – Revolt of the Black Athlete

35

“Primetime, basking in the lime

Cassius in his prime, coloring out of the line

Cause they don’t want nobody that’s colored out of the(y) lines”

- Kanye West, “Primetime.” (2011b)

There is a long tradition of resistance amongst professional Black athletes. Some of the

examples are famous, such as John Carlos and Tommie Smith raising their fists at the 1968

Olympics. Others, like Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf’s refusal to stand during the American national

anthem during the 1995-96 NBA season, are less well known. As will be explored in this

chapter, there are many historical examples of Black athletes resisting injustice and using

their platform to push for change. To quote Harry Edwards, these athletes pursued equality,

justice, and the “broadening [of] the base of democratic participation in American society,”

and their actions continue to inspire current and future generations of activist athletes

(Edwards 1969,38; Jason Reid 2016; Khalid 2016).

This chapter will present a semi-chronological analysis of six historically significant

acts of resistance amongst Black male professional athletes. The reason that it is ‘semi’

36

chronological rather than purely chronological is that the 1960s were an especially active

decade in terms of athletic resistance, and therefore the actions of several overlap.24 The

actions of each athlete will be examined individually, with the exception of John Carlos and

Tommie Smith, who are forever tied together by their joint protest during the medal

ceremony at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. After presenting these examples of athletic

resistance, there will be a final analysis of these acts using the framework developed in

Chapter 2. Each of the examples documented in this chapter encompass the criteria of the

framework, as the primary focus of the resistance was anti-racist and involved the athlete

leveraging their platform subversively. The way in which this was done varies from case to

case, but the common thread of anti-racist resistance runs through all of them. With that

said, the first example to be analyzed is that of Jack Johnson.

Jack Johnson

Jack Johnson was the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world, defeating

James Jeffries on July 4th, 1910 (Ward 2006, Ch.6).25 Johnson’s victory prompted riots across

America, in which 20 people died while hundreds of other (mostly Black) people were

injured (Washington Herald 1910; Los Angeles Herald 1910). Part of the reason for this

reaction is that Jack Johnson was “unforgivably black” (Ward 2006). Johnson had a very dark

complexion, and, having suffered from the effects of racism throughout his life, determined

that he would never let White America forget that he was Black - he had certainly never

24 Harry Edwards argues that sports is a microcosm of society (Edwards 1973, 361), thus it is no coincidence that increased athletic resistance during the 1960s coincides with the culmination of the American Civil Rights Movement, protests against the Vietnam War, and rise of the Black Panther Party. 25 This is where the term “Great White Hope” originates, as boxing promoters scrambled to find a White man who could reclaim the title from the Black Johnson (Ward 2006).

37

been able to forget it (Davis 1971). Johnson recognized the racial stereotypes of early 20th

century America in which Black men were considered to be animalistic, violent, and stupid,

but played up to these stereotypes to maximize his visibility, thereby increasing interest in

his fights (See Kendi 2016; Moore 2017a). Then, with millions of people listening – these

were the days before TV – Johnson would defeat his (usually White) opponent. Johnson

became incredibly wealthy and famous as heavyweight champion of the world, which was

enough to cause great resentment toward him as a very visible Black man in Jim Crow

America. In addition to this, Johnson also dated and married a number of White women. For

this he was convicted under the “Mann Act,” which criminalized the transportation of

women for “immoral purposes” across state borders, though it has long been clear that

Johnson’s conviction was racially motivated (Ward 2006, Ch.10; Gilmore 1975, Ch. 6).26

While becoming the first African-American heavyweight champion of the world is an

incredible accomplishment, in and of itself this would not necessarily constitute an act of

resistance. Jack Johnson helped open the door for other Black boxers to get championship

bouts, but White boxers continued to hide behind the “colour line” after Johnson lost the

championship title (Moore 2017a). Rather Johnson’s act(s) of resistance involved his

personal life, celebrity persona, and the way that he used his platform as heavyweight

champion of the world. He openly dated and married White women. He flashed his money

and drove fancy cars. He publicly declared that he would never let America forget his

26 In 2016 even republican senator John McCain asked that the president issue a posthumous pardon for the “egregious act of racism,” that was Johnson’s conviction (Washington 2016).

38

Blackness (Davis 1971). In short, he refused to take on the role that White America

demanded of its Black citizens.

Jack Johnson was a ‘bad’ man who refused to accept what was supposed to be his

place as a Black man in Jim Crow America, and accepted the title of “Bad” as a badge of

honor (Gilmore 1975, 13). He was, “unbeatable in the ring, and practically ungovernable

outside of it” (Gilmore 1975, 3). He was a man who refused to recognize his assigned place

in Jim Crow America, spent his money as he wished, and dated the (White) women that he

wanted. This sort of behaviour resisted the racial injustices of Jim Crow America in a way

that just was not even considered at the time. As Muhammad Ali said, “he had to be a bad,

bad black man… he was all on his own too, wasn’t no Angela Davis or Huey Newton… I know

I’m bad, but he was crazy” (BoxingVids HD 2017). Jack Johnson used his platform as

heavyweight champion of the world to resist the racial norms of the time and live life as he

saw fit. Though he did not say so explicitly, he fought for the recognition of Black

Americans’ dignity and freedom, something that Harry Edwards considers to be a

responsibility of the Black athlete (1969, 39). In doing so, Jack Johnson forced America to

reckon with the possibility of a more equitable society, and helped inspire the boxer who

would become Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali

Nowadays, Muhammad Ali is remembered by most as an American icon. He is known by a

number of nicknames: the Louisville Lip, the Champ, and the Greatest. He managed to

“float like a butterfly and sting like a bee,” (Torres 1971) while boxing in a way never before

seen from a heavyweight. Muhammad Ali spoke a big game and followed it up with

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dominance in the ring. In the years that he was fighting, however, Ali was viewed more

negatively. He was considered to be cocky on account of his mouth, ignorant because of his

association with the Nation of Islam (NOI), and was even called a “disgrace to his country

and his race…” because of his opposition to the Vietnam War (Calamur 2016). Since his

retirement in 1981, though, Muhammad Ali has been disremembered as an All-American

patriot.27 Increasingly few people seem to remember that he was once hated by a

significant percentage of the American population, to the point that many refused to refer

to him as Muhammad Ali because of that name’s association with the NOI (Remnick 1998,

Ch.12).28 Muhammad Ali was a strong, outspoken Black man with a larger than life

personality who refused to go along with the role that was expected of him, much like Jack

Johnson. Similar to Johnson, Ali’s actions outside the ring were the most consequential as

acts of resistance, and prompt many to consider him the Greatest Athlete of All Time

(Foxsports.com 2016).

There is a famous story that Ali first learned to box because when he was 12 his bike

was stolen, and the nearest police officer was in a boxing gym (Remnick 1998, 91). The

officer reportedly asked the young Clay what he was going to do about his bike being stolen,

to which he responded, “Fight him” (Remnick 1998, 91). Not knowing how to fight, Clay

27 The term “disremembered” is used here in the same sense that Eddie Glaude does, who borrowed it from Toni Morrison. Glaude describes disremembering as “active forgetting.” (Glaude 2016) Glaude uses the example of Martin Luther King Jr., whose most radical beliefs have now been pushed to the side while his “I have a Dream” line is quoted endlessly in support of “colorblind” policies that fail to challenge racial inequality (Bonilla-Silva 2001; 2010). 28 The fact that Muhammad Ali was known as Cassius Clay in his younger life makes writing about him somewhat difficult, since it is not always clear how to refer to him. Throughout this thesis, he will be referred to as Cassius Clay when discussing his childhood or career pre-1964. His name changed in 1964, therefore he will be referred to as Muhammad Ali when discussing his legacy or career post-name change.

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took up boxing. While this is a great story, it seems less likely than something that Ali said

early on in his career,

I started boxing because I thought this was the fastest way for a black person to

make it in this country. I was not that bright and quick in school, couldn’t be a

football or basketball player ‘cause you have to go to college and get all kinds of

degrees and pass examinations. A boxer can just go into a gym, jump around, turn

professional, win a fight, get a break, and he is in the ring. If he’s good enough he

makes more money than ballplayers make all their lives… (Remnick 1998, 88)

While Ali might not have been ‘bright’ in school, he was an exceptionally smart man

nonetheless. Recognizing that he would have relatively few opportunities for advancement

as a black man in Louisville, through hard work he built upon his natural abilities to become

one of the greatest boxers ever.29 It is not only his boxing ability that made Ali an icon,

however. After all, previous Black boxing champions like Floyd Patterson were also

dominant in the ring, but are/were not nearly as well-known as Ali. What set Ali apart was

his actions outside the ring. Ali was willing to speak his mind and engage on controversial

issues, associate with figures disliked and feared by the American establishment (i.e.

Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad) and, in short, stand against injustice to fight for what he

felt was right.

This willingness to stand against injustice is best exemplified by Ali’s refusal to be

drafted to serve in the Vietnam War. Perhaps the defining action of Ali’s life, his demurral

made him a lightning rod for criticism at the time. On March 9, 1966, Ali said that he would

29 Boxing is both celebrated and notorious for attracting talent from impoverished, often non-White communities. For while it offers a ‘way out’ it is also incredibly destructive to the fighter’s body. Muhammad Ali himself is perhaps the best example of this, as the man who was once the greatest quote on the planet could barely speak or walk in his later years as his body was ravaged by Parkinsons disease.

41

not support America’s war in Vietnam because, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong”

(Orkand 2017; Calamur 2016). Just over a year later, on April 28, 1967, he refused to step

forward when his name was called at a draft centre despite being warned multiple times

that he was committing a felony offense. Ali continued to refuse to be drafted, and was

promptly charged with draft evasion, stripped of his heavyweight title, and blackballed from

getting a license to box anywhere in America (Ford 2016). Thus, it came to be that

Muhammad Ali, in his physical prime and at the peak of his boxing abilities at age 25, was

left unemployed and charged as a criminal because he refused to fight in what he saw as an

unjust, imperial war against other people of color in Vietnam.30

Muhammad Ali’s vocal resistance against the Vietnam War and refusal to be drafted

remains one of the most significant acts of resistance by a professional athlete in history. Ali

opposed the Vietnam War before it was broadly popular to do so, and did so in a way that

criticized America on both racist and imperial grounds (Zirin 2005, 64). He linked the Black

liberation struggle in America to the Vietnamese struggle for independence by pointing out

that it was White America oppressing them both (kaotikkalm 2011, 2:02). This is even more

remarkable when considering the environment in which he did this. Malcolm X had been

assassinated in February of 1965, and the ‘Hot Summers’ that X had warned of came to pass

when Watts exploded in rebellion in August of that year (Bloom and Martin 2013, 29). Then,

in 1966, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee announced its opposition to the

Vietnam War while Stokely Carmichael popularized the term, “Black Power,” (Carmichael

30 It can be noted, as many have done, that Ali would not have seen any live combat if drafted. Rather he probably would have been used as an instrument of propaganda and a morale booster, much like Elvis Presley had been a decade earlier. Ali understood this, and still refused.

42

and Hamilton 1992) and the Black Panther Party (BPP) was officially formed (Bloom and

Martin 2013, 3).

Ali’s actions took place at a time when it seemed like Black Americans were pushing

for “too much, too soon,” and the very ground upon which America had been founded

seemed to be shifting.31 Undeterred, he remained in America even after being charged with

draft evasion and continued to speak against the Vietnam War on college campuses and

elsewhere (kaotikkalm 2011, 1:10). 32 Barred from earning millions of dollars in potential

earnings during his athletic prime, he remained united with the NOI and persevered when

standing for what he believed to be right. Incredibly, he won his appeal against the charges

of draft evasion. After he was cleared by the US Supreme Court in 1971 Ali regained the

heavyweight title belt in 1974, although he was never as dominant in the ring as he was

before 1967.

The OPHR & John Carlos/Tommie Smith

At the same time Muhammad Ali was speaking out against the war in Vietnam, Harry

Edwards was organizing the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) (Zirin and Edwards

2012). This project aimed to organize a boycott of the 1968 Olympic games in Mexico unless

several conditions were met, including the restoration of Muhammad Ali’s heavyweight title

and the hiring of more African-American assistant coaches to track teams. These

31 In this case, the ‘ground’ upon which America was founded can be characterized by what MLK called the three ‘isms’: racism, materialism, and militarism. (King 1967) 32 This is significant because many other Black radicals would flee America after being charged with crimes; even Jack Johnson fled America for 7 years when he was first charged under the Mann Act.

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requirements were not met, but the boycott fell through (Rodgers 1967).33 However the

OPHR did bring Black athletes together, helping create one of the most famous photos in

sports history. To properly understand this image of John Carlos and Tommie Smith with

their fists raised in support of Black Power on the medal stand it is important to explore the

factors that led up to this act of resistance that remains so famous today.

Figure 1: Tommie Smith (centre) and John Carlos (right) raise their fists on the medal stand during the playing of the American national anthem at the 1968 Olympics. (Vincent 2016)

As discussed in Chapter 2, Harry Edwards was the leading figure behind the OPHR,

and became a sociologist with a specialization in the intersection of sports, race and politics.

As a Black man and former university athlete himself, Edwards had seen many of his team-

mates fail to graduate from a post-secondary institution, despite receiving scholarships, and

was concerned with the exploitation of Black athletes (Edwards 1969, Ch.1). This prompted

33In track and field there are a large number of athletes who can perform at comparable levels, meaning that even if many athletes boycotted the games, other athletes could replace them and the games could continue without a significant drop in performance. Additionally, track in the 1960s was coached with a particularly heavy hand, and athletes who spoke out were often simply removed from their teams. See Jack Scott’s The Athletic Revolution (1971) for an overview of this.

44

him to help Black athletes at San Jose State University organize to push for better working

conditions, more African-Americans on the coaching staffs, and more academic support

(Edwards 1969). It was this organizing that gave Edwards the platform to found the OPHR

and connect with various athletes, Black and White alike.34

When considering the medium of their protest at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, John

Carlos and Tommie Smith were fully aware of how contentious raising their fists on the

medal stand would be. They had seen what had happened to Muhammad Ali when he

condemned the Vietnam war (the restoration of Ali as heavyweight champion of the world

was one of the targets of the OPHR) but Carlos and Smith still felt that they must do

something. In turn, they used the (literal) platform available to them as athletes at the

Olympics and used it to take a stand. What has been forgotten in the years since this act,

but should be noted, is that there was more to the act than raised fists. Carlos and Smith

were both shoeless on the stand to symbolize Black poverty, Carlos wore a necklace of

beads to honor all those who had been lynched or killed during the middle passage, and

Smith zipped down his jacket to show solidarity with blue-collar workers (BBC 1968; Jackson

2014, Ch.3).35 This was a comprehensive condemnation of the living conditions of all poor

34 The inclusion of the 1968 Olympic protest in this thesis may seem out of place, since the focus of the thesis is on acts of resistance by professional male Black athletes and it can be argued that the Olympics are an amateur endeavor. Calling the Olympics amateur athletics is disingenuous, however. The same goes for NCAA Division 1 basketball and football, since the amount of money that is earned from these sporting events is absolutely staggering. So even if the athletes themselves may not be making any money off of their performances, as is the case with the NCAA, or in a limited fashion, as it is with the Olympics, these athletes are, for all intents and purposes, professionals. See Indentured: The Inside Story of the Rebellion Against the NCAA for a great discussion of this (Nocera 2016). 35 It has also been forgotten that Peter Norman, the White Australian who finished second in the race, also wore an OPHR pin on the medal stand. He was fiercely condemned in the Australian media, and never again represented Australia in the Olympics despite posting many qualifying times in national and world championships (Carlson 2006).

45

Americans, but particularly Black Americans. What’s more, Smith and Carlos called

attention to the way that they seemed to live dual lives. While on the track they were

treated as heroes and called American, but off of it, they were no more than, “dirty

Negroes” (BBC 1968).36 Carlos and Smith therefore engaged in a radical anti-racist act of

resistance by raising their fists on the podium at the 1968 Olympics. The backlash was

immediate.

For their actions, Carlos and Smith were viciously attacked in the American media

and by official members of the International Olympic Committee. They were forced to leave

the Olympic Village before the games finished because of the subsequent uproar, were

called “black skinned storm-troopers,” and received death threats (Zirin 2012).37 Even Jesse

Owens, the famous African-American sprinter who won four gold medals at the 1936

Olympics in Germany, came out against Carlos and Smith.38 In the years that followed,

Carlos and Smith were effectively ostracized from the US Olympic team. They never ran on

another US Olympic team or served as advisors/coaches. It was not until 2016 that they

were invited to the White House (by President Obama) and reached some degree of

reconciliation with the US Olympic Committee (Barra 2008; Martin 2016).39 Similar to

36 As Harry Edwards said, to racist Whites the only difference between a Black shoe shiner and a Black sprinter is that the shoe shiner is “a nigger” while the sprinter is “a fast nigger”(Edwards 1969, 20). 37 In 1977, John Carlos’ ex-wife killed herself. Carlos attributes this to the negative attention that him and his family received for years following the protest (Clash 2016). 38 This prompted Edwards to label Owens a, “Negro athlete,” rather than a, “Black Athlete,” and supported Edwards’ assertion that the greatest threat to the Black athletic rebellion was co-optation (Edwards 1973, 347). 39 Interestingly, this invitation was extended, at least in part, because athletes were raising their voices in protest against police brutality, and cited Smith and Carlos as inspiration for their actions.

