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During a conversation last year with NPR, NBA Hall-of-Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spoke candidly about his wokeness. Over the course of his nearly 50 years as a celebrated athlete, Abdul-Jabbar has engaged in the ever-evolving discussion of cultural awareness and the fight for civil rights, and, since his retirement from basketball, he has written eloquently about these subjects extensively. Speaking with journalist Michel Martin, Abdul-Jabbar drew a contrast between his resolute activism and the undeniable business acumen of arguably the most influential athlete of the 21st century: Michael Jordan.
“You can’t be afraid of losing shoe sales if you’re worried about your civil and human rights,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “[Jordan] took commerce over conscience. It’s unfortunate for him, but he’s gotta live with it.”
Abdul-Jabbar was referring to an alleged quote concerning the 1990 Senate race in Jordan’s home state of North Carolina, when His Airness reportedly declined to endorse North Carolina Senate challenger Harvey Gantt. Gantt, an African-American, was looking to unseat the white incumbent Jesse Helms, who was regarded as somewhat of a bigot. In deciding not to endorse Gantt, Jordan allegedly offered a sound bite that would evolve into communal folklore: “Republicans buy sneakers, too.”
To put Abdul-Jabbar’s quote in context, he and Jordan inhabited two different epochs as American sports heroes. Whereas Abdul-Jabbar — born Lew Alcindor in 1947 before converting to Islam — was reared during the crux of the Civil Rights Movement, Jordan came of age against the backdrop of Reganomics and Gordon Gekko ethos. The latter’s cultural ascendancy helped the sport of basketball evolve into a global entity. As a result, the six-time NBA champion tenaciously protected his brand and often did not enter the choppy currents of race or politics.
And while Abdul-Jabbar has enjoyed a lucrative and successful career, his dedication for social change and passion for speaking his mind has evolved into of his most significant attributes. He has stood alongside luminaries who were intent on making the agonizing climb towards equality’s mountaintop; an omnipresent mountaintop that continues to be elusive for many even today. Jackie Robinson, Jim Brown, Wilma Rudolph, Bill Russell, Althea Gibson, John Carlos, Tommy Smith and Muhammad Ali were freedom fighters first, and athletes second. They transcended the proverbial playing field.
Transcend.
It is a word that has been synonymous with the athletes whose greatness afforded them an ability to rise above the durable weight of being black. It is a word that came up often after the recent passing of Muhammad Ali. It is a word that continues to be used markedly every time an athlete of color elevates beyond the conventional marketplace.
Yes, Ali and others did transcend sports. Their gifts were embraced and celebrated by all walks of life, and rightfully so, but it would be a mistake to ignore that these men and women, and several others before and after them, were firmly planted in the unequivocal love of their blackness.
Richard Lapchick, the renowned director of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES), has been chronicling the melding of race and sports for approximately 15 years. According to him, there were 11 reported domestic and more than 135 reported international incidents in sports in 2015. (These occurrences were down from 17 incidents in the U.S. and increased from 89 incidents abroad in 2014.)
The events that have emerged in the news cycle over the last several years — Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Charleston, South Carolina and the student-athletes at the University of Missouri — have affected athletes and spectators alike. Being born and raised in West Baltimore, it was surreal to see the intersection of Pennsylvania and North Avenues evolve into a chaotic bonfire on live television in the wake of Gray’s death. Amongst all the unrest, it was a bit reassuring to witness native sons (and NBA players) Carmelo Anthony and Will Barton come back home and offer any assistance they could to qualm the citizens who were on edge.
Sports are often used as a clichéd veneer to cover the horrid aesthetic of racism, particularly as it relates to American history.
Jackie Robinson’s integration of Major League Baseball is endorsed as an all-encompassing emblem of equal opportunity for all. In reality, sports are entirely more multifaceted. We are often fed the textbook dogma of how Robinson stood tall and stared Jim Crow dead in the face while repeatedly turning the other cheek when he was mistreated.
An article published by The New York Times, however — that delves into the infamous run-in Robinson had with the notoriously racist manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, Ben Chapman — suggests that dogma was fictitious:
““For one wild and rage-crazed minute, I thought, ‘To hell with Mr. Rickey’s noble experiment,’” Robinson once recalled, referring to Branch Rickey, the Dodgers executive who chose Robinson as the player he felt capable of integrating the game while having the discipline to not retaliate to the taunts and harassment he would face.”
Indeed, Robinson was human. Also, he was not a programmed monolith. He was a black republican who battled with Malcolm X, disagreed with Dr. Martin Luther King over the validity of the Vietnam War, and dismissed the Black Power infusion of the Civil Rights Movement. His hardened traditionalist views did, however, begin to bend shortly before he died in 1972 — particularly through his offer of support for the athletes who decided to boycott the 1968 Olympic Games:
“I do support the individuals who decided to make the sacrifice by giving up the chance to win an Olympic medal,” Robinson stated. “I respect their courage. We need to understand the reason and frustration behind these protests… it was different in my day, perhaps we lacked courage.”
Robinson didn’t always agree with his peers on how to obtain equality, but he was intent on accomplishing the end goal. He was on the ground fighting with his community for civil rights; he was not interested in transcending blackness, despite how blatantly the conventional aesthetic displays him doing so.
Muhammad Ali died on June 3. Approximately one week later, Ezra Edelman’s critically-acclaimed ESPN documentary OJ: Made in America premiered on ABC. There are perhaps no two athletes who represent the idea of transcending race more efficiently than Ali and Simpson. The two men create a paradoxical Venn diagram of transcending not only race, but pop culture mortality.Their legacies are indelible, for better or worse.
