Stick to sports, huh? Athletes can’t be muzzled in midst of civil unrest

Not a week goes by without someone telling me to stick to sports. But sports don’t exist in a bubble. The last week reminds us of that.

In our region alone, we’ve seen a white nationalist group appropriate – and reconfigure – the Red Wings’ winged wheel;  at least one other protester do the same with the Lions’ logo; and Michigan's football coach, Jim Harbaugh, tweet his disavowal of the deadly marches in Charlottesville, Va.

Harbaugh is not new to the intersection of sports, politics, and race. Last fall, several of his players knelt during the national anthem at Michigan Stadium. His response was to support them.  

He also, quite presciently, told us the sentiment that drove the on-field protests weren’t going away.  

“They are going to keep happening,” he said.

Well, here we are, almost a year later, navigating what feels like a cauldron, which, as a white man, is an awfully privileged thing to write. Because, if we’re being honest, for millions of Americans, it’s felt like a cauldron a lot longer.   

That’s the message coming from so many corners of the sports world these days. The violence and marching in Virginia only intensified it.

It shouldn’t be surprising that athletes are tired of staying silent. They are reacting to what they see. And what they see is unsettling.

This past week NBA megastars LeBron James and Kevin Durant decried the marches in Virginia, as did the NFL’s Michael Bennett, a defensive end who plays for Seattle, who recently argued that the kneeled protests during the national anthem won’t resonate until white NFL players join him.  

Chris Long, a defensive end with Philadelphia who is from Charlottesville, became the first white player to jump in when he put his arm around teammate, Malcolm Jenkins, who stood with his fist raised during the anthem of a preseason game Thursday night.

Long said he wasn’t comfortable kneeling before the flag. Still, by standing with Jenkins he showed solidarity, a gutsy move considering the backlash quarterback Colin Kaepernick and others received after similar protests a year ago.

Whatever blowback Long gets will pale to what his black teammates have already endured in trying to raise consciousness – Kaepernick, as of this writing, still doesn’t have a job.

The backlash toward Kaepernick and the hundreds of other athletes who’ve spoken out in recent times comes from a specific place, of course, and from a (mostly white) fan base. From folks who are unable – or unwilling – to see the American flag as anything other than a narrow symbol of war and patriotism.

It is not. It is a stitched representation of us all, a flapping vessel onto which we project our varied, and often, painful experiences.

No one group in this country gets to own the flag. This was the message the Red Wings organization sent last week when it threatened legal action against those who fashioned the winged wheel into a kind of swastika, then imprinted the bastardized symbol on flags for the white nationalists to march with in Virginia.  

The Wings were horrified. And rightly so. But they shouldn’t have been surprised. Neither should we. White supremacy is on the rise, and the phrase "white nationalism" is just a way to disguise it. 

Sports, like any public sphere, is a reflection of our political and moral culture. So that when a group of hateful souls take to the night with torches, the ripples of such a gathering will be felt among our athletes, and they’re expressing what that feels like.   

Combine that with changing technological platforms that make it easier to speak more freely, and we’ve got a sports world that’s never been more intertwined with politics, culture and justice. Asking athletes to stick to sports, then, is asking them to deny their humanity.

Yes, they may get paid to play a game. But they don’t get paid to assuage white guilt. Or to provide a safe space free of the pain and suffering of this world. Sports are no different than any other human endeavor in that way.  

For the Wings, seeing the emblem was a jolt, and a reminder of how much hate remains. A reminder that Kaepernick and Bennett and many of Harbaugh’s players don’t need.

That uneasy and sickening sense a lot of white America’s been grappling with the last week is nothing new for minority communities. It’s simply life. Which is the message these athletes are trying to send.   

It would be helpful if we listened. No matter how uncomfortable it might be.  

Because, as Harbaugh noted, the message is not going away.

Nor should it.

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