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Muhammad Ali, John Carlos and Tommie Smith condemned the injustices of American

society, and paid a steep price for doing so.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar40 is a difficult example to use when discussing activist-athletes who

used their platform as professional athletes to resist racism and injustice. This is because

Abdul-Jabbar was never barred from his sport or otherwise punished for his beliefs and

actions during his playing days. Unlike the aforementioned examples, who were singular

athletes competing in individual events, Abdul-Jabbar was a member of a team sport, and

his contributions to the team’s success were simply too valuable to negate. Abdul-Jabbar

reached a level of athletic dominance that is basically unparalleled across all professional

sports. In his three varsity seasons at UCLA he won three national championships and was

named the Most Outstanding Player in the national tournament each year. In 20 NBA

seasons he was an All-Star 19 times, an All-NBA’er 15 times, won six championships, and his

scoring record is so outrageous that many believe it will never be broken (Hallet 2016).

When in college, Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) attended OPHR

meetings organized by Harry Edwards. Part of these meetings saw discussions on whether

to boycott the ’68 Olympics, and Alcindor decided to participate in the boycott and not

40 Like Muhammad Ali, Kareem also changed his name after becoming a Muslim. Lew Alcindor will be used when discussing his college years and early time in the NBA, while Kareem Abdul-Jabbar will be used when discussing his legacy and the majority of his NBA career.

47

represent America in the ’68 Olympics because as a Black man, he felt that the United

States was “ not really my country” (Smith 2009).41 In response to this act of resistance, the

then 21-year-old Alcindor was told that perhaps he should find a new country to live in

(Smith 2009; Abdul-Jabbar 2015b). Invited to the “Cleveland Summit” by Muhammad Ali,

Jim Brown and Bill Russell, Alcindor witnessesed professional Black athletes in support of

one another entrenched in a commitment to resist injustice (Eig 2017; Adelsen 2016).42

Shortly after winning his first NBA championship in 1971 with the Milwaukee Bucks,

Alcindor changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as an expression of his Muslim faith

(Abdul Jabbar 2015a).43 After a wildly successful career, Abdul-Jabbar retired from the NBA

in 1989. Even in retirement he has remained engaged with contentious issues, writing

dozens of articles and opinion pieces for various newspapers, magazines, and blogs, in

addition to writing novels and making television appearances. Incredibly, the man who is

considered by some to be the greatest basketball player of all time might actually be more

comfortable as a writer and thinker than an athlete and uses his position as a retired athlete

and pseudo-celebrity/public-intellectual to continue to fight against injustice (Kang 2015).

It could be argued that Abdul-Jabbar’s athletic dominance afforded him a level of

protection against reactionary coercion in response to his resistance that other players like

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, Craig Hodges, Curt Flood, and now Colin Kaepernick have not been

41 Alcindor was the most prominent athlete associated with the OPHR to actually boycott the 1968 Olympics, as most other athletes ultimately decided to participate. 42 The Cleveland Summit was an act of solidarity and show of support for Ali by prominent Black athletes following Ali’s refusal to be drafted into the Vietnam War. Several players met and discussed Ali’s decision to refuse to be drafted, then hosted a press conference in which they declared support for Ali’s decision. 43 Unlike Muhammad Ali, Abdul-Jabbar experienced little resistance to his name change, perhaps because Abdul-Jabbar was not associated with the NOI.

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afforded.44 However, once Abdul-Jabbar was done playing in the NBA, the league was done

with him. Despite being one of the greatest players in NBA history, Abdul-Jabbar has never

been a head coach or general manager (GM) in the league. This lack of post-playing career

opportunities is very different from that experienced by other athletes who engaged in acts

of resistance. Jack Johnson served time in jail, Muhammad Ali was charged with a federal

offense, and John Carlos and Tommie Smith never ran on an Olympic team again.

This makes it somewhat difficult to situate Abdul-Jabbar within the tradition of

athletic resistance. For he was/is certainly an activist and remains engaged with anti-racist

efforts in 2018. And yet the response to his actions during his playing career was nowhere

near as heavy handed as that experienced by Johnson, Ali, or several of the athletes that

followed him. Abdul-Jabbar did take heavy criticism from many people in the media during

his playing career, and this has carried over into retirement. Even Donald Trump has directly

condemned Abdul-Jabbar, saying, “now I know why the press always treated you so badly…

you don’t have a clue about life and what it takes to Make America Great Again” in

response to Abdul-Jabbar criticizing him (Kang 2015). But while Abdul-Jabbar has felt

insulted by all this negative coverage, he has not experienced the sort of silencing or forced

unemployment that other athletes examined in this chapter have. What’s more, Abdul-

Jabbar has continued to speak out even in retirement. This may simply speak to his

perseverance and refusal to bow in the face of significant criticism and ad-hominem attacks,

44 Muhammad Ali provides a contradiction to the point that athletic success affords a level of protection to reactionary coercion. Ali was the world’s most dominant heavyweight boxer, and yet was still forced out of the sport. So while there is a relation between athletic dominance and tolerance of resistance/protest, there are exceptions.

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but also makes him a difficult figure to analyze amongst his peers of activist-athletes. Abdul-

Jabbar never experienced the sort of reactionary coercion associated with historical anti-

racist athletic resistance, and while he engaged in a meaningful act of resistance by refusing

to participate in the 1968 Olympics and criticizing racism in America, this act is relatively

unknown.

Craig Hodges

Another expression of athletic resistance (though largely unknown) can be found in the

example of Craig Hodges, a former NBA player and role-player on multiple NBA

championship teams. In contrast to Abdul-Jabbar, and possibly a consequence of his

activism, the reaction to Hodges’ resistance was far more coercive than that experienced by

Abdul-Jabbar. In 1991 Hodges criticized the George H.W. Bush administration and called on

the government to do more to support the Black community. Within a year of said criticism,

Hodges was blackballed from the NBA. Part of this overt coercion is that, of the athletes

discussed in this chapter, Hodges was the least dominant athletically. Jack Johnson,

Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and both John Carlos and Tommie Smith were

among the very best in the world at their profession at one point in their lives, and this

athletic excellence made them very valuable to the professional sports establishment.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (who will be examined next) is the closest comparison to Hodges in

terms of athletic dominance, but even Rauf was the player of the year in a Division 1 NCAA

conference and the #3 overall pick in the NBA draft. Craig Hodges, on the other hand, was a

third-round pick and a role player in the NBA. This point is made because there seems to be

a relationship between a player’s value to a winning team and how much the team and/or

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league will tolerate. Hodges’ experience highlights the reality that role players have far less

job security than star players, and for the vast majority of professional athletes, refusing to

‘shut up and play’ will result in unemployment.

Craig Hodges was a bench player for most of his career, albeit one who served a

valuable role as one of the best 3-point shooters in the league. He competed in the 3-point

contest at All-star weekend for eight straight years, and won it in each of the three years

leading up to his forced retirement - 1990, 91, and 92 (NBA.com). Hodges was also active off

the court. He was very visible in his hometown of Chicago and donated his 3-point contest

winnings to various not-for-profit organizations in the city (Hodges 2017, 160). Hodges also

openly associated with the NOI, and, while not a member, this was enough to make some

teams uncomfortable. In 1988 Hodges was playing for the Milwaukee Bucks, a franchise

that had the spectre of the proudly Muslim Kareem Abdul-Jabbar still looming over it,45 and

when Hodges’ proximity to the NOI was made public, he was traded to Phoenix (Hodges

2017, 86). The next season he was traded to Chicago, where a former coach was then

coaching, and served as a shooting specialist for the first two championship teams of the

Bulls’ incredible 1990s dynasty.46

While playing a valuable role as a shooting specialist on the 1991/92 Bulls

championship teams, it was Hodges’ activities off the court that saw attention toward him

rise. During his tenure with the Bulls, Hodges tried to convince Michael Jordan, Scottie

45 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar began his career with the Milwaukee Bucks, winning a championship in 1971. He was traded to the L.A. Lakers in 1975 after requesting a trade. 46 The Bulls won six championships in eight years behind the dominant play of Michael Jordan, something that has not been done since.

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Pippen, and Magic Johnson, three of the league’s top players, to sit out the first game of the

1991 NBA finals to bring attention to the fact that there were very few Black coaches, and

no Black owners, despite 75% of the league’s players being Black (McRae 2017; Hodges

2017, 144). Jordan and Pippen laughed him off, and the boycott never happened. Hodges

was also very open about his opposition to the Gulf War, telling team-mates that it had

nothing to do with ‘liberating’ Kuwait but rather was another example of U.S. imperialism

(Hodges 2017, 137).47 Perhaps his most consequential act of resistance, though, came when

Hodges wore a dashiki to the White House in October 1991 after the Bulls’ first

championship and handed a personal letter to George H.W. Bush (Hodges 2017, 3). The

letter read, in part, “300 years of free slave labor have left the African-American community

destroyed. It is time for a comprehensive plan for change…” (Hodges 2017, 6) Hodges

handed the letter to Bush Sr. personally, though Bush’s press secretary later released it to

the press in an apparent attempt to shame Hodges for trying to politicize the Bulls’ White

House visit.48 The combination of these acts, compounded by his known association with

the NOI, was enough to force Hodges out of the NBA in less than a year later despite his

being the reigning 3 point champion and valuable role player for back to back championship

teams. Hodges had been blackballed, and other NBA players took note of what happened.

In 2003, when Dave Zirin asked NBA players why they did not use their position to speak out

47 Phil Jackson was coach of this Bulls team and was also a vocal critic of the Gulf War. Jackson is known as a bit of a ‘hippie’ though, so his comments were taken with a grain of salt. Phil Jackson is White, while Craig Hodges is black. In the years that followed, Phil Jackson received multiple contracts for management positions with the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks worth over $100 million while Hodges had to sell his championship rings to feed his family. 48 A championship team visiting the White House, the literal home of the president, is already political, but again, the issue is players bringing politics into sports rather than owners.

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on social issues, a common response was, “You don’t want to end up like Craig Hodges”

(Hodges 2017, vii). Craig Hodges was prematurely forced into retirement for his public

criticisms of the American government’s failure to address racial inequalities and the racial

disparities in management positions in the NBA. Hodges had dared to raise his voice against

injustice using the platform available to him as a professional athlete, and quickly found

that platform ripped out from under him.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf

The final athlete to be examined in this chapter shares an experience similar to that of Craig

Hodges, though less pronounced. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf is now, arguably, best known for

sitting during the playing of the U.S. national anthem during the 1995-96 NBA season

(Jackson 2014, Ch.5). The intention behind this refusal to stand was not, however, to bring

attention to broader societal issues but rather was an act of personal expression. In fact it

was not until a fan phoned into a Denver talk radio station in March 1996, by which point

Rauf had been sitting during the anthem for 60 games, that his actions received any media

attention. (Jackson 2014, 116) Before examining this act in greater detail, though, it is

important to contextualize Rauf’s standing in the NBA at the time of the controversy.

Before entering the NBA as the third overall pick in the 1990 draft, the 6’1” Jackson

was already a star basketball player for Louisiana State University (LSU) (Grewal 2007, 112).

Jackson appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a freshman at LSU, and was named

player of the year as a sophomore (despite playing on the same team as Shaquille O’Neal, a

7’2” mobile mountain of a man widely considered to be one of the most dominant players

in NBA history) (Grewal 2007, 112). Even the legendary coach Phil Jackson has said that

53

Jackson was essentially Steph Curry before Steph Curry; this is high praise considering Curry

is now a 2-time Most Valuable Player (MVP) and might be the greatest shooter in NBA

history (see Jackson 2016).

After entering the NBA and having success as a rookie in the 1990-91 season,

Jackson converted to Islam. Similar to some other high-profile professional Muslim athletes

in the United States (i.e. Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) Jackson changed his

birth/civil name after conversion. Despite being warned that this could hurt his

endorsement contracts and reduce his name recognition, Chris Jackson became Mahmoud

Abdul-Rauf in 1993 (Grewal 2007, 112). Abdul-Rauf did, in fact, lose his shoe contract with

Nike, to which he responded by covering the brand’s logo with masking tape during games.

While suffering some measure of blowback for his muslim faith, it was not overwhelming.

He still secured a four-year contract with the Denver Nuggets worth $11 million, and was

valued as an efficient scorer and fan favourite; fans could be heard chanting, “Rauf, Rauf,

Rauf,” when he had a hot hand (Grewal 2007, 112).49 However, after it was revealed that he

had been sitting during the playing of the national anthem, all this changed.

As mentioned before, the case of Abdul-Rauf is somewhat strange in that he never

intended his decision to sit during the anthem to become a talking point. Nevertheless, the

reasons he gave for sitting were poignant and subversive. According to Abdul-Rauf, the

American flag was a symbol of oppression and tyranny, and he said that history would back

him up on that point (Jackson 2014, 116). He also noted that, as a Muslim, he was to avoid

49 ‘Hot Hand’ refers to when a basketball player is scoring well and efficiently. This means that they are taking a lot of shots, often times shots that are very difficult, and missing very few of them.

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nationalist practices and that the celebration of the American flag and anthem could be

interpreted as mediums being worshipped (Spiegel 1998, 24). While he sat quietly for 60

games - without any contention - once his (in)action was picked up by the sports media he

did not shy away from it, at least initially. Predictably, the backlash came swiftly. Abdul-Rauf

went from fan favourite scoring sensation to the target of Islamophobic attacks seemingly

overnight. The radio journalist who first exposed Abdul-Rauf’s refusal to stand during the

anthem went to Abdul-Rauf’s mosque with a speaker and entered the mosque while

blasting the Star-Spangled Banner (Jackson 2014, 118). Hate mail poured in to both Rauf

personally and his team, the Denver Nuggets. Over 200 people called the team and

threatened to boycott games or cancel their season tickets if the team failed to reprimand

Abdul-Rauf (Grewal 2007, 117). Abdul-Rauf was also suspended indefinitely, without pay, by

the NBA for violating a little-known rule that NBA players and staff must stand respectfully

during the anthem (NBA 2014, 60), but was reinstated after just 1 game and had his pay

returned. The punishment was rescinded quickly, as Abdul-Rauf agreed to stand during the

anthem, albeit with his head bowed and eyes closed in prayer (Grewal 2007, 116). Rauf said

that he had not meant to be disrespectful in any way, and his willingness to reach a

compromise and pray while standing during the anthem seemed to reflect this (Spiegel

1998, 37).

This is why the example of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf is unique within the context of this

chapter. With Abdul-Rauf pivoting from his original comments that the American flag

symbolizes tyrannical oppression, it appears that he walked back his comments as a means

of reducing public uproar against himself and Islam more generally (Grewall 2007). Unlike

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previous athletes like Ali, who defended their actions in the face of reactionary coercion and

used their platform as athletic celebrities to shed light on issues they were concerned with,

Abdul-Rauf acquiesced to power. Though closing one’s eyes and praying during the anthem

might seem to be an appropriate sort of middle ground, Abdul-Rauf - despite his talent and

former popularity - was traded at the end of the 1996 season to the Sacramento Kings,

where he would play the remaining two years of his contract. In 1998, at the age of 29,

Abdul-Rauf was unable to secure a contract with an NBA team. As one writer put it, he was

exiled to, “basketball Siberia,” and played professionally in Turkey for two years (Perrin

2016). While he would return to the NBA in 2000 for one last run with the Vancouver

Grizzlies, Abdul-Rauf again found himself without a contract and retired after just one year.

In 2001, the home he was building in Mississippi was burned to the ground and KKK graffiti

was found on the property (Grewal 2007, 120). The FBI opened an investigation into the

arson but has never pressed charges, though it listed the KKK as a prime suspect. A

convincing argument could be made that Abdul-Rauf offended (White) America and was

unable to escape the consequences for doing so, even after being forced out of the NBA and

losing his career.

Conclusion

Using the analytical framework laid out in chapter 2, each of the examples presented here

qualify as acts of athletic resistance, though some are more consequential than others. Each

of the examples involved a professional Black athlete responding to racism and/or racial

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inequality/injustice in the United States; Jack Johnson resisted the racist norms of Jim Crow

America, John Carlos and Tommie Smith showed solidarity with the Black Power movement,

and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf quietly challenged symbols of American oppression.

Furthermore, each of the athletes examined leveraged their platforms as professionals to

resist. Muhammad Ali used the media to condemn American imperialism and discuss the

shared anti-racist struggle of Black Americans and the Vietnamese (kaottikalm 2011).

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar boycotted the Olympics because he did not want to compete for a

country that was not his because of his black skin. Craig Hodges used a championship visit at

the White House to call on the President to address the legacy of slavery. Each of these are

meaningful acts of resistance that counter the usual role of sports as a cultural instrument

that helps maintain hegemony , and give proof to the fact that sports can serve as a site of

resistance.

A common thread through all of these examples is the use of reactionary coercion.

Jack Johnson was charged under the Mann Act for bringing his White wife across state

borders. Muhammad Ali was charged with the federal crime of draft dodging. John Carlos

and Tommie Smith never again competed with the U.S. national track team. Craig Hodges

was out of the NBA in a year, while Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was out of the NBA in two years.

While never formally banned, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar experienced fierce criticism in the

media and was never offered a job in the NBA once he retired (even though he is

recognized as one of the greatest to ever play the game). It should be clear, then, why most

athletes decide to simply ‘shut up and play:’ they understand that speaking up can cost

them their jobs. Nobody wants to end up like Craig Hodges: out of the league in the prime

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of his career despite being a key piece on a championship team, economically broken in a

few short years, and with no hope of returning to the NBA despite having the skills to do so.

In light of this, Gramsci’s concept of hegemony (most specifically the balancing of

consent/coercion) helps situate the realities of athletic resistance.

Professional athletes (largely) consent to the terms of the owners and league

executives because they understand the stakes: shut your mouth and play, and, in return,

you will be rewarded handsomely in the form of a lucrative contract and celebrity (Abdel-

Shehid and Lamb 2011, Ch.2). Consent carries with it various visible benefits. At the same

time, resistance brings with it various, very visible consequences through the form of

coercion. Raise your voice in resistance and you will find yourself criticized and/or

unemployed. Given the choice between the carrot (of million-dollar salaries) and the stick

(of unemployment), it is remarkable that any athlete chooses to resist. Yet there are many

historical examples of athletic resistance, as examined in this chapter.