Ali’s battle with Parkinson’s disease ravaged his corporal functions, but it also allowed our collective conscious to forget that he was, at one time, hated for refusing to fight in Vietnam — and stripped of his titles and athletic prime because of it. His tribulations during that period in his life, along with his affiliation with the Civil Rights Movement, endeared him to the majority of Black America.
Still, as much as Ali utterly loved his blackness, he used racial stereotypes and coded language to sell “The Fight of the Century” with Joe Frazier in 1971. After Frazier had assisted his former friend during his lowest moments of being banished from the fight game, Ali showed his appreciation by comparing his opponent’s features to a gorilla, insulting his intelligence and refuting his blackness:
“Joe Frazier is too ugly to be champ…Joe Frazier is too dumb to be champ. The heavyweight champion should be smart and pretty, like me. Ask Joe Frazier, ‘How do you feel, champ?’ He’ll say, ‘Duh, duh, duh.’” That played to the most insidious racial stereotype, the dumb and ugly black man, but Ali reached further: “Joe Frazier is an Uncle Tom.” And further: “Ninety-eight percent of my people are for me. They identify with my struggle….If I win, they win. I lose, they lose. Anybody black who thinks Frazier can whup me is an Uncle Tom.”
The Greatest used his impeccable standing with the black community to malign a fellow fighter of color, all in the name of being a salesman. Frazier, who died in 2011 still bitter towards Ali, conceded that he did, in fact, “Tom”, as he helped Ali financially and was the raison d’être for him retaining his license to fight again.
As little boy, I — along with my younger brother and cousin — spent my summers with my grandmother in Harlem, New York. The summer of 1995 remains germane in my memory. After completing errands with my grandmother during the morning hours, we would all gather in front of the television to watch the alleged “Trial of the Century” during the afternoon. As a 10 year old, my only familiarity with OJ Simpson came from watching reruns of “The Naked Gun” film series on television.
I distinctly remember watching OJ protrude his eyes in an idiotic expression while playing the blundering character of Detective Nordberg. It was a surreal disparity to see Simpson sitting in a courtroom while being tried for murdering his ex-wife and an innocent bystander. Unaware of the intricate framework surrounding the case — as it was preceded by the beating of Rodney King, the murder of Latasha Harlins and the burning of South Central, Los Angeles — I was confused as to why my grandmother was supporting Christopher Darden and the prosecution in their quest to convict Simpson of murder. I thought we should be rooting for this black man’s freedom, and the defense team led by a flamboyant and brilliant black lawyer that was looking to deliver it.
My grandmother, in all of her wisdom, knew the score.
Simpson was not some random black man being unjustly persecuted. He was a wealthy figurehead who serially abused his wife and was determined to escape well-deserved punishment for the crimes he committed. As a grown man who matured and became well-informed on O.J. during the years that followed, I, too, now know the score.
Edelman’s film wisely forgoes unpacking the same rhetoric about Simpson’s case that has been recycled for more than 20 years. Instead, the director takes us on a journey into O.J.’s unsettling psyche and how he was able to get off scot-free for murder in the epicenter of a disconcerted Los Angeles. The same black community that he was once so desperate to remove himself from would become his respite after the majority of his cherished white friends and benefactors renounced him following his acquittal.
Indeed, if Simpson’s true goal was to escape his blackness, he received a rude awakening while attempting to reclaim his unofficial status as the “Mayor of Brentwood.” Ultimately, he was viewed by many as just one of the many same nig — rs he was so surprised to see inundating his neighborhood to offer their support after his arrest in 1994.
Simpson’s template on transcending race has been used by many of the athletes who followed in his post-athletic career footsteps.
Pupils such as Jordan, Charles Barkley, Tiger Woods, and Kobe Bryant were content in just being great athletes, not particularly black athletes. Nonetheless, other athletes of my generation seem to strike an intelligent balance between commerce and activism. LeBron James in Miami and Cleveland, Derrick Rose, Andrew Hawkins, members of (the former) St. Louis Rams, Cardale Jones and others are not timid about sharing their thoughts on social media concerning the issues that matter to them.
And while the majority of athletes today are well aware of their brand and engage in protecting it, it is encouraging to see notable examples continue to articulate on the topical issues that are entrenched in the complexities of social issues and race.
Next June will mark the 50th anniversary of the iconic Black Athletes Summit, which featured Jim Brown, Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell and other prominent athletes of the time united in public support of Ali and his refusal to be initiated with the US Army because of his beliefs. Brown is planning to commemorate the summit in an attempt to galvanize today’s prominent athletes to lend their voices for the violent turmoil that is taking place in Chicago.
I’m hoping that many of the aforementioned athletes of my generation are in attendance, along with one of Brown’s preferred guests, Ray Lewis. Lewis recently released an online video that was critical of the Black Lives Matter movement and urged the black community to focus on eradicating “Black-on-Black Crime.” I’m hoping that all of the athletes in attendance are able to have a conversation surrounding the societal conundrum they occupy as black athletes, how their views may differ, and how the issue of race has — or has not — shaped their respective outlooks.
Most importantly, I hope that Brown, Abdul-Jabbar, Walter Beach and others from the original summit are in attendance to offer their wisdom — because they already know the score.
Re-posted from The Cauldron (Originally Published on 6/27/16).
