Kobe Bryant backlash reflects historical divide on politics in sports

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When Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant was asked by The New Yorker to comment on the Miami Heat’s decision to pose in hoodies in support of Trayvon Martin, his reaction caused a backlash, reigniting the debate over athletes and politics.

“I won’t react to something just because I’m supposed to, because I’m an African-American,” Kobe said. “That argument doesn’t make any sense to me. So we want to advance as a society and a culture, but, say, if something happens to an African-American we immediately come to his defense? Yet you want to talk about how far we’ve progressed as a society? Well, we’ve progressed as a society, then don’t jump to somebody’s defense just because they’re African-American. You sit and you listen to the facts just like you would in any other situation, right? So I won’t assert myself.”

This is by no means the first time that politics has been injected into sports and athletes have taken a stand on an issue. Nor is it the first time an athlete has chosen to take an apolitical posture and not get involved in the pressing, controversial issues of their day.

Professional sports has a long history of political versus apolitical athletes.  And the criticism which Bryant’s comments engendered speaks to the elephant in the room, at least as far as black athletes are concerned: Are African-Americans in sports obligated to represent their race?

Because of their entrée into white-dominated sports during the Jim Crow era, black athletes were unable to escape the political implications of their existence.

For instance, heavyweight champion Jack Johnson—perhaps the earliest example of a black celebrity super athlete—caused race riots when he beat Jim Jeffries, the retired champ known as the “Great White Hope.”  Johnson also attracted notoriety by refusing to follow the conventions and norms of black people of the times.  In other words, he preferred the company of white women, and even married three of them, as he beat white men in the ring in Jim Crow America.

Paul Robeson was a professional football player, but also an artist, political activist, legal scholar and social thinker.  He was a champion for labor rights and world peace, he spoke out against racial injustice and urged President Truman to enact an anti-lynching law.  In 1950 the State Department revoked Robeson’s passport and ended his career due to his international activism.

During the 1960s and 1970s, black athletes engaged in symbolic and overt acts of political activism. Perhaps the most vivid example of political statements among African-American athletes was the iconic black power salute of medalists John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City.

Smith, the gold medalist in the 200-meter race, and Carlos, the bronze winner, received their medals with arms raised, black gloves and fists clenched to protest racism, poverty and injustice, as the Star Spangled Banner played.  The silver medalist, Australian Peter Norman, who opposed racism in his native country, participated in the silent protest.  He wore a badge given to him by the black athletes, as they wore his black gloves. The men were suspended from the games for their dramatic display.

Ironically, Jesse Owens—who had triumphed over Aryan “supremacy” at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin and angered Hitler, only to return to the states and not be allowed to sit down with whites at his own victory dinner—tried to convince Smith and Carolos to apologize for their black power salute.  “The black fist is a meaningless symbol. When you open it, you have nothing but fingers – weak, empty fingers,” Owens told Smith.  Owens later changed his stance, saying, “I realized now that militancy in the best sense of the word was the only answer where the black man was concerned, that any black man who wasn’t a militant in 1970 was either blind or a coward.”

Heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali was by no means considered a coward.  And he was known as a polarizing figure for the positions he took for religious freedom and against racial injustice.  The outspoken showman talked smack in the ring, and refused to fight in the Vietnam War due to his religious beliefs as a conscientious objector and a member of the Nation of Islam, losing his boxing title and license in the process.

“No Vietcong ever called me ni**er,” Ali proclaimed.

In June 1967 in Cleveland, a group of some of the most prominent black athletes—such as Jim Brown, Bill Russell and Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar)—gathered at a summit to support Muhammad Ali.  Brown, a retired NFL-player-turned-actor, co-founded the Black Economic Union, an economic-development-oriented community organization that hosted the meeting.

Recalling the Ali summit on The Arsenio Hall Show last December, Jim Brown had choice words for Kobe Bryant. “He is somewhat confused about culture because he was brought up in another country, so it doesn’t quite fit with what’s happening in America. Unbelievable athlete,” said Brown.

“But in the days when we had a summit, and we called together the top black athletes together to talk to Muhammad Ali about his status with the forces, there were some athletes we didn’t call. So if I had to call that summit all over, there would be some athletes I wouldn’t call. Kobe would be one of them.”

And yet, while there were black athletes such as NBA star Bill Russell, who was affected by the assassination of Medgar Evers and participated in the 1963 March on Washington, there were also athletes like Wilt Chamberlain, who denounced the Black Panthers and other black nationalist groups in the 1960s and supported Richard Nixon.

Meanwhile, in the 1980s and 1990s, as Arthur Ashe was arrested protesting South African apartheid and the U.S. treatment of Haitian refugees, Michael Jordan refused to support black Democrat Harvey Gantt in his senatorial bid against a race-baiting Jesse Helms (R, North Carolina) because “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”

Follow David A. Love on Twitter at @davidalove