The examples of athletic resistance provided in this chapter demonstrate the power

that male Black professional athletes have alongside the precariousness of their situation.

Even the best athletes in the world can find themselves stripped of their recognition and

status, as was the case with Ali. Role players like Craig Hodges can be blackballed with

hardly a second thought. The looming spectre of unemployment was referenced by NFL

players in 2017 when asked about whether they would follow Colin Kaepernick’s example

and protest during the American national anthem before each game. DaQuan Jones, a

defensive lineman for the Tennessee Titans who raised a fist during the playing of the

anthem in the 2016-17 NFL season – an act in tribute of Carlos and Smith – said that he

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would not protest during the 2017-18 season because it was a contract year and he did not

want to affect his endorsements or ability to attract a long-term contract offer (Wolfe

2017). History shows that he is right to be concerned. Jack Johnson, Muhammad Ali, John

Carlos and Tommie Smith, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Craig Hodges and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf

all experienced some measure of retribution for their resistance. Yet, even following the

hegemonic attempts to make examples of these dissenting athletes, professional athletes

continue to engage in acts of resistance. Even if they are a minority, several contemporary

professional male Black athletes have refused to just shut up and play.

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Chapter 4 – Black Lives Matter

Getting choked by detectives, yeah, yeah, now check the method

They be askin us questions, harass and arrest us

Sayin’ “We eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast”

Huh? Y’all eat pieces of shit? What’s the basis?

We ain’t goin nowhere but got suits and cases

- Kanye West, “Jesus Walks.” (2004)

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Michael Jordan is one of the most famous athletes in history, and widely considered to be

the greatest basketball player of all time. “Air Jordan” was so iconic for his high-flying dunks

and clutch shot-making ability that his clothing and shoe line still brings in billions of dollars

in annual revenue for Nike more than a decade after his retirement (Rovell 2016). Unlike

the athletes discussed in the previous chapter, Michael Jordan did not use his platform as a

professional athlete to engage in any acts of resistance. Moreover, it could be suggested

that Jordan intentionally chose to ‘just shut up and play,’ as both an athlete and brand.

Taking a position on controversial issues has the potential to deter consumers, a practice

businesses do not encourage.50 Rather they seek to appeal to as many potential consumers

as possible. Jordan has been no different, as exemplified by his famous quote: “Republicans

buy sneakers too” (Wiedeman 2017). Through the 1980s, 1990s, and onwards, the amount

of money available to professional athletes in American major league professional sports

increased rapidly. Past athletes like Oscar Robertson and Curt Flood had helped open the

door to increased earnings for athletes in professional sports through their battles with the

NBA and MLB for free agency. Those that followed would individually benefit from these

opportunities (Sam Smith 2017).51 As contracts and endorsements grew in value,

professional athletes increasingly developed their personal ‘brands’ to market themselves,

50 See Abdel-Shehid “Protests not welcome in the spectacle of sports” (2017) for a brief but apt discussion of

this. 51 Robertson and Flood were both all-star athletes in the NBA and MLB, respectively. They are both also Black men and sued their leagues over rules that barred players from signing a contract with a new team without their old team’s permission, making it so that players could not negotiate contracts for their ‘market value’ since there was no marketplace for players to change teams. Both Robertson and Flood were punished for their actions by league executives and team-owners, including an inability to find jobs in pro-sports following their retirement despite their long-time athletic accomplishments. For more information, see Lynch 2017; Sam Smith 2017; Rhoden 2006, 2016, 2017; Barra 2011.

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and “brands don’t do politics” (Wiedeman 2017; Leonard and King 2009, 221). Michael

Jordan is the most famous example of this, though many other prominent professional

athletes did the same.

Harry Edwards has framed this behaviour as a characteristic associated with the

Negro athlete, rather than the Black athlete. Writing in the late 1960s, Edwards cites the

Negro athlete as being more concerned with self-gain rather than the broader uplifting of

his race. The new ‘Black’ athlete, however, understood that personal gain would not

necessarily remedy issues of racism or broader racial inequality (Edwards 1969, Ch.1; Olsen

1968, 22; McRae 2018). For many years, though, the vast majority of professional Black

athletes acted in a way that was more similar to Edwards’ conceptualization of the “Negro”

athlete. They appreciated the benefits of professional athletics, specifically the high-income

and pseudo-celebrity status, and chose to ‘just shut up and play.’52 Recent years suggest a

bucking of this trend with a resurgence in acts of resistance amongst professional Black

athletes (Jason Reid 2017c). The reason(s) for this are unclear, though future research

projects could look into possible explanations.53 Nevertheless, professional Black athletes

show a willingness to use their platforms as famous public figures to challenge issues of

racism, racial inequality, and other social issues, albeit in ways that are quite different from

the past. This is done while knowing fully well that engaging in such acts of resistance may

52 Chapter 2 of Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Nathan Lamb’s Out of Left Field – Social Inequality and Sport (2011) does a terrific job of exploring how athletes are wooed into obedience by the status benefits of being a professional athlete, specifically the high-pay and celebrity status. 53 Possible explanations include the rise of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, the increased role of social media vs. traditional media, shifting pay scales on account of endorsement deals and rising league salary caps, the influence of Colin Kaepernick’s protest, and/or backlash to Donald Trump. Lou Moore offers a convincing argument that rates of athletic activism are tied to historical context, and that the recent upsurge in activism is due to the ‘new civil rights movement’ exemplified by Black Lives Matter (2017b).

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threaten their careers and thus income, as the examples documented in chapter 3 make

clear. Professional athletes are precariously employed, and protest has the potential to

threaten their (incredibly lucrative) employment.

This chapter will examine seven different examples of resistance by professional

Black athletes between 2012 and 2017. This is not a comprehensive list of all acts of athletic

resistance during these years but rather a selection of specific examples meant to highlight

various expressions of contemporary athletic resistance. The reason that 2012 was chosen

as the first year for the examples is that this is the year in which Trayvon Martin was killed,

which seemed to prompt professional Black athletes to reclaim their voice and platform in a

way that had been very uncommon in preceding years.54

The reasoning for these contemporary acts of professional Black athletic resistance

shall be framed into two distinct categories: 1) Racism and Police Brutality: Acts of

resistance that fall within this category involve athletes resisting racism and/or police

brutality specifically 2) Donald Trump: Acts of resistance that fall within this category

involve direct opposition to Donald Trump.55 The chapter will begin by presenting four

examples of athletic resistance involving racism and/or police brutality: I) The Miami Heat’s

“Hoodie” team photo following the shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012; II) Richard

Sherman’s opposition to the dog-whistle racism of the term ‘thug’; III) Members of the St.

54 The most prominent act of professional Black athletic resistance between 1997 (the year following Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf’s protest of the anthem) and 2012 is MLB player Carlos Delgado’s refusal to stand for the playing of God Bless America during the 7th inning stretch of MLB games in 2004. He did this because he had seen the impact of U.S. weapons testing in his home country of Puerto Rico, and opposed the U.S. military operation in Iraq (Rhoden 2004). 55 No professional athlete has referenced Ta-Nehisi Coates specifically when discussing Trump, but the way in which professional Black athletes are opposing Trump fits with Coates’ vision of Trump as the “First White President.” (2017)

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Louis Rams running onto the field with their hands up in the “Hands Up Don’t Shoot”

gesture following the acquittal of Darren Wilson; IV) The “Banana Boat” crew’s discussion of

police brutality at the ESPY’s in 2016.56 There will then be a discussion of three examples of

athletic resistance targeting Donald Trump: I) The NBA champion Golden State Warriors

refusing to go to the White House to commemorate their championship; II) LeBron James

calling Donald Trump a ‘bum’ on Twitter for disinviting the Warriors; III) The “Equality”

shoes that LeBron James wore on opening night and when playing in Washington, DC.

The chapter moves on to offer a brief comparison of contemporary and historic acts

of professional Black athletic resistance before concluding with an analysis of the seven

examples using the analytical framework developed in chapter 2. With the notable

exception of the Kaepernick case, the open use of coercion to pre-empt or suppress athletic

resistance has declined in recent years, but so too has the radical nature of this resistance.

Few athletes are (publicly, at least) discussing the structural roots of racism, poverty,

sexism, environmental degradation and other issues.57 Rather athletes are instead

condemning incidents, or even patterns of injustice, without (publicly) taking an extra-step

to look at the structural roots of such injustices. This is not being noted to condemn said

athletes, but rather to highlight the differences between past and present acts of athletic

resistance. Muhammad Ali very publicly decried American imperialism and racism both at

56 The “Banana Boat” crew refers to NBA superstars Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Paul. All of them are friends off of the court, have played on multiple All-Star and Olympic teams together, and were famously photographed playing on an inflatable Banana tube pulled behind a boat in the summer of 2015. 57 Interestingly, Jaylen Brown, a 20 year old Black man who plays on the Boston Celtics, broke this mold in an interview at the beginning of 2018. He openly discussed the shifting form of racism in America, the persistence of systemic poverty, and how sports are used as a distraction (McRae 2018).

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home and abroad while refusing to serve in the U.S. army in Vietnam and was charged with

a felony crime for doing so. Meanwhile the vast majority of contemporary professional

athletes refuse to condemn American military efforts, even at a time when the ties between

militarism and professional sports have come under scrutiny (Wilson 2017; McCain and

Flake N/D). Simply put, there are noticeable differences between contemporary and

historical acts of athletic resistance, as well as the responses to them, though the central

concern with anti-racism endures.

Racism, Police Brutality, and Athletic Resistance

Figure 2 - Miami Heat 'Hoodie' photo following the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012. (Munsenrieder 2014)

The act that serves as the starting point of what is here classified as contemporary

professional Black athletic resistance is the Miami Heat’s “Hoodies Up” team photo in

February of 2012 (ESPN 30 for 30 Podcasts 2017). The impetus for this team photo was the

murder of Trayvon Martin. On the night of February 26, 2012, Trayvon Martin was shot by

George Zimmerman while walking home from the local corner store. Martin had gone to get

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some Skittles and iced tea to snack on during the second half of the NBA All-Star game, but

never made it home (McVeigh 2012). Zimmerman claimed that he shot Martin in self-

defence. An audio tape of Zimmerman calling 9-1-1 revealed, however, that it was, in fact,

Zimmerman who pursued Martin before shooting the teenager, as he considered Martin to

be a suspicious (Black) figure wearing a hoodie (Morris 2012). When police arrived on the

scene, Martin lay motionless on the ground, already dead. Zimmerman was free to leave

the scene without charge (Modiano 2017). 58

Martin’s death, coupled with Zimmerman remaining free, became the focus of

immediate civil unrest. After nearly a month had passed following Martin’s murder, players

from the Miami Heat decided that it was time to use their platforms as professional athletes

to call attention to what they saw as an injustice. On March 23rd, 2012, LeBron James

posted a photo to his Twitter account. In the photo all the players on the Miami Heat

basketball team are wearing black team hoodies with the hoods up, heads bowed, hands in

their pockets, and their faces draped in shadows (ESPN.com 2012). 59 Their positions

replicated that of Martin on the night that he was killed and highlight how closely they were

connected to the situation. Dwyane Wade, a star player for the Heat, spoke of how his own

son - 10 years old at the time – asked to receive hoodies for Christmas, which caused him to

58 Zimmerman was later charged with manslaughter, but was cleared of charges in 2013 because of Florida’s ‘Stand your ground’ self-defense laws. There was uproar over this, but as noted by Ta-Nehisi Coates, this was a case of the justice system working according to the letter of the law, and reveals that the law (and other structures) must be changed to prevent such injustice from occurring in the future (Coates 2013). 59 The only player on the team that was not in the photo was Mike Miller, who was not with the team at the time because of injury. Miller was the only White player on the team, and his absence from the photo caused some to say that this was evidence of team division over taking the photo (Marshall 2012), but this was not the case. Rather Miller was injured, so when the photo was taken he was at home in Miami instead of Detroit with the team.

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challenge American society to get past the stereotyping of young Black men as dangerous

criminals (ESPN.com 2012; Thomas 2018).60

After posting the photo, James and Wade refused to back down or compromise on

their stance regarding Trayvon’s death. This marked a break from the recent past, where

athletes had been criticized for being “human bar codes… reticent to speak out on

anything outside their arenas of expertise [sports]” (Reed 2012). Instead they defended

the photo and continued to use their platform as professional athletes and celebrities to

push for justice. James even referenced the tradition of professional Black athletic

resistance when asked about the photo, mentioning Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-

Jabbar, Oscar Robertson, and Bill Russell as inspirational figures. He commented that if

the photo helped rekindle the fire of athletic activism, then it would have achieved its

goal (ESPN 30 for 30 Podcasts 2017, 29:00). James and others also wrote messages on

their game-sneakers for several games after the photo, including things like “RIP Trayvon

Martin” and “We want Justice” (ESPN.com 2012).

In the spring of 2013, Zimmerman was cleared of manslaughter in relation to

Martin’s murder. Responses swiftly poured in. The Heat’s hoodie photo seemed to have

effectively revitalized professional Black athletic resistance after very few such acts

during the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. It seemed to remind professional athletes that they

had a platform available to them that most people did not, and while their

actions/rhetoric could threaten their job security, they could choose to do more than

60 Even Barrack Obama, then beginning his second term as President of the United States, spoke out following the murder of Trayvon Martin, saying that if he had a son, that child would look like Trayvon.

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stick to sports. Various Black NFL and NBA players chimed in on Twitter and in interviews

about the injustice of Trayvon’s death and Zimmerman being cleared by the Florida

justice system. As Stevie Johnson, then a wide receiver with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, said,

“Living in a world where you fight dogs; you could lose everything (Mike Vick) . . . if you kill a

black man you're not guilty! #INjusticeSystem" (Modiano 2017).61 So, too, did others voice

their dissent in this new period of resistance. One such example is Richard Sherman.

In 2014, Richard Sherman began challenging what he felt was racist rhetoric in the

media. Sherman is a Black man who played cornerback for the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks at

the time (he now plays for the San Francisco 49ers), and has become infamous both for his

talent on the field and outspokenness away from it. On January 19, 2014 the Seahawks

played against the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football Conference (NFC)

championship game. The game was close throughout and came down to the final play.

Sherman broke up a pass intended for 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree and proceeded to

celebrate on the field, running over to Crabtree to make a choking gesture at him, for which

he was given an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.62 Then immediately after the game, and

just moments after his game-winning pass deflection, Sherman was interviewed on the

sidelines by Erin Andrews, who is a White woman. Sherman went on an impassioned rant

about how Michael Crabtree was a “sorry” receiver who should not open up his mouth

61 This refers to Michael Vick, the famous Black quarterback who played for the Atlanta Falcons before being found guilty of being involved with a dog fighting ring. Vick spent a year and a half in prison for his crime, but after being released returned to the NFL and played for several more years. 62 Sherman later said that this was both smack talk and paying homage to Reggie Miller and Spike Lee’s famous interactions during the 1994 and 1995 playoffs, saying “Nah man, it’s Reggie Miller. It’s [sports] rivalries” (Dator 2014). It also came out later that part of Sherman’s reaction was that Crabtree had insulted Sherman at a charity event in the summer of 2013. Sherman would not go into details, but it was insinuated that Crabtree had insulted Sherman personally (CNN 2014, 1:05).

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about Sherman, since he (Sherman) was the best cornerback in the game (Boren 2014).

Andrews was visibly uncomfortable during the interview, as Sherman was very emotional

and strayed far from the standard post-game interview routine where the player mutters a

few clichés about the game and their upcoming opponent before returning to the locker

room. Instead millions of people watched live as a White woman stood in close proximity to

a tall, impassioned Black man with dreadlocks demanding that he be respected as the best

in the world at his position. The racialized dynamics that are ever present in a U.S. based

professional sports league where 70% of the players are Black while most fans are White

became explicit, and it did not take long for racist responses to fly in (Romano 2017).

In the day immediately following Sherman’s post-game interview with Andrews, the

term ‘thug’ was used to refer to Sherman 625 times on television broadcasts.63 The term

‘thug’ was not, and is not, an innocuous adjective. It functions as a racially coded term used

to express racist concerns in a way that is not formally offensive, since thug is not an

explicitly racialized term (Lopez 2016). Sherman understood the dog-whistle racism of the

word, though, and said as much in his first media appearance following the now infamous

interview with Andrews. He recounted how it bothered him to be called a thug, as it

seemed like “the accepted way of calling somebody the N word nowadays” (News today

2014, 1:10). He then went on to point out how the meaning of the word thug seemed to be

little more than a racial epithet for Black men, since Sherman watched an NHL game in

which the players started to fight before the puck was even dropped and yet nobody in the

63 This was more than any other day in at least the 3 years previous, according to Deadspin (Petchesky 2014)

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media referred to the hockey players as thugs.64 Sherman had done nothing more than

‘trash talk’ an opponent, whereas the hockey players had literally fought each other before

play had even started; nevertheless, it was Sherman, a Black man, who was labelled a thug

(News Today 2014, 1:25).

Of course, underlying this statement is the fact that all of the players involved in the

hockey brawl were White, whereas Sherman is Black. What’s more, Sherman does not shy

away from his Blackness. He wears his hair in long dreadlocks tied back with a headband,

and frequently references growing up in Compton when interviewed. What is less well

known, however, is that he also graduated from Stanford with a 3.9 GPA while majoring in

communications despite also being a standout varsity football athlete. As LeBron James

tweeted in support of Sherman, “I don't know one "thug" that graduated from Stanford

and also working on their Masters! Dont [sic] judge a book by its cover” (James 2014).

