Editorial | ‘Stick to sports’ is racist and dehumanizing

Photo illustration by SAM ANDRUS Photo Editor

It was in a Lexington, Kentucky, hotel in 1961 that two Black basketball players on the Boston Celtics, Sam Jones and Satch Sanders, were refused service due to the color of their skin. Teammate Bill Russell, one of the most legendary basketball players to ever live, was incensed, and organized a boycott of a game against the St. Louis Hawks that day with other Black teammates.

That night, reporters met Russell as he arrived back at Logan International Airport in Boston. He told them the following: “I think of athletes as entertainers.”

“One of the ways the American Negro has attempted to show he is a human being is to demonstrate our race to the people through entertainment, and thus become accepted,” Russell said. “I am coming to the realization that we are accepted as entertainers, but that we are not accepted as people in some places.” 

It was in the streets of Kenosha, Wisconsin, Aug. 23 that Jacob Blake was shot seven times by police officer Rusten Sheskey, and it was across the country Aug. 26 in the NBA’s “bubble” complex in Orlando, Florida, that Milwaukee Bucks teammates did not walk onto the floor for their playoff game against the Orlando Magic in a plea for justice. 

One could only imagine the kind of racist ridicule Russell and his teammates endured, nearly 60 years ago, for that move. But that same racist ridicule was visibly present from keyboard warriors across social media in response to the Bucks’ decision and subsequent boycotting of games during the next two days across the entire NBA, WNBA and teams within MLB. Dissatisfied fans flooded comment sections on Instagram with sentiments such as “NBA players are the epitome of hypocrisy and privilege,” “This doesn’t solve anything,” and of course, the classic “why can’t we just stick to sports?”

These were not lightly supported statements. These were comments with thousands upon thousands of likes.

There are many ways that thinly veiled racism can rear its ugly head in today’s society. Yet perhaps one of the most obvious is this sentiment “Stick to sports.” It became extremely popular when Colin Kaepernick decided to first kneel for the national anthem back in 2016. It’s an amorphous statement, capable of retaining its meaning across a variety of specific sentences –  look no further than Fox News host Laura Ingraham telling NBA stars LeBron James and Kevin Durant to “Shut up and dribble” in 2018 after the two criticized President Donald Trump. 

Don’t understand why exactly it’s racist and dehumanizing? Consider this. 

Within that statement, most often directed at Black athletes, is the implication that they shouldn’t be able to voice their opinions on politics, social issues or anything other than their profession to entertain. Sure, they’re paid exorbitant amounts of money for their jobs. But what are the jobs of these athletes? They wow – in some cases largely white – audiences with their physical gifts. So when you tell a Black athlete to “Stick to sports” or to “Shut up and dribble,” you are only valuing them for those gifts and not their entire person.

There was a time, approximately 200 years ago, when valuing a Black person for solely their physical attributes was called “slavery.” 

Russell’s realization, after nearly 60 years, still very much rings true. We see the difficulty of Black entertainers trying to break that barrier today, even outside of sports: consider the subtext of Donald Glover’s struggle with being a Black entertainer, under the stage name Childish Gambino, to a white audience present within his massively popular song “This is America.” Every time a Black athlete or singer or actor is told their opinion and voice outside of their profession does not matter, it only ties the knot more tightly in a spool that stretches long back in American history of valuing Black culture and entertainment more than actual Black lives themselves. 

There is hope. There has been change since Russell’s walkout, when that exhibition game actually continued on despite the boycott because white players still suited up. Players of all races aren’t shy about voicing their support – whether in the form of physical protest or on social media – for Black teammates. Fans are becoming more cognizant of the rhetoric promoted by “Shut up and dribble” opinions. Yet there’s still an overwhelming resistance to activism within entertainment – and until that resistance can itself be overwhelmed, true progress will be difficult. 

As Russell himself said on Twitter a few days ago, directed toward NBA players and their boycotts: “I am so proud of you. Keep getting in good trouble.”