Despite being articulate, well-educated, hard-working, and skilled at his craft,

Sherman was labelled a ‘thug’ for what he said during an interview in the heat of the

moment immediately following the biggest play of his career. As David Leonard points

out in Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and Off the Field (2017), this sort of

behaviour is not tolerated from Black athletes. White athletes, however, often do get

away with such behaviour. Tom Brady – a White quarterback for the New England

Patriots - is famously passionate on the football field and sidelines, often times

64 He was referring to a line brawl between the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks in January 2014 where the players began to fight before the puck had been dropped to start the game. Then at intermission, John Tortorella, the Head Coach of the Canucks at the time, had tried to enter the Flames’ dressing room to fight the Head Coach of the Flames (Wyshynski 2014). Tortorella, who is White, was criticized, fined and suspended for his behaviour, but was not labelled a ‘thug.’

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screaming at team-mates or even coaches. His behaviour, though, is taken as evidence

of his passion and drive to win. Rob Gronkowski, one of Brady’s White team-mates on

the Patriots, is similarly worthy of anlaysis. Frequently seen partying and consuming

alcohol recklessly– he even officially sponsored a “party boat cruise” – his behaviour is

dismissed as ‘antics’ (Bowers 2016). Even when Gronkowski was involved in a fight with

several Black Seahawks players at the end of their Super Bowl matchup in 2015,

Gronkowski laughed it off and said that his thought process was, “Screw it, I’m throwing

haymakers” (Silverman 2015). There was no uproar to his comments, but it is safe to

predict that if one of the Black Seahawks players involved had said the same thing, they

would have been criticized heavily. As Greg Howard wrote,

A public personality can be black, talented, or arrogant, but he can’t be any more

than two of these traits at a time. It’s why antics and soundbites from guys like Brett

Favre, Johnny Football and Bryce Harper [all of whom are White] seem almost

hyper-American, capable of capturing the country’s imagination, but black

superstars like Sherman, Floyd Mayweather, and Cam Newton are seen as

polarizing, as selfish, as glory boys, as distasteful and perhaps offensive… What I am

saying is that there’s an inequality and a double standard here that’s a result of the

unsolvable problem(s) of race in America. Realizing that yes, this is manifest in our

national sport shouldn’t come as a surprise, but that realization definitely makes all

of this fun a lot less fun. (Howard 2014)

In calling out the way in which the term ‘thug’ has been used as a racial epithet,

Sherman forced sports fans to at least consider that politics and sports cannot be

separated. Harry Edwards is right to note that sports are a microcosm of society, and in a

capitalist society plagued by racism, racism will inevitably manifest itself in sports (Edwards

1973, 361). The athletes themselves are well paid (and exploited) workers, but they are still

subject to the effects of race in America despite their high income. When they leave the

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stadium, they can be – and are – pulled over for driving while Black, as the example of

Anthony Morrow makes clear. Though they themselves may no longer live in a ‘hood,’

oftentimes family members and friends still do. Sherman understood the continued

relevance of racism in 21st century America, and pointed it out forcefully. It was this same

concern with racism - along with a strong connection to their communities - that drove five

members of the St. Louis Rams to run onto the field with their arms up in the “Hands Up

Don’t Shoot” position on November 30, 2014.

On August 9, 2014, Mike Brown was shot dead by police officer Darren Wilson in

Ferguson, Missouri. Details about what led up to the shooting remain unclear, as some

witnesses say the deceased had his arms raised when shot while others say that he was

charging Wilson (BBC News 2014). What is known, however, is that Brown was unarmed

when he was shot six times by officer Wilson and his lifeless corpse was left to lie in the

street for four hours after his killing (Bosman and Goldstein 2014). Protests broke out

throughout Ferguson that night as Black residents decried the shooting, which was seen as

yet another example of racist policing practices in Ferguson that disproportionately

targeted (and harmed) Black residents (United States Department of Justice – Civil Rights

Division 2015). The situation escalated quickly. Protests were active, with some turning

violent, and police moved in with swat gear and armored vehicles in a scene that looked

more like a war zone than an American suburb (Li 2014).

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Figure 3- Militarized police forces in Ferguson, Missouri in response to protests following the death of Mike Brown. (Slater and Friesen 2014)

On November 24, 2014, a Grand Jury decided not to indict Officer Wilson in

connection with his shooting of Brown, determining that Wilson had reason to fear for his

life when he shot multiple rounds into Brown (New York Times 2015). After the Grand Jury

decision, five players from the St. Louis Rams NFL team - all Black - decided to show

solidarity with those calling for justice in Ferguson and elsewhere. On November 30, 2014,

Kenny Britt, Jared Cook, Tavon Austin, Stedman Bailey and Chris Givens collectively ran onto

the field before the Rams’ game with the Oakland Raiders with their arms raised in the

“Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” position (SI.com 2014, Rams).

Ferguson is not far from St. Louis, and several Rams’ players have friends and family

living in the community. As Kenny Britt said, “That’s our community. We wanted to let the

community know that we support the community” (as quoted in ESPN.com 2014). While the

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Rams went on to trounce the Raiders 52-0 after the pre-game gesture, reactionary outrage

to the pre-game gesture was immediate.

Figure 4 - St. Louis Rams players raise their arms in the "Hands Up Don't Shoot" gesture to show solidarity with protestors in Ferguson following the death of Mike Brown. (Katzowitz 2014)

Within hours, the St. Louis Police Officers’ Association released a statement calling

for the five players to be disciplined. It denounced the “myth” that Mike Brown was

executed by a police officer, and told the team that St. Louis police officers were the only

thing “protecting” them from the “violent thugs burning down buildings” (emphasis mine)

(SI.com 2014, Rams).65 Interestingly, though, neither the team nor league punished the

players openly. While he personally felt it important to keep politics and sports separate,

the Rams’ head coach Jeff Fisher (who is White) backed the players, stating that they have

the right to exercise free speech and would not be punished (CBS.com 2014; ESPN.com

65 Again, thug is a thinly veiled racist insult. The majority of people protesting and rebelling in Ferguson and elsewhere were Black, but the Police Officers’ Association couldn’t get away with using an explicit racial epithet so settled instead for thug. In light of the coverage that Richard Sherman’s resistance to the term received just nine months earlier, the audacity of the St Louis Police Officers’ Association to use the term is staggering.

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2014). This did not mean that players were not subject to retribution for their expression of

dissent, however. For example, Jared Cook received threats through phone calls and across

social media platforms. In response, he tried to clarify the reasoning behind the protest and

noted that the intent was not to disrespect police (Martin 2014). Similar to Mahmoud

Abdul-Rauf in 1996, Cook appeared to (try and) distance himself from the protest when the

reaction became more negative than anticipated. Cook noted that he and other Rams’

players did not mean to “take sides” when they raised their arms and insisted that he

respected the police, as the police were helping out in the community every single day (as

quoted in Martin 2014).

This serves as an example of hegemonic balance and maintenance. None of the five

Rams players were exposed to an overt coercive response through fines or suspension by

the team or league. In fact, three of the players continue to work in the league (as of 2017).

From a theoretical standpoint, however, the basis of this analysis of hegemonic coercion

centres around how the players consensually acquiesced to power. The anti-racist message

of the players’ pre-game act was lost as they sought to protect themselves from reactionary

criticism and coercion – much like Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf nearly 20 years earlier. The players

retracted the criticism central to their action, abandoned any repetition of the act, and

specifically voiced support for the police (the very focus of the “Hands Up Don’t Shoot”

gesture). While the players’ pre-game gesture can still be understood as an act of resistance

given that it criticized the police and showed solidarity with people protesting in Ferguson

and elsewhere, the subsequent response displays how such acts of resistance can be

hegemonically undercut with the consent of the participants themselves.

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When analyzing athlete-based acts of resistance, it is important not to overlook how

such expressions are reformist in their execution. The 2016 Excellence in Sports

Performance Yearly Award Show (ESPYS) helps illustrate this point. The ESPYS are an annual

sports awards show put on by ESPN, the massive corporation owned by Disney and self-

proclaimed “Worldwide leader in sports.” During the 2016 ESPYS, the group known as the

‘Banana Boat’ crew (LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, and Carmelo Anthony) broke

from the usual comedic opening scene of the program and used the platform as an

opportunity to discuss America’s racial climate following the shootings of Philando Castile

and Alton Sterling on consecutive days (Mandell 2016). Carmelo Anthony was the first of

the four to speak, opening things up by saying that “the system is broken.” Chris Paul

followed this up by saying that they were on stage that night to “be the change we need.”

He gave reverence to past athletes like Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as examples of

what athletes should stand for, and said that he, Anthony, Wade, and James hoped to

follow in their footsteps (Breaking Sports 2016, 1:40). Wade echoed that the non-valuing of

Brown and Black bodies had to stop and James closed by saying that this moment was an

“homage to Muhammad Ali, the GOAT [Greatest of All Time]. But to do his [Ali’s] legacy any

justice, this moment should be a call to action for professional athletes” (Breaking Sports

2016, 3:00).66

The Banana Boat crew thus highlighted the inter-connectedness of politics and

sports in a way that had not been done in recent years. Using the platform of the ESPYS,

66 Ali had passed away just a couple of months earlier, therefore Ali’s legacy was being frequently discussed in sports media at the time. See Chapter 3 for a discussion on the ‘disremembering’ of Ali’s legacy.

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they broadcast a speech promoting Black Lives Matter and encouraging athletes to take on

the responsibility to say as much (Yates 2016). As has been shown, actions challenging

power in the United States can be contentious. For one, ‘Black Lives Matter’ had become a

divisive statement (David Smith 2017). The all-Black Banana Boat crew, nevertheless, went

ahead with their message. It could be argued, however, that the way that they did so

drained their action of its potentially radical implications and insulated the group from the

most aggressive reactions.

James, Wade, Paul and Anthony are all sponsored by various (multinational)

corporations in addition to their NBA contracts, and these brands will not be associated

with something that would negatively impact their margin of profit.67 It should come as no

surprise, then, that the speech held back from a criticism of institutional racism or even

pervasive racism within policing. In fact, Paul highlighted how he has family members who

are police officers, and said that “we” need to do better, thereby bridging the gap between

those who would proclaim ‘Blue Lives Matter’ in response to the criticisms levied by ‘Black

Lives Matter’ advocates. Furthermore, the event was scripted. The speech was cleared with

the production staff before broadcast to ensure that the speech would be palatable to ESPN

and its audience. In short, the speech was an effective example of systemic co-optation; it

was a partnership between precariously employed yet well-paid professional athletes with

millions of dollars in endorsements and a multi-billion-dollar corporation desperate to avoid

controversy.

67 Paul and Anthony are both sponsored by Jordan brand and have signature shoes, James is the flagship Nike athlete and has multiple signature shoes, and Wade is sponsored by the Chinese brand Li-Ning, with which he also has a signature shoe.

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While the Banana Boat crew’s 2016 ESPYS speech was not radical in nature, it also

was not intended to be. Rather it was an act of resistance draped in reformist garb as

opposed to structural change. James, Wade, Anthony and Paul could have left social justice

aside by opting for a funny skit to open the awards show. Instead they used the platform of

the ESPYS to remind viewers that Black Lives Matter, highlighted the historical tradition of

professional Black athletic resistance, and argued that professional athletes have a

responsibility to use their platforms to effect change. The speech was done in a way that did

not threaten their endorsements and allowed ESPN to align and promote itself as a socially-

conscious media outlet, which is problematic; ESPN is a billion-dollar corporation concerned

with profits above all else, as evidenced by the hundreds of lay-offs in 2017 and the

suspension of Jemele Hill for criticizing Donald Trump (Curtis 2017). Much like other large

businesses, ESPN only has a conscience when ‘doing the right thing’ does not threaten

profits in a meaningful way. The fact remains, though, that the content of the ESPYS

opening speech was critical towards racism, police brutality, and highlighted the need for

change. What’s more, in the time since that speech, multiple professional Black athletes

have mentioned it as a moment that inspired them to use their platforms to advocate for

social justice (Haynes 2017), something that has become even more prevalent with the

election of Donald Trump.

Athletic Resistance and Donald Trump

The 2016 U.S. Presidential election made clear the interconnectedness of sports and

politics. The head coach of the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick (who is White), wrote a

letter of support for Donald Trump’s campaign, and the Patriots’ QB Tom Brady had a ‘Make

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America Great Again’ hat in his locker during a media availability session (Leibovich 2017).

LeBron James, on the other hand, appeared on stage with Hillary Clinton at a campaign stop

in Ohio (Bieler 2016), while numerous other professional athletes shared their opinions on

the presidential race in the months leading up to the election. After Trump’s triumph,

crticial responses toward the State reached a level of activity unheard of in the recent past

from the Black professional athletic community.

There is a tradition in American professional sports where the winner of a league

championship visits the White House. This practice dates back to John F. Kennedy inviting

the 1961/62 Boston Celtics championship team to the White House (Chau 2017). It was

Ronald Reagan, however, who ritualized inviting the champions from each of the ‘Big 3’

leagues (Baseball, Football and Basketball) to the White House (Neumann 2016). After

Trump’s election, it was unclear if the tradition would continue. Notorious for his toxic

rhetoric concerning issues of race, crime, and immigration, many players in the NBA, NFL

and MLB (the majority of players in the NBA and NFL are Black men, while a significant

number of MLB players come from the Dominican Republic and Mexico) questioned

whether their (championship) teams would visit the White House.68 The answer to the

question of whether championship teams would visit the White House was answered within

the first couple months of Trump’s presidency.

68 Within the NHL, there was no such question, as the (majority White) 2017 championship winning Pitssburgh Penguins visited the White House. Sidney Crosby, the star player for the Penguins, said “there’s absolutely no politics involved” with the visit, and Trump called the players “true champions and incredible patriots” (as quoted in CBC.ca 2017 and Teitel 2017).

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The first championship team of Trump’s presidency was the NFL’s New England

Patriots. Only half of the Patriots players visited the White House, a significant decrease

from the Obama years (Phil Perry 2017). Then came the NBA champion Golden State

Warriors. Throughout the NBA season, various Warriors players had spoken out against

Trump, including Steph Curry famously calling him an asset “if you remove the ‘et’”

(Podlesny 2017). Immediately after winning the NBA championship in June 2017, veteran

players David West and Andre Iguodala declared that they would not visit the White House,

even if invited (Spears 2017).69 In the weeks and months that followed it seemed unlikely

that the Warriors would accept any invitation to meet with the president, although the

head coach of the team, Steve Kerr, insisted that no decision would be made until the team

voted on the issue. When the Warriors team returned from the offseason for training camp

before the 2017-18 season, Curry was again asked about the possibility of the team’s White

House visit. Curry said that no decision had been made, but when the team voted, he

planned to vote no (Wells 2017). The very next day, Trump took to Twitter: “Going to the

White House is considered a great honor for a championship team. Stephen Curry is

hesitating, therefore invitation is withdrawn!” (Trump 2017) LeBron James compared

Trump’s tweet to watching someone dis-invite someone to a party when they heard that

the person they had invited would not be attending (Noah Friedman 2017). Steve Kerr

referred to the tweet as the President’s attempt to break up with the Warriors before they

dumped him (Ballard 2017).

69 West and Iguodala are both Black men.

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Lest they refuse him publicly, the actions of the Warriors players had forced the

President to pre-emptively bar them from attending the traditional championship ceremony

at the White House. The players had made it clear that their attendance was unlikely due to

the behaviour and politics of the President - particularly those related to race - and refused

to be used for a photo op (King 2017). This clear opposition to Trump was driven by several

of the Warriors’ veteran leaders in the locker room, specifically David West, Andre Iguodala,

and Steph Curry. The response would not stop here, though, as Trump’s pre-emptive ‘break

up’ with the Warriors caused a ripple effect of athletic resistance.

In what became the most re-tweeted post by an athlete in 2017 (Chavez 2017c),

LeBron James wrote, ““U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore

ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!” (James

2017) Using his Twitter account, James simultaneously criticized and dismissed Trump in

the most public fashion possible. Additionally, since Trump’s preferred method of

communication is Twitter, James ensured that Trump would see the message. In one fell

swoop, James showed support for the Warriors’ act of resistance and confronted Trump

directly. Unsurprisingly, there was immediate backlash to James’ tweet. Dan Gilbert, owner

of the Cleveland Cavaliers, received multiple hateful voicemails attacking James that Gilbert

described as “vile, disgusting and racist… there’s an element of racism that I didn’t even

realize existed in this country this much” (as quoted in Foxnews.com 2017).. When asked

about the tweet a couple days later, James defended it. He said that Trump occupied

the most powerful position in the world as President of the United States, and rather

than using it to unite, he drove people further apart (Noah Friedman 2017). James’

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tweet was a remarkable act of athletic resistance. His refusal to consent in the face of

power made it all the more meaningful. As Nathaniel Friedman wrote,

LeBron James wasn’t the first professional athlete (or coach) to criticize Donald Trump in no uncertain terms. But none of them, including Colin Kaepernick, have addressed him directly, much less come at him with this level of naked disrespect. “U bum” is a perfect insult, tailored precisely to Trump’s mammoth insecurities around wealth, prestige, and manliness. You’d expect nothing less from the best basketball player on the planet… Trump is a bully and a blowhard. James knocked him down a peg as only someone with his combination of power, authority, cred, relevance, and cool could. (Nathaniel Friedman 2017b)

It could be suggested that the tweet, and the subsequent reaction to it, caused

many athletes to better understand the platform available to them with which they could

express themselves via their millions of followers on social media, serving as yet another

inspiration for future acts of resistance.

The final act of contemporary professional Black athletic resistance addressed is

another example of Lebron James criticizing Donald Trump. On October 17, 2017, the

opening night of the 2017/18 NBA season, the Cleveland Cavaliers were hosting the Boston

Celtics. James took the floor in a pair of all-black Lebron 15 Nike shoes.70 Written in gold

fabric across the heel of each shoe was the word “Equality” (Lekach 2017). Wearing a

criticism of Trump’s time in office, James expressed how he wanted to let kids know that

there is hope and that not even the President of the United States could stop their dreams

from becoming reality (Rapaport 2017b; McMenamin 2017). On December 17, 2017, with

the Cavaliers in Washington, D.C. to play the Washington Wizards, James wore another pair

of ‘Equality’ shoes. This pair, however, had one black shoe and one white shoe, with the

70 ‘Lebron 15’ is the name of the 2017-18 model of Lebron James’ signature Nike shoe. They are the fifteenth annual version of his signature shoe, hence the name ‘Lebron 15’.

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word Equality written in multiple languages across both shoes (Fendrich 2017). After the

game LeBron said,

We all know where we are right now, and we know who is at the helm here. Us as Americans, no matter the skin color, no matter the race, no matter who you are, I think we all have to understand that having equal rights and being able to stand for something and speak for something and keeping the conversation going [is important.] (as quoted in McMenamin 2017) Similar to the 2016 ESPYS speech in which he participated, James had again shifted

the landscape of athletic resistance. Players had used their shoes to send personalized

messages in the past, for example when several players wrote celebratory messages on

their sneakers following the election of Barack Obama in 2008 (Richard 2012). James’

‘Equality’ sneakers were an official partnership with Nike, however. They are a player

exclusive colorway and were produced with the intention of James wearing them on

opening night and then in Washington D.C. If the ESPYS speech was an example of how an

act of resistance could be co-opted, the ‘Equality’ shoes might be its zenith.

The ‘Equality’ shoes are the product of a long-term commercial partnership between

James and Nike. Wearing shoes with the word Equality emblazoned across them in gold

fabric sends a clear message that James opposes Trump and his rhetoric, but also serves as

an ingenious marketing strategy. Pictures of Nike’s newest LeBron sneaker model were

displayed even more frequently than usual on the opening night of the NBA season, and

thousands of fans clamored to get a pair – myself included.71 Additionally, Nike (like

71 The shoes are a player exclusive, meaning that they are not available for general purchase by fans. Later in the 2017-18 NBA season, however, Nike announced that the shoes would be released on a limited basis via an online raffle, with revenue being donated to the National Museum of African-American History and Culture (Dodson 2018).

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ESPN/Disney with the ESPYS speech) positioned itself in the public-eye as a company that

both backs ‘woke’ athletes while being concerned with issues of social significance.72 Earlier

in 2017, the CEO of Under Armour had said that Trump was an asset to the country, which

had prompted Steph Curry’s, “if you remove the et,” comment referenced earlier (Podlesny

2017). Steph Curry is endorsed by Under Armour but given that he has an NBA contract

worth over $200 million, he has said that if he felt that Under Armour’s values did not align

with his own, he would partner with a different company (Marcus Thompson 2017). Under

Armour’s CEO then took out a full-page ad in The Baltimore Sun to clarify that he opposed

Trump’s travel ban, apparently to rectify his relationship with Curry (Singer 2017). The same

dynamic is at play with James and Nike. James has already made hundreds of millions of

dollars, and is Nike’s most valuable NBA athlete (Badenhausen 2017). Nike would not be

well-served by opposing James’ stand in favour of racial equality, and since James and Nike

share a symbiotic relationship, partnering on the ‘Equality’ shoes made sense for both

parties.

Interesting questions can be raised regarding the ‘Equality’ shoes as an act of

resistance, however. For on the one hand, the shoes are a medium through which anti-

racist resistance can be expressed. James deliberately wore them on multiple occasions to

counter actions and rhetoric related to racialized injustice that he considered to be

inexcusable. On the other hand, Nike shoes are, themselves, the product of racialized (and

72Nike is only concerned with social issues when those issues will not cut into their profits. Nike is notorious for exploiting low-cost laborers to manufacture their products, and is not genuinely concerned with issues of inequality, but will pretend otherwise if it helps the company turn a profit. The Rebel Sell (2005) provides a good discussion of this issue, though not this specific example.

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often gendered) exploited labour (Hengeveld 2016). Can the message of equality be

legitimate when it ignores those who do not live in America? Furthermore, given that both

James and Nike profit from the increased coverage the signature shoe line receives, should

the shoes be considered a savvy business strategy rather than an act of resistance?

There is no easy answer to this question, though it would seem to be both. This

thesis defines resistance, as expressed by contemporary professional Black athletes, as

something that is not revolutionary but rather reformist; the current paradigm of capitalism

is not the target of dissent. Rather than working towards or lobbying for structural change,

the athletes examined are pushing for reforms that will help improve issues of social

(in)justice. James has been at the forefront of this sort of athletic resistance since 2012

when the Miami Heat posed for their famous hoodie photo following the death of Trayvon

Martin. Could James do more? Of course.73 After all, he is the best player in the NBA and

has been one of the most valuable players in the league from the moment he entered the

league. Much like how Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was never suspended for his activism because

of his value on the court, James’ athletic dominance affords him a space to engage in a

modicum of resistance without the coercive push-back experienced by others. It is true that

James has used his platform to draw attention to social injustice while also donating

millions of dollars to various causes, but the fact remains that he could do much more. The

image, or ‘brand,’ of LeBron James is managed to a ridiculous degree, as evidenced by Nike

73 It should be noted that James has done incredible things for his community with his earnings, including establishing various scholarship funds and building schools for at-risk youth in his hometown of Akron, Ohio (Rafferty 2017). However this is very much a ‘band-aid’ approach to issues of poverty and access to quality education.

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confiscating footage of James being dunked on during a basketball camp with high-school

players in 2009 (ESPN.com 2009; see also Markovits 2014). Nike has a significant voice in

regard to James’ actions, both public and private, and Nike’s input is largely determined by

what will help sell more of its products. Under such a hegemonic dynamic, James’ resistance

is limited so as to not threaten both his corporate image and Nike’s bottom line. To quote

Meg Sri, this marks a continuation of the way in which corporations have hijacked the

message of social justice,

All of these ad[s] and products do the same thing: they empty popular protest movements of their political content, and instead use them to achieve their own ends—to sell us stuff (often made under exploitative conditions)… These advertisements, then, don’t just devoid popular movements of politics. They shift the politics at play in these movements towards a capitalist, exploitative and consumerist model, using a leftist mask to sell us products born of human rights abuses and unjust economic exploitation. (Sri 2017)

This commodification of dissent is important to recognize, as it is a problematic

fixture of many examples of contemporary athletic activism. Athletes like James, Curry,

Carmelo Anthony, and others have made efforts to confront issues of racism, police

brutality, access to education, and so on, but they have done so in partnership with multi-

national corporations (i.e. Nike, Under Armour, Jordan, etc.) This should not be dismissed

when framing resistance under hegemony. While those reviewed have used their

platform(s) as professional athletes to draw attention to injustice while also doing things

like building basketball courts and community centers in under-served communities

(Sherman 2016), these actions have no intention of bringing about change at a distal level.

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Instead these actions are meant to address issues of racism, police brutality, poverty, etc. as

they occur within a specific space and time.74

Historical vs. Contemporary Professional Black Athletic Resistance

An interesting comparison can be made between the seven contemporary examples of

professional Black athletic resistance included in this chapter and the six historical examples

provided in Chapter 3. Each act of resistance involved the athlete using the platform

available to them as professional athletes and public figures, though how this is done has

shifted over time. In the case of John Carlos and Tommie Smith, they raised their fists on

the medal stand at the 1968 Olympics to attract maximum attention to their resistance. In

the case of LeBron James in 2017, a tweet was sent to millions of followers that criticized

Donald Trump alongside a post-game interview with millions of people watching live. It

could also be suggested that contemporary acts of professional Black athletic resistance

have shifted from that of their predecessors. Muhammad Ali condemned American racism

at home and abroad while criticizing the American government directly, Carlos and Smith

raised their fists to shed light on poverty and racism, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf condemned the

stars and stripes as a symbol of oppression and tyranny (before walking back his

comments). Contemporary acts, in contrast, have a very narrow focus. Today’s acts of

athletic resistance target a specific event or person. The five Rams players who raised their

arms in a “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” gesture later said that this was not meant to be

74 This also raises the question of whether co-opted/corporate sponsored activism qualifies as resistance at all, or is simply a complex marketing ploy. As laid out in this thesis, these actions qualify as resistance because of their anti-racist message and the leveraging of the athletes’ platform, but this is not definitive. Future projects could investigate this issue further, as well as an intensive comparison between contemporary expressions of athletic activism with historical examples.

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disrespectful of police, even though the police were the very targets of the initial “Hands Up

Don’t Shoot” gesture (Rothstein 2014). LeBron James criticized Donald Trump directly, but

his support for the Clinton campaign was somewhat ironic since the wealth gap and/or

over-representation of Black and Brown bodies in prisons would still be the case if Clinton

had been elected president (see Eisenstein 2016; Nair 2016; Taylor 2016).

To some extent, the narrowed message of contemporary professional Black athletic

resistance can be attributed to the gains made by previous generations of professional

Black athletes; professional athletes can now enter free agency and choose which team to

sign with. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell were NBA superstars who were also vocal

on political and social issues, thereby setting an example for future generations of NBA stars

to follow (even if few did). Themes such as systemic poverty or imperialist militarism do not

seem to be on the agenda of contemporary professional Black athletes like it was for their

predecessors. Additionally, contemporary athletes are far more integrated into the power-

structure (and pay-offs) of corporations via sponsorships than their historical predecessors

were. This does not negate that some engage in anti-racist resistance and leverage their

celebrity to educate and inform, but they are doing so in a way that is far less

comprehensive than their predecessors.

Conclusion

Every example included in this chapter qualifies as an act of athletic resistance according to

the analytical framework laid out in chapter 2, even if these contemporary acts of athletic

resistance may not be as comprehensive as the historical examples presented in chapter 3.

Every contemporary act used as an example here involved the athletes resisting racism

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and/or racial inequality/injustice. Richard Sherman condemned the dog-whistle racism of

the term ‘thug,’ the Miami Heat called for justice for Trayvon Martin and condemned the

criminalization of Black youth, and the Golden State Warriors championship team

denounced Donald Trump and his racist rhetoric. Furthermore, each of these acts leveraged

their platform as professional athletes. In some cases, such as the Banana Boat Crew at the

ESPYS and LeBron James’ ‘Equality’ shoes, the issue of co-optation looms large.

Nonetheless, the merit of the acts remain, as they attracted considerable attention toward

messages confronting racism by repurposing the cultural front of sports. Contemporary acts

of resistance may have shifted in expression and form, but their anti-racist purpose

remains.

Professional sports leagues are now multi-billion-dollar enterprises, and professional

athletes are signed to ten or even hundred million-dollar contracts. Choosing to resist

threatens that one’s job security, a position that could earn them tens or even hundreds of

millions of dollars over the course of their career. Even still, various professional Black

athletes continue to resist. Their willingness to do so, in the face of potential coercion, is

significant. The one glaring omission of contemporary male Black professional athletic

resistance from the work thus far is, perhaps, the most noteworthy. Enter the subject of

Colin Kaepernick.

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Chapter 5 – Taking a Knee

I say, “Fuck the Police,” that’s how I treat ‘em

We buy our way out of jail, but we can’t buy freedom…

‘cause they made us hate ourself and love they wealth

- Kanye West, “All Falls Down.” (2004)

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On August 26, 2016, the San Francisco 49ers were playing the Green Bay Packers in the

third week of the NFL preseason. Little of note happened during the game, as is usual

during the preseason when teams are trying to determine which players to cut or retain.

What happened before the game, however, served as the first example of what would

become the most comprehensive act of contemporary athletic resistance. During the

playing of the American national anthem before the game began, all players and team staff

members stood at attention, as is ritual. All, that is, but one. Colin Kaepernick, who was a

quarterback for the 49ers, chose to sit alone on a bench along the sideline. This went

relatively unnoticed until after the game. In a post-game interview, a reporter covering the

49ers asked Kaepernick about why he was sitting during the anthem. Kaepernick made his

intentions very clear:

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder…This is not something that I am going to run by anybody. I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed... If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right. (as quoted in Wyche 2016)

This chapter makes the case that Colin Kaepernick’s actions during the 2016-17 and

2017-18 NFL seasons serve as the most comprehensive act(s) of athletic resistance since

Carlos and Smith raised their fists at the 1968 Olympics. Similar to Carlos and Smith,

Kaepernick experienced reactionary coercion and will likely never play in the NFL again.

Team-owners used Kaepernick as an example to demonstrate to other players what would

happen if they too used their platform as professional athletes in a manner that was not

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sanctioned by the league, team, or corporate endorsers.75 Kaepernick refused to consent to

the NFL’s unspoken rule that players keep (non-conservative) politics out of sports when he

condemned racial inequality and police brutality and challenged the NFL, and those

invested therein, to support anti-racist initiatives. 76 In response, he remains unable to

secure a contract in free agency as team-owners sought to strip him of his platform and

prevent similar acts in the future.

Figure 5- Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid kneel during the national anthem on Sept.12, 2016. (Polacek 2016)

The following pages examine Colin Kaepernick’s decision to sit, then kneel, during

the playing of the American national anthem before NFL games during the 2016-17 season,

as well as the subsequent reaction. Kaepernick very clearly articulated the reasons for his

75 Many NFL team-owners seem to consider themselves to be not just owners of the team, but also the actions of players employed by the team. See Symone Sanders’ comments in Jason Reid’s article “NFL owners’ pushback against protests could inch players closer to the positive change they seek,” (2017f). 76 While players are discouraged from expressing their political beliefs, team-owners and the NFL itself do so literally every game. Members of the military wearing their full uniforms are honored regularly, the national anthem is played before every game, and flyovers from military aircraft are a common sight, in part because the NFL has a multi-million dollar agreement with the American Department of Defense to do so (Willingham 2017; McCain and Flake N/D). Politics are very clearly a part of the NFL, it is just that these politics are league and owner-sanctioned, and therefore very conservative.

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resistance and refused to back down from it, even after he lost his position as an NFL

quarterback. There are several things to consider when analyzing the coercive reaction to

Kaepernick’s act of resistance: the conservative leanings of NFL team-owners, the fact that

NFL contracts are non-guaranteed, Donald Trump’s intervention into the situation, and the

presence of overt racism within the United States and NFL. Yet despite the very clear

example that was made of Kaepernick via his blackballing from the NFL, various Black

players continued to kneel or sit during the anthem throughout the 2017-18 NFL season. In

the face of coercion, there remain players who refuse to consent to the silence demanded

of them by team-owners and use their platforms to resist injustice.

Beginning with a brief overview of Colin Kaepernick’s time as an NFL quarterback

(QB), a discussion is provided of his achievements as a starting quarterback, non-traditional

playing style, status as a Black quarterback in a league where Black players continue to be

funneled away from ‘thinking’ positions (Reid and McManus 2017), and dog-whistle racist

criticisms of him for his tattoos. There will then be a brief discussion of the power dynamics

of the NFL, which differ greatly from that of the NBA or MLB. Next will come an examination

of the development of Kaepernick’s protest during the anthem throughout the 2016-17 NFL

season, including his decision to kneel rather than sit, and his donation of $1 million to

grassroots organizations combatting racial inequality. An examination of the 2017-18 NFL

season will follow this, including the blackballing of Kaepernick, the decision of various

players to carry on Kaepernick’s protest during the anthem, Donald Trump’s comments, and

the NFL’s attempt(s) to end or co-opt the anthem protests. The chapter will then close with

a discussion of the difference between Kaepernick’s resistance and other contemporary

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expressions of athletic resistance, before concluding by applying the analytical framework

to Kaepernick’s resistance.

Background on Colin Kaepernick and the NFL

Colin Kaepernick was drafted in the second round (36th overall) of the 2011 NFL draft by the

San Francisco 49ers. Kaepernick did not play much during the 2011-12 NFL season, as the

49ers already had a capable starting quarterback (Alex Smith) at the time. During the

2012/13 season, however, Smith was concussed in a game against the St. Louis Rams, and

Kaepernick came in to replace him. Kaepernick was immediately successful, playing so well

that even when Smith recovered from his injury it was decided that Kaepernick would

remain the starter (Breer 2013). The 49ers made the playoffs, and it was in the playoffs that

Kaepernick showed glimpses of being a dual-threat quarterback that could carry the 49ers

to playoff success.77

In the 49ers’ first playoff game against the Green Bay Packers that year, Kaepernick

set an NFL record with 181 rushing yards en route to winning the game (NFL.com 2013). The

49ers would go on to win the conference championship against the Atlanta Falcons before

losing to the Baltimore Ravens in the Super Bowl. Kaepernick had arrived as a talented

quarterback who could succeed in the playoffs and, at just 25 years of age, figured to

improve even further in the years to come. Kaepernick continued to impress during the

2013-14 NFL season and the 49ers played in the NFC championship again, losing on a last-

77 When discussing NFL quarterbacks, the term ‘dual-threat’ means that a quarterback can both pass and run at a high level. Most quarterbacks can pass at least somewhat well, while some others are talented runners. Very few combine the two.

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minute pass deflection.78 Coming up on the last year of his rookie contract, the 49ers were

looking to sign him to a new contract. Fresh off two NFC championship appearances and

incredible individual success in his two years as a starting quarterback, Kaepernick was

signed to a reported 7-year, contract worth $126 million (Gaines 2017a). At the time that it

was signed, this contract was the largest in NFL history.

To quote retired NBA player Jalen Rose, however, NFL contracts may as well be

written on toilet paper (ESPN 2017). This is because guaranteed money is what truly

matters when analyzing professional sports contracts. NFL contracts are very different than

those signed in the NBA or MLB. In the NBA and MLB, contracts are guaranteed unless

otherwise noted. In the NFL, contracts are not-guaranteed unless otherwise noted. Using

the example of Kaepernick’s contract, the only money guaranteed in it was the signing

bonus, which was $12.4 million dollars – less than 10% of the reported value of the

contract.79 Kaepernick would wind up playing just 3 years of the contract, and after agreeing

to restructure the contract in 2016 so that he could enter unrestricted free agency in 2017,

he wound up making $39.4 million over the course of those three years (Gaines 2017a).

That is a considerable figure, but less than a third of the reported value of the contract he

had signed. This is the norm for NFL contracts.

78 It was Richard Sherman who deflected that pass, which prompted his celebration and taunting of Michael Crabtree. As noted in the previous chapter, this in turn led to him being called a ‘thug,’ which he condemned forcefully. 79 There was a stipulation in the contract that were Kaepernick to suffer a career ending injury, he would be guaranteed $61 million. Since Kaepernick did not suffer a career ending injury, the $61 million was never paid out (Gaines 2017a).

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There are several reasons for which NFL contracts so heavily favour team-owners

rather than the players.80 The first reason is that NFL rosters are very large. There are 53

players on an active NFL roster, plus an additional 10 on the practice squad, so even though

the revenue of the NFL is far greater than that of the NBA or MLB, that money must also be

divided amongst far more players.81 In addition to there being a greater player pool to draw

from, players in the NFL are far more likely to suffer serious injuries than players in other

sports (Binney 2017). This combination of a larger player pool and high rate of injury means

that the average length of an NFL career is just 3 years (SI.com 2016a). This short career

length makes it difficult for the NFL Players’ Association (NFLPA) to negotiate a Collective

Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that favors the players. The strongest leverage that the NFLPA

has at its disposal is the threat of a strike, but in a league where players’ job security is so

precarious, and where many players only work for a few years, it is difficult to organize.82

Players are eager to earn as much as they can in the time available to them; they do not

have time to spare for a strike. Additionally, NFL team-owners are multi-billionaires. While a

strike would hurt team-owners, they have the capital (and other revenue streams) to wait

out a strike. In contrast, most players do not. Both sides recognize this. These unequal

80 Contracts with more guaranteed money favour players, while contracts with less guaranteed money favour team-owners. When there is little to no guaranteed money, the player can be cut with little to no financial penalty, where as if the money is guaranteed, cutting that player won’t save the owner any money. Guaranteed money ensures job and financial security for players. 81 In comparison, there are just 17 players on an NBA roster. 82 There are several reasons for which players are hesitant to strike. Many NFL players grew up in poverty, and the NFL represents a way out of poverty for them and their families. Therefore they (rightfully) want to earn as much money as they can, knowing that at any point they could be injured so severely that their career is over. Additionally, players must be 3 years removed from high school graduation before they are eligible to play in the NFL, during which time they play in the NCAA and are not paid. It’s a horribly exploitative system in which the NCAA makes billions of dollars in revenue while the players make nothing, sacrifice their bodies, and often do not graduate, but there is no other choice available to them if they hope to play in the NFL and have a chance at a multi-million dollar contract. See Scott 1971, Ch.5 and Ch.12; Nocera and Strauss 2016.

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power relations were reflected during the 2011 CBA negotiations, when players were

locked-out by team-owners before accepting an agreement that handed owners an even

larger share of league revenue than before (Volin 2013).

The NFL is an owner-driven league, which is important to note when analyzing

athletic resistance within the NFL specifically. NFL players are precariously employed, as

their contracts are non-guaranteed unless otherwise noted and they are less central to a

team’s success than their NBA counterparts. Most of the acts of contemporary athletic

resistance analyzed in chapter 4 took place in the NBA, which is driven by its star players

more than any other professional sports league; there are only seventeen players on a NBA-

team roster, and a team has just five players on the floor at any one time. Each player on an

NBA roster thus has a greater impact on their team’s success, or lack thereof, than any

individual on an NFL roster (with the possible exception of the quarterback). This means

that a generational talent in the NBA can carry their team to success with relatively little

help, and if a team has multiple All-Star level players, then they are likely to be a

championship contender.83 Therefore acquiring and retaining All-Star level players is a

priority of teams, often-times at the expense of roster depth.84 This affords talented NBA

players with leverage that NFL players do not have. Despite this, however, players like

83 This has always been the case throughout the NBA’s history but has come under scrutiny in recent years because (Black) players are now making ‘superteams’ rather than (White) team executives. The player-driven ‘superteam’ phenomenon was also started by Lebron James when he signed with the Miami Heat in 2010. Unfortunately, there is no room in this thesis for an analysis of this decision and its repercussions, but marks yet another way in which Lebron has pushed against the power-dynamics of the NBA. 84 This is complicated by the fact that the NBA has a cap on “maximum” player salaries. The specifics of the maximum salary limit are very complicated and vary according to the number of years that the player has played in the league and different performance incentives, but the simplest way of explaining the maximum salary limit is that maximum salaries are calculated as a percentage of the NBA’s salary cap in any given year. For example, if the salary cap was $100 million, and a player was eligible for a maximum salary that was 30% of the cap, then he could earn $30 million that year.

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Lebron James and Steph Curry - while engaged in acts of resistance - have not leveraged

their platform to the extent of Kaepernick.

It was in this owner-controlled environment that Kaepernick’s $126 million contract

became a $39.4 million one. In 2014-15, the season after he signed the then-record

contract, Kaepernick had a career best season statistically. The 49ers struggled as a team,

however, and missed the playoffs. During the following 2015-16 season, Kaepernick too

struggled. Injuries and poor performance saw him replaced as the starting quarterback

(Inman 2016a). Kaepernick would undergo various surgeries before the 2016-17 season,

which is the season in which he began to protest during the national anthem.

Before exploring Kaepernick’s anthem protest, there is one other aspect to

Kaepernick’s time in the NFL that must be considered. Colin Kaepernick is a tall, muscular,

tattooed Black man (Almond 2013). The quarterback position in American football has

historically been associated with Whiteness (Reid and McManus 2016; Jason Reid 2017f),

and Kaepernick fit none of the norms associated with White quarterbacks. Quarterbacks are

generally the face of a franchise, and some felt that Kaepernick’s tattoos made him

inappropriate as the face of the 49ers, with one media personality saying that quarterbacks

are like CEO’s, and “you don’t want your CEO to look like he just got paroled” (as quoted in

Peter King 2013). In relation to performance, quarterbacks are praised for standing in the

pocket and making throws before being hit by defensive lineman. In contrast, Kaepernick

often scrambled out of the pocket to make plays. Football players are often praised for

being humble, offering stock quotes, and putting the team first when interviewed;

Kaepernick would kiss his tattooed biceps after scoring a touchdown. Quite simply,

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Kaepernick was not a White quarterback, nor did he try to be, and he was resented by many

for this.85

All of this serves as the background for framing the reaction to Kaepernick’s act of

resistance during the 2016-17 NFL season. Kaepernick did not fit league norms. He was a

tattooed Black man playing a position predominantly filled by White players. He played in a

way that was different from most quarterbacks. Although just a couple years removed from

being one of the top quarterbacks in the league, Kaepernick’s injuries and declining play

made him less valuable as a player. In fact, the 49ers became increasingly hesitant to start

him for fear that he would suffer a career ending injury, which would force the team to pay

him $61 million in guaranteed income. In a matter of just three years, Kaepernick had gone

from being one of the most coveted and feared quarterbacks in the league to a polarizing

player with a lengthy injury history. By the end of the 2016-17 NFL season all this would be

moot, as Kaepernick would become more widely known for his resistance than any of his

athletic achievements.

2016-17 NFL season: ‘Taking a knee’

The first time Kaepernick sat during the playing of the national anthem before an NFL game

was on August 14, 2016; however, due to an injury, he was not dressed in uniform and few

took notice (Gaines 2017b).86 Roughly a week later, on August 26, when Kaepernick refused

to stand for the first time while in uniform, the public could not help but take notice. As

85 To again cite David Leonard’s Playing While White, Kaepernick did not play like he was White. Where White players escape criticism for not playing ‘White’ however, since they have their Whiteness to fall back on, Kaepernick is a tattooed Black man, and was heavily criticized for not being a ‘pocket passer’. 86 See Pages i through v of the appendix for a timeline of Kaepernick’s refusal to stand during the anthem, and events associated with it.

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mentioned earlier, Kaepernick followed this up by saying that he sat during the anthem

because he refused to show pride in a flag for a country that continued to oppress Black

people and people of colour (Wyche 2016). He was immediately attacked in the media in

response. He was called selfish, accused of disrespecting the military and police, and told to

“be quiet” (Schilken 2016; Inman 2016b). He received threats upon his life (Macguire 2016).

Even Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg weighed-in, calling him stupid. (Hauser

2016). Kaepernick clearly struck a nerve through his resistance but refused to back down,

though he did slightly change the form of his protest.

After that third pre-season game Kaepernick decided to kneel during the anthem

rather than sit. This change in tactics came after meeting up with Nate Boyer, a former

Green Beret soldier who was trying out for the 49ers at the time. Boyer said that soldiers

knelt in front of the graves of fallen soldiers, and that if Kaepernick knelt alongside his team-

mates instead of sitting behind them it might be more respectful to those who served in the

military (Brinson 2016). Team-mate Eric Reid, who began to kneel alongside Kaepernick

after that third pre-season game, said that kneeling during the anthem was like flying a flag

at half-mast: it is respectful, but recognizes that a tragedy has occurred (Eric Reid 2017). For

both Kaepernick and Reid, this tragedy was the continued oppression of Black people in

America. Kneeling did little to ease the criticism. Nonetheless, Kaepernick continued to

kneel through the remainder of the 2016-17 season, and even pledged to donate $1 million

alongside all proceeds from his personal jersey sales during the 2016-17 season to various

grassroots organizations working to address social injustice in oppressed communities

(Evans 2016a; Kaepernick7.com 2018a).

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Other Black NFL players joined Kaepernick in protesting during the national anthem

during the 2016-17 season, but no White players participated. Those who joined Kaepernick

included Eric Reid of the 49ers; Jeremy Lane of the Seattle Seahawks; Brandon Marshall of

the Denver Broncos; Martellus Bennett and Devin McCourty of the New England Patriots;

Marcus Peters of the Kansas City Chiefs; Duane Brown of the Houston Texans; Kenny Stills,

Julius Thomas, and Michael Thomas of the Miami Dolphins; and Malcolm Jenkins of the

Philadelphia Eagles (SI.com 2016b). Some knelt while others raised their fists, evoking

memories of Carlos and Smith at the 1968 Olympics. Similar to Kaepernick, these players

came under heavy criticism for their actions. Some experienced financial consequences for

their actions. Marshall, for example, lost two endorsement deals within days of taking a

knee during the anthem (Eligon and Cacciola 2016). The practice of ‘taking a knee’ quickly

moved beyond the NFL. From high schools to colleges, athletes across the country began to

kneel during the anthem before games (Gibbs 2016; Sidner 2016). Many experienced

blowback, be it suspension from their team or the outright cancellation of the season (King

2016a).

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Figure 6 - Marcus Peters raises a fist during the national anthem on Sept.11 ,2016. (Rosen 2016)

Figure 7 - Image drawn by Martellus Bennet (Bennett 2018). Describes reactions to the anthem protests’, and was made to look similar to ads placed in newspapers to reclaim runaway slaves.

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For Kaepernick, the point was not to make protests during the anthem a common

sight at sporting events. Rather the purpose was to generate a discussion around social

inequality and racism, create positive change on the issue, and remind professional athletes

of the platform that they have (Schefter 2017; Bryant 2018). By the end of the 2016-17 NFL

season, despite the controversy around the form of his resistance, Kaepernick had been

successful on two of these goals: he had forced people to discuss the persistence of racism,

at least tangentially, while also reminding professional athletes of the platform they had to

highlight injustice. At the end of the 2016-17 NFL season, Kaepernick announced that he

would stand for the national anthem during the 2017-18 season. This change in tactics

would be irrelevant, however, as Kaepernick would not play in the NFL during the 2017-18

season.

Kaepernick became a free agent on March 3, 2017 when he opted out of his contract

with the 49ers (Florio 2017a).87 In the months that followed, Kaepernick would watch 42

other quarterbacks sign contracts (Johnson 2017b). The majority of these quarterbacks

were, quantifiably, less talented; one was recently retired (Jay Cutler), several of them had

not played a regular season game during the 2016-17 season, others were undrafted rookie

free agents who had never played in an NFL game before (Austin Davis, Taysom Hill, Mitch

Leidner), or mediocre veteran White quarterbacks (Ryan Fitzpatrick). Kaepernick saw the

season play out without getting a single contract offer.

87 Had he not opted out of the contract, the 49ers had made it very clear that they would cut him. Interestingly, the 49ers cut Kaepernick not because of his protest, but because the team was entering a ‘rebuilding’ phase. The team’s owner, Jed York, has said that he talked with Kaepernick about the reasons for his protest, and said that “It’s really hard to disagree with the reason for which he is protesting” (Maske 2017).

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It could be argued that Kaepernick was purposely alienated from the NFL for his act

of resistance as a form of individual and collective discipline. What makes this argument

convincing is that there were several opportunities during the 2017-18 NFL season for

Kaepernick to be signed by teams when their starting quarterback became injured. The first

such example came during the 2017-18 NFL preseason when Baltimore Ravens starting

quarterback Joe Flacco injured his back, prompting some to wonder whether the team

would sign Kaepernick. Instead the Ravens signed a former Arena League quarterback

(David Olson) who had quit football to become a realtor (Hartwell 2017). When Miami

Dolphins starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill tore his ACL, the team chose to sign a recently

retired White quarterback with attitude issues rather than Kaepernick (Wetzel 2017). After

the regular season began, the Tennessee Titans lost their starting quarterback Marcus

Mariota for multiple games with a hamstring injury. Mariota is a dual-threat quarterback

who plays similarly to Kaepernick, and the team’s offense is designed around having a

quarterback who can both run and pass. Kaepernick himself was reported to be interested

in the position, making a contract with the Titans seem likely. Instead the Titans chose to

start their backup quarterback Matt Cassel and sign Brandon Weeden out of free agency

(Breech 2017). Neither Cassel nor Weeden are dual-threat quarterbacks, nor do their

resumes compare, in any way, to Kaepernick’s. Furthermore, both are White and have

refused to participate in any of the anti-racist protests.88 Later on in the season, the

Houston Texans lost their dual-threat (and Black) starting quarterback DeShaun Watson to a

88 After the Titans passed on signing him, Kaepernick filed a collusion lawsuit against NFL owners (ESPN.com 2017). The ‘football reasons’ argument against signing Kaepernick just did not hold up anymore, and it was clear that quarterbacks far worse than Kaepernick were being signed.

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torn ACL. The Texans had been contenders for a playoff spot when Watson was injured.

Rather than bring aboard Kaepernick, who had experience as a starting quarterback in the

regular season and playoffs, the team decided to start backup quarterback Tom Savage.

Savage proceeded to play terribly and the Texans promptly fell-out of playoff contention in

the weeks that followed.89

Rumblings that Kaepernick was being blackballed were rampant, and several players

throughout the league - including superstar White quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Aaron

Rodgers - acknowledged that Kaepernick deserved to play (Jason Reid 2017b; Walker 2017).

As Dave Zirin wrote at the end of the 2017-18 regular season, NFL team-owners had run out

of ‘football reasons’ to not sign Kaepernick:

Despite a desperate need for his services, these multi billion dollar corporate entities made the decision to tank rather than sign him to a contract. People have already lost their jobs as head coaches and general managers because they chose–or were ordered–to put awful or unprepared quarterbacks under center rather than field the best possible team… the Bob McNairs [White team owner of the Houston Texans] and John Elways [White team president of the Denver Broncos] of the world hate the idea of a free-thinking, openly anti-racist player more than they love the idea of winning a Super Bowl. (Zirin 2018)

In response to using his platform as an athlete in the most popular professional

sports league in North America to fight against racism and social injustice, Kaepernick was

forced-out of the league in less than one year. NFL team-owners made an example of him in

the most visible way possible, sending a strong message that they would not tolerate such

behaviour. As DaQuan Jones, a defensive lineman for the Tennessee Titans, had said at the

89 The Houston Texans are owned by Bob McNair, who is staunchly anti-player protests and responsible for the ‘Inmates’ comment that will be discussed shortly. Given that Kaepernick started the protests, McNair would never sign Kaepernick.

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end of the 2016-17 season, “It’s [protesting] going to affect your job, your endorsements

and your money” (as quoted in Wolfe 2017). However, due to the overt visibility of such

coercive measures, the owners’ actions backfired. Rather than training others to docilely

assent to power in a Foucauldian form, Harry Edwards noted that the owners were, in fact,

making a martyr out of Kaepernick (Jason Reid 2017a). By blackballing Kaepernick, the

owners angered a multitude of players, which prompted more protests during the anthem

into the 2017-18 season.

The 2017-18 NFL season

As the 2017-18 NFL season began, several NFL players continued to protest during the

anthem. The number of players protesting remained rather low, with approximately 20-30

players participating (Bump 2017).90 On September 22, 2017, however, the entire

conversation around ‘taking a knee’ changed when Donald Trump said that NFL team-

owners should fire all “sons of bitches” who continued to protest during the anthem

(Graham 2017). Trump had previously commented on the protests while running for

President, saying in August 2016 that Kaepernick should “find a country that works better

for him” if he felt it necessary to protest during the anthem (as quoted in NFL.com 2016).91

Trump’s comments in Alabama went beyond criticizing Kaepernick specifically, however,

and a plethora of NFL players, coaches, executives, and even some owners responded with

anger. On September 23, 2017, the number of players protesting during the anthem

90 White players began to show solidarity with their protesting Black team-mates in the 2017-18 season by placing a hand on their shoulder as they sat, knelt, or raised a fist. 91 Trump’s criticism of Kaepernick was similar to criticisms that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar faced in the 1960s when Abdul-Jabbar refused to represent the U.S. in the Olympics. When Abdul-Jabbar said that he felt that the U.S. wasn’t really his country, he was told that perhaps he should find a new country.

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skyrocketed to nearly 200, while entire teams refused to leave their locker rooms during the

playing of the anthem (Bump 2017). A small number of team-owners even joined their

players on the sideline and linked arms while the anthem played (McKirdy 2017). Taking a

knee also made its way to other professional sports leagues. Bruce Maxwell of the Oakland

Athletics took a knee during the national anthem before an MLB game and J.T. Brown of the

Tampa Bay Lightning raised his fist during the anthem before an NHL game (Zucker 2017;

Clinton 2017).92

This surge in protests in response to Trump’s comments were very different than

Kaepernick’s original decision to take a knee, however (Tanier 2017b; Joshua Perry 2017).

Kaepernick had chosen a specific act of resistance to draw attention to police brutality and

the continued oppression of Black Americans. Those who took a knee after Trump’s

comments were doing so in response to Trump. They felt Trump had attacked them

personally and took a knee to demonstrate that they could protest if they chose to do so. It

was a reactionary protest. By using the same form of protest that Kaepernick had, however,

those who took a knee in response to Trump diluted kneeling of its meaning. Originally

drawing attention to police brutality and racialized oppression, taking a knee was an

expression of resistance that challenged Americans to recognize, and work against, social

injustices. It was this that cost Colin Kaepernick his job. On September 23, 2017, however,

taking a knee was about opposing Trump. While still a medium of protest, the act had

become co-opted, and Kaepernick’s original message was temporarily lost.

92Maxwell and Brown are both Black men in professional sports leagues that are predominantly White. Both experienced significant blowback, and Brown spoke publicly about how he would not raise a fist again because he received death threats.

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In the weeks that followed Trump’s comments, the number of players protesting

during the anthem returned to the levels seen earlier in the season. A core group of Black

players would continue protesting around Kaepernick’s original message but the

conversation around taking a knee seemed to have shifted (Florio 2017b). At the same time,

team-owners were working with league executives and player representatives to bring an

end to the anthem protests entirely. Players spoke of how they hoped to turn “protest into

progress,” while team-owners felt that the protests were responsible for declining

viewership ratings and therefore wanted the protests to stop (Robinson 2017; Wickersham

and Van Natta Jr. 2017).93

It was during these negotiations that NFL team-owners made it clear just how

removed they were from the lived-reality of Black players. During a meeting between

owners and players, the owner of the Buffalo Bills repeatedly called player representative

Anquan Boldin ‘Antwan’ while also telling Boldin how he would make a perfect NFL

spokesman on social issues because he was Black (Wickersham and Van Natta Jr. 2017).

Then during an owners-only meeting, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair said “We can’t

have the inmates running the prison” when discussing protesting players (Wickersham and

Van Natta Jr. 2017). McNair’s comments were immediately condemned and criticized by

various players, with Richard Sherman saying that he appreciated them since they showed

how McNair (and other NFL owners) really felt (Condotta 2017).

93 NFL viewership ratings declined during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons, though the reasons for this decline are not clear. Many attribute it to NFL fans opposing players protests during the anthem, others say that it is because fans are boycotting in response to Kaepernick’s blackballing, and some say that it is simply the result of an increasingly competitive and fragmented television/digital market (Derek Thompson 2017; Evans 2016b).

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McNair’s comments help reveal how sports act as a microcosm of society (Edwards

1973). Professional male Black athletes are Black men, and therefore subject to all the

stereotyping associated with Blackness in America. Black athletes may be celebrated for

their athletic accomplishments, but they also cannot escape their Blackness. Perhaps the

clearest example of this came in August 2017 when Michael Bennett, one of the Black NFL

players who was most outspoken in his support of Kaepernick, was violently arrested at

gunpoint in Las Vegas while officers were looking for a suspect in a shooting. Assumed to be

the perpetrator, Bennett was thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and put into the back of a

police vehicle before officers recognized him as an NFL player. Upon the realization that he

was not involved in the shooting the police department had him released (Zirin 2017). As

Bennett’s father said about the incident, “this is why you’re kneeling” (as quoted in Baskin

2017).

It appeared as though NFL team-owners would be unable to convince players to

stop protesting. The players’ concerns with police brutality and racism had not been

addressed nor could the owners empathize with the players’ concerns. Then on November

27, 2017, just one month after McNair’s comments, the NFL announced that it had reached

an agreement with the ‘Players Coalition’ that would see the NFL donate $89 million over

seven years to “causes considered important to African-American communities” (Reid and

Trotter 2017). The Players Coalition is a collection of NFL players committed to using the

NFL’s platform to affect positive social change, and the head of the coalition, Malcolm

Jenkins, promptly announced that he would stop raising his fist during the anthem (Chavez

2017b). Jenkins had raised his fist during the anthem throughout the 2016-17 and 2017-18

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NFL seasons in protest of police brutality but said that he would stop doing so. He felt that

the NFL was making progress with its monetary commitment and would now support

players in their efforts to work against social injustice. Simply put, Jenkins no longer

considered protest necessary.94 Other players involved with the Players Coalition disagreed,

saying that the NFL was co-opting the protest, and left the Players Coalition in response

(Stahl 2017; Freeman 2017b; Trotter and Reid 2018). These players continued to protest

during the anthem through the 2017-18 NFL regular season while criticizing the agreement

between the Players Coalition and the NFL.

While all of this was going on, Kaepernick remained unsigned. During the 2017-18

season Kaepernick refused to do any media appearances, instead going silent and allowing

his activism to speak for itself (Loggins 2017a). During the 2016-17 NFL season, Kaepernick

had organized “Know Your Rights” camps for youth in those communities, emphasizing how

to handle encounters with police officers. The camps used a 10-point platform inspired by

the Black Panther Party (BPP), and included appearances by Kaepernick himself, Eric Reid,

the rapper Common, and several other high-profile Black public figures and academics (King

2016b). Kaepernick also chose to donate $1 million dollars to support grassroots

organizations in marginalized communities. He did so in a way that avoided the usual pitfalls

of millionaire philanthropy, as he engaged with the organizations in a way that ensured his

donation would address specific needs rather than serving as a sort of photo-op meant to

boost Kaepernick’s reputation without providing meaningful support on the ground.

94 See Bryant 2018 for an in-depth discussion of the Player’s Coalition’s decision to reach an agreement with the NFL.

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Moreover, by partnering with other celebrities through his #10for10 initiative, the total

value of the donations organized totaled over $1.13 million (Kaepernick7.com, 2018b).

Kaepernick thus made sure to heed Harry Edwards’ call for professional athletes to turn

protest into progress (Reid 2016). He had taken a knee during the anthem to leverage his

platform to highlight issues of racism and injustice – specifically police brutality – but

followed this by partnering with various grassroots organizations, activists, and scholars to

do more than just raise awareness.95

The 2017-18 NFL regular season ended without any closure to the situation

surrounding player protests during the anthem. Kaepernick was never signed by an NFL

team despite the fact that many teams could have used the talented quarterback. In

response, Kaepernick filed a collusion lawsuit against team-owners (Dash 2017).96 The

Players’ Coalition had reached an agreement with the NFL that promised $89 million in

donations to various charities and organizations meant to support anti-racist initiatives, but

this money would be allocated by an NFL team-owner controlled committee and was seen

by many players as a way of buying them off to prevent further protests (Bryant 2018). It

95 This sort of activism follows in the footprints left almost 50 years previously by the Black Panther Party. As referenced, the 10 principles used during the Know Your Rights Camps were inspired by the Panthers. So, too, did Kaepernick take on the symbolic aesthetic of the period by personally grew his hair out – again echoing previous Black activists like Angela Davis and the message that ‘Black is beautiful’ – and wearing black leather (Loggins 2017b). An interesting aside is that Kaepernick’s actions also echo those of Huey Newton in many ways. Kaepernick pursued the most practical avenue to change available to him while also establishing “Know Your Rights” camps that are similar to the Black Panther Party’s “survival programs,” though Kaepernick has not called for the revolutionary change that Newton did (Newton 1973). Kaepernick also borrowed from the Black Panther Party’s 10 point platform to develop his Know Your Rights camps. What’s more, Kaepernick dressed in black leather for a photo shoot with GQ, thereby further aligning himself with the imagery of the Black Panther Party and its goal of uplifting the Black community (Loggins 2017b). 96 Eric Reid – the player who has defended Kaepernick most vocally – will be a free agent in 2018. Reid has been a successful safety and linebacker in his time in the NFL, and it will be interesting to see if he is also blackballed like Kaepernick was, or if team-owners will shift tactics given that Kaepernick’s blackballing did not stop players from protesting during the anthem.

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also appears likely that the NFL will change its rules regarding pre-game anthem ceremonies

by having players remain in the locker rooms during the playing of the anthem. This means

that players who leave the locker room to protest could be punished (Chavez 2017a),

thereby making even more explicit the teeter-totter of coercion and consent in defense of

the interests of team-owners.

Theoretical Analysis

Kaepernick’s actions throughout the 2016-17 and 2017-18 NFL seasons are a near picture

perfect example of athletic resistance, and fit neatly in the analytical framework used

throughout this thesis. Kaepernick decided to actively resist racism by using his platform as

a professional quarterback. His actions evolved from sitting to taking a knee during the

playing of the American national anthem, something not done in American major league

professional sports since Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf’s protests in 1997. Where other

contemporary examples of athletic resistance showed limitations in how they targeted

specific expressions of racism and police brutality, Kaepernick’s resistance was

comprehensive. He used the celebrity afforded to him as a professional athlete to

peacefully protest in a way that would attract maximum attention, and then augmented

this dissent with a scathing criticism of police brutality and racial inequality.97 He faulted

America on the grounds that it continued to oppress Black people and people of colour,

97 In Etan Thomas’ new book We Matter: Athletes and Activism (2018), Thomas includes an interview with CNN anchor Chris Haynes, and Haynes mentions that athletic protest is especially effective because sports still attract viewers from all political identities, whereas news program viewership is largely divided along political lines (Thomas 2018, 188). Therefore athletic resistance,can send a message to people who might not hear that message otherwise, and though it’s possible that it won’t change their minds about the relevance of police brutality, it is important that this message is made visible to as many people as possible.

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then refused to back down from this assertion. Throughout the entirety of the 2016-17 NFL

season he continued his act of resistance while also materially supporting alternatives for

others via economic and political means.

Kaepernick understood that he could lose his endorsements and position as a

professional football player in response to his actions, but accepted this reality in order to

stand up for what is right (Wyche 2016). The fact that he did not play in the NFL during the

2017-18 NFL season, despite many teams clearly needing a quality quarterback to make the

playoffs, also demonstrates the degree to which NFL team-owners resented his act of

resistance. An anonymous NFL team general manager said days after he first took a knee

that 70% of teams “genuinely hate him [Kaepernick]” and that many wanted to use him as a

cautionary tale to stop other players from doing what he did (Freeman 2017a). Kaepernick’s

absence from the NFL during the 2017-18 NFL season (and likely beyond) was not because

of a decline in his quality of play but a hegemonic response to his act of resistance whereby

he repurposed the “spectacle of sport” for an anti-racist end (Abdel-Shehid 2017).

Kaepernick’s actions are a textbook example of Harry Edwards’ work on athletic

resistance. Edwards argued that sports are a microcosm of society, and this was made clear

by Bob McNair’s “Inmates” comment. Black men in America (and elsewhere) are

stereotyped as criminals, and even wealthy professional Black athletes cannot escape the

confines of such stereotypes, as the Michael Bennett arrest in Las Vegas made painfully

clear. Kaepernick used his platform to condemn the unequal treatment of Black Americans

and give voice to voiceless Black Americans who experience racism but cannot bring

attention to their mistreatment. Kaepernick took a stand aiming for equality, justice, and a

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broadening of the base of democratic participation in American society (Edwards 1969, 38;

Jason Reid 2017d). Kaepernick exemplifies Edwards’ ‘Black’ athlete: he speaks confidently in

interviews, has condemned the persistence of racialized power, refuses to accept the

inequality of America, and uses his position as an athlete to work for change. All this has led

Edwards himself to speak of how he is inspired by Kaepernick’s activism and linked his

actions to previous historical activist-athletes like Muhammad Ali (Jason Reid 2017a).

As noted, Gamal Abdel-Shehid and Nathan Lamb suggest sport generally serves as a

site of oppression, but holds the potential to be a site of resistance (Edwards 1969; Abdel-

Shehid and Lamb 2011, 9). Kaepernick turned this potential into reality in a way that no

athlete had since John Carlos and Tommie Smith. The response has been coercive, as NFL

team-owners made an example of him. He lost his job and will very likely never play in the

NFL again. While his initial platform as a professional athlete was taken from him, however,

Kaepernick has now become a sort of cultural celebrity in his own right and other players

have followed in his footsteps.

Conclusion

Kaepernick’s decision to sit, then take a knee, during the playing of the American national

anthem before NFL games served as the beginning of the most consequential act of athletic

resistance in America in over half a century. His actions serve as a stunning example of

resistance in an era where athletes are expected to keep ‘politics’ out of professional sports

despite the fact that there are, as Kaepernick so bluntly put it, “bodies in the street and

people getting paid leave and getting away with murder” (as quoted in Wyche 2016).

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Instead of sticking to sports, Kaepernick embraced his platform as a professional athlete to

demand change. Giving voice to the voiceless, he took a stand for and with the Black

community (Schoeller 2017). Kaepernick dared to resist and suffered the immediate

consequences, however, as he said when he first decided to take a knee, “I know I stood up

for what’s right” (as quoted in Wyche 2016).

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Chapter 6 - Conclusion

For my theme song (black)

My leather black jeans on (black)

My by-any-means on (black)

Enter the kingdom (black)

But watch who you bring home

They see a black man with a white woman

At the top floor they gone come to kill King Kong

Middle America packed in (black)

Came to see me in my black skin (black)

- Kanye West, “BlKKK SKKKnhead.” (2013)

-

In 2017, Harry Belafonte - the famous African-American singer, songwriter, actor and

activist - was interviewed by GQ magazine for a profile of Colin Kaepernick. Kaepernick had

recently been named one of GQ’s 2017 Men of the Year (Schoeller 2017), and GQ was

interviewing various Black celebrities and scholars about Kaepernick’s actions. Belafonte

reflected on the importance of Kaepernick’s actions to the cause of anti-racist activism, as

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well as what he considered to be the “responsibility” that any (Black) high-profile American

had in keeping America “honorable and honest.” After all, Belafonte himself had personally

experienced the sort of reactionary coercion and widespread criticism that Kaepernick was

going through at the time and recognized the importance of Kaepernick’s resistance (Cobb

2013; Elk 2017). Belafonte thus pledged support for Kaepernick’s decision to resist and

called Kaepernick a “remarkable young man” (Schoeller 2017). Similar to when Bill Russell

had taken a knee while wearing his presidential medal of freedom just a few months earlier,

Belafonte linked Kaepernick’s resistance to the actions of those that had come before him

(including Belafonte himself) and declared that Kaepernick marked a continuation of their

efforts. Harry Belafonte understood that Colin Kaepernick had much to lose when he

decided to leverage his platform as a public figure to resist racism and inequality, and yet he

chose to do so nonetheless. He chose to do what was right rather than what was easy, and

used his platform as a public figure to do so.

The analysis of professional Black athletic resistance used throughout this thesis

drew from various theorists and scholars. The work of Peter Meiksins and Hugo Radice was

used to demonstrate how and why professional athletes are best understood as members

of the working class, since class is determined not by status or income but by one’s

relationship to the means of production (Meiksins 1986; Radice 2011; Callincos 2011).

Meanwhile the insights of Harry Edwards and Gamal Abdel-Shehid/Nathan Lamb were

invaluable for understanding the potential that sports have as a site of resistance,

particularly in relation to anti-racist resistance (Edwards 1969; Abdel-Shehid and Lamb

2011). Published in 1969, Edwards’ The Revolt of the Black Athlete discussed how Black

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athletes would no longer acquiesce to the racist, exploitative norms of American sports and

society but rather demand to be treated with respect. Edwards spoke of how Black athletes

could, and would, leverage their positions as athletes to pursue equality, justice, and “the

basic human/civil rights guaranteed by the American constitution and concept of American

democracy” (1969, 38-39). This was further buttressed by comments Edwards made in 2016

in which he suggested that the purpose of athletic activism was “broadening the base of

democratic participation in American society” (Jason Reid 2016).

These insights from Edwards and Abdel-Shehid and Lamb, as well as the continued

presence of athletic protest and activism, make clear the shortcomings of the theoretical

work of Jean-Marie Brohm.98 In Sport – A Prison of Measured Time (1978) Brohm argues

that sports serve as an instrument of bourgeois hegemony and cannot be reformed or serve

a different purpose since they impinge revolutionary consciousness and reproduce capitalist

values (Brohm 1978, 15, 28, 55, 64). While Brohm is correct to note that sports often serve

as an ‘opiate of the people’ while defending the interests of capital (see Brohm 1978, ix, his

point that sports cannot serve any other purpose ignores the history of anti-racist resistance

by professional Black athletes in the U.S., several examples of which were examined in this

thesis.

It may be the case that sports are meant to defend the interests of capital and

bourgeois hegemony, but on account of the attention that is paid to sports as a cultural

98 The work of Paul Hoch (1972) is also very limited when analyzing the potential for sports to serve as a site of resistance, but Hoch did not argue that sports are inherently an instrument of bourgeois interests, as Brohm did. Hoch did, however, argue that sports under ‘monopoly capitalism’ could not serve as a site of resistance (1972). This is proven to be incorrect by the acts of athletic resistance analyzed throughout the thesis.

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front of hegemony, they can also be repurposed by the professional athletes themselves to

serve a more subversive (in this case, anti-racist) purpose. Hegemony is often associated

with political and economic matters, but culture also plays an important role (Gramsci 1985,

106). In relation to this, ideology (which develops with and through culture) has been called

“the battlefield for the conquest of hegemony” (Filippini 2017, 10). Ideology has the power

to mobilize people politically, and in tandem with cultural mediums that help form

knowledge, is used to secure hegemonic order (Filippini 2017, 18). Again, however, this can

also work in the opposite fashion. Since culture and ideology are used to defend hegemony,

they can also be used to de-stabilize it and work against it. This is not to say that athletes

are actively pursuing counter-hegemonic ends – as noted, the majority of the acts of

athletic resistance had very specific, anti-racist ends – but rather that sports can be used to

serve a counter-hegemonic purpose.

Using these insights, an analytical framework was developed to analyze examples of

professional Black athletic resistance. This framework had three components: 1) The act(s)

of resistance must be led by a male professional Black athlete. 2) The act(s) of resistance

must target racism and racial inequality/injustice. 3) The act(s) of resistance must leverage

the athlete’s platform as a professional athlete in a way that subverts the usual role of

sports as a cultural front for hegemony. Each example of professional Black athletic

resistance included throughout the thesis was then analyzed through the lens of this

framework to gain insights into the reasons for, and importance of, the resistance.

In addition to the analytical framework developed in chapter 2, there were also

other important considerations to note when analyzing the examples of athletic resistance,

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specifically the response to them. Professional sports are intended to serve the interests of

team-owners and capital, and athletes are expected to consent to the demand that they

‘shut up and play.’ Athletes who refuse to consent to this demand, and instead use sports as

a platform for resistance, often experience reactionary coercion in response; given the

athletes’ status as precariously employed workers, they stand to lose their jobs if they do

not consent. Gramsci’s concept of hegemony helps explain the reasons for this. Hegemony

is maintained through political, economic, and cultural fronts and sports are but one

instrument often used to defend hegemony on the cultural front. In order to ensure that

sports defend the bourgeois interests of team owners and league executives coercion and

consent are deployed in a sort of balancing act (Brohm 1978, 55; Hall 1986; see also

Gramsci 1971, 80 n.49).

Most professional athletes consent to the hegemonic order, but there are

occasionally those who refuse to consent, and therefore must be coerced. Similarly, the

majority of professional athletes consent to the demand that athletes shut up and play, but

occasionally there are athletes who resist, and are thus coerced to stop resisting. This was

seen clearly in chapter 3, which analyzed six historical examples of athletic resistance. In the

case of each athlete there was a reactionary response to the acts of athletic resistance.

Muhammad Ali, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, Craig Hodges, and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf all

lost their jobs, while Ali and Jack Johnson were both charged with crimes. Meanwhile

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was never hired as a team executive or coach despite being one of

the greatest players of all time, and having publicly stated his interest in becoming a coach

(Abramson 2013). Interestingly, the explicit use of coercion was not seen with the

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contemporary examples of athletic resistance except for that of Colin Kaepernick. Rather

contemporary acts of athletic resistance, as seen through the actions of the Miami Heat,

Richard Sherman, several St. Louis Rams players, the ‘Banana Boat’ crew, Golden State

Warriors, and LeBron James specifically, did not involve any reactionary coercion. A

common thread through all of the contemporary and historical examples of athletic

resistance was the central importance of anti-racism, be it concerns with police brutality,

American imperialism, poverty, or racist language. Contemporary acts of athletic resistance

were less comprehensive than their historical predecessors, though (with the exception of

Colin Kaepernick), and were tolerated or even co-opted by large businesses like ESPN and

Nike. The narrowed focus and/or co-opted form of these expressions of resistance likely

helps explain the different reaction to contemporary athletic resistance versus historical

athletic resistance, though future research projects could specifically examine the reason(s)

behind the different reactions.

Moving forward, there are several interesting projects that could build on the work

done in this thesis. Firstly, professional Black athletic resistance is on-going, and there are

continually new expressions of resistance to be documented and analyzed. More

specifically, however, the situation around Colin Kaepernick and ‘taking a knee’ in the NFL

warrants close examination. Will Kaepernick be signed to a contract in the 2018 offseason

as team-owners and league executives try to reclaim control of the narrative around player

protests?99 What’s more, Eric Reid - the player most closely aligned with Kaepernick

99 It is expected that the NFL, under the direction of team-owners, will make standing for the national anthem an official league rule during the 2018 offseason (Steinbuch 2017). This would make it so that teams could formally (and legally) punish players who protest during the anthem.

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throughout both the 2016-17 and 2017-18 NFL seasons – will be a free agent, and the

former first round pick has been a valuable defensive player for the San Francisco 49ers for

several years now. The handling of Reid’s free agency will be very informative to

understanding the reaction to Black athletic activism in the NFL, and ought to be researched

further.

Secondly, further research on the differences between expressions of resistance in

the NFL and NBA would be valuable. After all both leagues are made up of predominantly

Black players, while the owners are almost entirely White, and yet the way in which NBA

players approach resistance versus NFL players is very different. Investigating the reasons

for this, be it guaranteed versus non-guaranteed salaries, differing guidelines for player

behaviour in the CBA, different fan demographics, or anything else, would be informative.

What’s more, analyzing the differences between how the NBA and NFL are perceived in

regards to athletic resistance and activism, and league support for athletes’ actions, would

be interesting. For the NBA is considered to be much more progressive than the NFL, yet it

is the NBA that has a league rule in place demanding that players stand for the anthem

(made famous by the Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf case). Granted, the NBA supports athletic

activism and anti-racist initiatives in a way that the NFL had not before its recent $89 million

agreement with the Players’ Coalition (Nathaniel Friedman 2017; Rueckert 2016; Reid and

Trotter 2017), but doing further research in regards to team policies, owners’ statements,

and rates of athletic activism and resistance within the NBA and NFL would make for a very

interesting project.

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Thirdly, further research on the shifting forms and focus of professional Black

athletic resistance over time would be intriguing. There remains a central anti-racist

concern with professional Black athletic resistance, but as the amount of money in

professional sports has increased, so too has athletes’ concerns with developing their

‘brand’ (Wassink 2016; Markovits 2014). Is it this concern with brand-awareness and

maximizing their earnings/visibility that has produced co-opted forms of resistance like

LeBron James’ ‘Equality’ shoes? Is it simply athletes adapting to their times? Should co-

opted forms of activism and protest even be considered resistance given their close

connection to corporate interests? What about the impact that technological innovation,

specifically social media, has had on athletic resistance? Has technological innovation

increased rates of athletic resistance, decreased it, or simply shifted the form of it? What of

the importance of historical context, as noted by Lou Moore (2017b)? Is Moore right to

argue that it is historical context, specifically the presence of anti-racist resistance outside

of sports, that most effectively explains why and when professional Black athletes are most

likely to use their platforms to engage in anti-racist resistance? The answer would seem to

be yes, but more research is needed.100

In conclusion, this thesis has argued that sports matter – particularly as a site of

resistance. Yes, sports typically function as a mechanism of control that defends the

interests of capital and/or bourgeois hegemony (Brohm 1978; Hoch 1972; McRae 2018).

100 Future projects could also focus more specifically on the relationship of historical context to athletic activism and/or resistance. This project was not able to do so in a comprehensive way given the number of examples examined and the very specific framing of the thesis. It is here where further research can, and should, do so in greater detail.

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After all sports valorize the importance of such things as competition, winning, efficiency,

and respecting authority (Brohm 1978, 75) Moreover, sports are bound up with the society

in which they take place, and therefore replicate such issues as racism, sexism, and

homophobia (Edwards 1973, 361). However, as the examples analyzed throughout this

thesis make clear, sports also have the potential to be more. Professional sports are

broadcast, live, to millions of viewers. Therefore when a player decides to take a knee

during the anthem in protest of police brutality and the continued oppression of Black

Americans, people notice. When a professional athlete repurposes their media interviews

to condemn America’s War in Vietnam or to call out the racist use of the term ‘thug’ when

referring to Black athletes, people notice. When medal-winning athletes raise their fists in a

Black Power salute on the medal stand at the Olympics, people notice. When NFL players

run onto the field with their arms raised in the “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” position before

their game, people notice.

Professional athletes have a platform with which they can resist racism, injustice,

inequality, or any other issue. They have the financial means and celebrity status to combat

issues of social injustice and inequality directly, such as Colin Kaepernick’s partnership with

grassroots organizations through his million-dollar pledge, or indirectly, such as when the

five St. Louis Rams players walked onto the field with their hands raised in the “Hands Up

Don’t Shoot” position. It is just that most athletes choose not to do so. This is at least in part

because they are precariously employed employees and understand that engaging in

resistance threatens their employment status as very well paid professional athletes

(Meiksins 1986; Abdel-Shehid and Lamb 2011, Ch.2; Wolfe 2017). Athletes who refuse to

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consent to the demands of team owners and use sports as a platform for resistance often

experience reactionary coercion in response. Nonetheless, professional male Black athletes

continue to engage in acts of resistance and risk their livelihoods in order to stand up for

what is right.

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I

Appendix

2

Timeline of Colin Kapernick’s refusal to stand during the anthem: August 14, 2016 – Kaepernick sits for the first time during the national anthem. However Kaepernick is still recovering from injury and is not dressed to play, therefore his refusal to stand goes un-noticed. August 26, 2016 – Kaepernick is in uniform to play against the Green Bay Packers, and sits during the national anthem. A reporter notices in a sideline photo that Kaepernick is not standing for the anthem, and when asked about it says “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of colour.” Kaepernick will continue to kneel during the anthem throughout the remainder of the season. August 29, 2016 – Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump criticizes Kaepernick for kneeling during the anthem and says that he should “find a country that works better for him” if he feels that way (NFL.com 2016). August 31, 2016 – An NFL executive tells Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report “Fuck that guy [Kaepernick]” when asked about Kaepernick’s actions (Freeman 2016). September 1, 2016 – Eric Reid (also a player for the 49ers) kneels alongside Kaepernick during the anthem, becoming the first player to act in solidarity with Kaepernick. Jeremy Lane of the Seattle Seahawks also sits during the anthem (Nathan 2016). September 2, 2016 – Kaepernick pledges $1 million of his own money to various organizations working to address social injustice, saying “I’ve been very blessed to be in this position and make the kind of money I do, and I have to help these people. I have to help these communities” (Evans 2016a) September 8, 2016 – Brandon Marshall, a linebacker for the Denver Broncos, kneels during the anthem, becoming the first non-49ers player to do so. September 11, 2016 – Several Black players protest the anthem in some form. Marcus Peters, a cornerback for the Kansas City Chiefs, raises a gloved fist. Devin McCourty and Martellus Bennett, players for the New England Patriots, also raise fists. Arian Foster, Kenny Stills, Michael Thomas and Jelani Jenkins of the Miami Dolphins all take a knee (SI.com 2016b). Most will continue to do so throughout the season September 22, 2016 – Time magazine puts Kaepernick on the cover with the caption “The Perilous Fight.”

III

October 7, 2016 – Kaepernick and the 49ers restructure his contract, eliminating the last 4 years of the deal, injury guarantees, and giving both the team and Kaepernick the option to terminate the contract after the 2016-17 season. October 11, 2016 – Kaepernick starts for the first time in the 2016-17 season against the Buffalo Bills. Team had refused to start him because of the risk of injury, which would have guaranteed him more money before the restructuring of his contract. December 18, 2016 – NFL analyst, and former NFL QB, Chris Simms says that Kaepernick won’t be in the league in 2017 onwards because “the NFL is the ultimate right-wing, Republican league” (Madson 2016) December 30, 2016 – Kaepernick wins the ‘Len Eshmont’ award from his team-mates for inspirational and courageous play. March 2, 2017 – Kaepernick says that he will stand for the anthem during the 2017-18 season (Schefter 2017). March 3, 2017 – Kaepernick opts out of his contract with the 49ers to become a free agent. March 17, 2017 – An NFL general manager says that teams are not signing Kaepernick because they’re afraid that fans will protest the signing or that Donald Trump will tweet about the signing (Freeman 2017a). March 20, 2017 – Trump boasts about the report that teams are not signing Kaepernick out of fear that he (Trump) will tweet about it, telling supporters at a speech in Kentucky: “There was an article today, it was reported, that NFL owners don’t want to pick him up because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump, do you believe that?” (Bieler 2017) March 25, 2017 – Cleveland Browns’ left tackle Joe Thomas (who is White and among the best tackles of all-time) says that teams no longer view Kaepernick as a starting QB, and hasn’t been signed because teams will not tolerate any distractions from their backup QB’s (Thomas 2017). April 26, 2017 – Eric Reid, the first player to kneel alongside Kaepernick, says that he will not continue kneeling during the anthem because the goal was to open up a conversation, and that goal has been achieved (Inman 2017). May 24, 2017 – Kaepernick has a free agent visit with the Seattle Seahawks. May 31, 2017 – John Lynch, general manager of the 49ers, says that if Kaepernick had not opted out of his contract the team would have cut him (Florio 2017a).

IV

June 5, 2017 – The Seattle Seahawks sign Austin Davis, a White quarterback who didn’t play in the league the previous season. Pete Carroll, head coach of the Seahawks, says that Kaepernick is a starter in the league and expects him to be signed somewhere (Kapadia 2017a). July 27, 2017 – Adam Schefter reports that he believes individual team-owners are blocking their coaches and team executives from signing Kaepernick (Stites 2017). August 1, 2017 – Kaepernick comes in at #39 in the NFL’s official top 50 merchandise sales rankings, the only free agent to do so (Schrager 2017). August 6, 2017 – Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin says that he believes Kaepernick is being blackballed. Had previously said that Kaepernick wasn’t being signed for ‘football reasons,’ but after seeing some of the quarterbacks being signed by teams, now believes that Kaepernick is being blackballed (Kapadia 2017b). August 21, 2017 – Seth Devalve, a tight end for the Cleveland Browns, becomes the first player to kneel during the anthem when he joins several kneeling Browns team-mates (McManamon 2017). August 23, 2017 – Over 1500 people rally outside NFL headquarters in New York City for the ‘United We Stand Rally for Colin Kaepernick.’ August 30, 2017 – Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers (who is White and one of the NFL’s biggest superstars) says that Kaepernick should be on a team, but thinks that because of his protests he is not (Jason Reid 2017b). September 5, 2017 – Former Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis says that the team had considered signing Kaepernick following starting quarterback Joe Flacco’s injury, but decided against it after Kaepernick’s partner Nessa Diab tweeted out a photo comparing Lewis and Steve Bisciotti (owner of the Ravens) to two characters from the movie Django Unchained (Farrar 2017). September 18, 2017 – New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady (who is white and the NFL’s biggest superstar) says that Kaepernick is “certainly qualified” to be playing in the NFL, and he (Brady) hopes that Kaepernick gets a chance to play (Walker 2017). September 20, 2017 – Yahoo Sports publishes a document written by NFL players Michael Bennett, Malcolm Jenkins, Torrey Smith, and Anquan Boldin, in which they request league support for player-led social activism causes (Robinson 2017). September 23, 2017 – Donald Trump calls players who protest during the anthem “sons of bitches” and calls for NFL owners to fire them (Graham 2017).

V

September 24, 2017 – Over 200 NFL players kneel during the anthem in response to Trump’s comments. Several teams also stay in locker room or lock arms during anthem, while Lesean McCoy, a running back for the Buffalo Bills, ignores the playing of the anthem entirely and stretches while the anthem is played (Rapaport 2017a). October 16, 2017 – Kaepernick files a grievance against NFL owners for collusion, accusing the league and its owners of colluding “to deprive Mr. Kaepernick of employment rights in retaliation for Mr. Kaepernick’s leadership and advocacy for equality and social justice and his bringing awareness to peculiar institutions still undermining racial equality in the United States” (ESPN.com 2017b). October 17, 2017 – League executives, team-owners and players meet to discuss community activism, team and league support for these initiatives, and the league’s policy on standing for the anthem. During the meeting, Houston Texans owner Bob McNair compares allowing players to continue protesting during the anthem to having “the inmates running the prison” (Daniels 2017). The next day Texans star wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins leaves the team facility upon hearing of McNair’s comments, before returning to the team for their next game. November 8, 2017 – Meeting between Kaepernick and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell falls through after the league rejects Kaepernick’s request to have a mediator present (ESPN.com 2017c). November 13, 2017 – GQ names Kaepernick ‘Citizen of the Year.’ November 19, 2017 – NBA superstar Lebron James says that he thinks that Kaepernick is being blackballed from the NFL because he took a knee. Points out that many backup and third-string QB’s are far less qualified than Kaepernick (McMenamin 2017) November 27, 2017 – The NFL agrees to partner with players on social justice initiatives, pledging $89 million over seven years. Several players, including Eric Reid, condemn the agreement as a league attempt to co-opt players’ protest (Reid and Trotter 2017). November 30, 2017 – Kaepernick wins Sports Illustrated’s Muhammad Ali Legacy award. December 11, 2017 – NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says that he doesn’t believe Kaepernick is being blackballed from the league (Lovelace Jr. 2017).

- Timeline developed with frequent references to online timelines tracking the events around Kaepernick taking a knee. Credit to Lindsay Gibbs (2016) and Martenzie Johnson (2017a).

VI