by Solomon Comissiong
What's the point of debating the salaries of professional athletes? To a far greater extent than we can afford, African Americans allow themselves to be distracted by games. "We cannot allow ourselves to become more preoccupied with the final score of the Sunday afternoon NFL game than we are with the current 15 percent unemployment rate within the black community." And if we must be preoccupied with sports, "Why not spend some of our precious time raising the social consciousness of these black professional athletes?
Professional Athletics, Corporate Media, and Racism
by Solomon Comissiong
“Do we really think team owners give a damn about the neglected communities.”
I almost feel the need to preface what I am about to write with this statement: I have long been an ardent fan of professional sports. Truth be told, I really have been a fan of professional athletics, for as long as I can remember. I have participated in sports on many levels and have enjoyed the often unpredictable nature of professional athletics. However, as I have gotten older, wiser, and more knowledgeable about the world we live in, I have also become extremely jaded about a number of things, professional sports included. Some things that I used to find extraordinarily regaling, such as pro-sports, have lost much of their luster. With that preceding statement alone I can almost hear the cacophony of moans and groans from “die hard” sports fanatics. For the record, I still enjoy watching a “good” game on TV. However the stakes and emphasis that I used to place upon professional sports have steadily dwindled.
There are a number of reasons that have contributed to my quasi-new perspective on professional athletics. One of these many reasons has to do with the glaring inequities that exist within the games we watch, and dare I say, love.
In recent years I have allowed myself to get sucked into random conversations centered on how much money professional athletes in the NFL or NBA get paid. I can’t lie, I used to senselessly participate in these conversations: “Man, can you believe how much he is getting paid this year. He is ripping off the team with his high salary. Look at how much they are paying him…what a waste of money.” However, the more I thought about it, one thing became ever so clear to me: we were debating about how a bunch of filthy rich white men were spending their money. Shouldn’t the real debate and energy go towards discussing how our government spends our tax dollars and why hundreds of billions more are spent on destroying people than on social uplift? After all, the government is supposed to work for us (the people).
“We seem to ignore the glaring inequities that exist within the games we watch.”
Should the debates center on the inherently racist names some of these teams still cling to despite the annual protest from indigenous people? For there to even be a team with the name “Redskins” is extremely abhorrent. The team name is the equivalent of naming a team the “Niggers.” Yet every year that team’s officials, and many of its fans, justify the name by saying it is “tradition.” Damn, slavery was a tradition in America too, for more than 250 years. Given racist naming of teams and mascots – which makes a mockery of indigenous First Nation people – do we really think team owners give a damn about the neglected communities from which some of their best players come?
Debating how a bunch of filthy rich, exploitative NFL owners spend their money is a bit counterproductive. If we are really that concerned and appalled why don’t we simply stop giving our money to them in the form of ticket and merchandise sales?
These sports revenue debates are almost like a bunch of serfs arguing over how a “lord” decides to exercise his disproportionate “power,” rather than why serfs have no power within the system of feudalism. Just as those at the top of feudal systems seldom worried about their vassals; most professional sports owners don’t spend much time worrying about the fans and the communities they come from. They especially don’t worry about the black and brown skinned fans and their communities.
Next time you watch an NFL or NBA game take a look around in the stands. How many black or brown skinned fans do you see? Relatively few.
“Many of our people allow themselves to be distracted by utterly insignificant things.”
That’s because most people of color have effectively been priced out of the games. The majority of the players are black, but most of the fans that can afford tickets are white. This is a microcosm of American society in general – the coloration of the haves and the have-nots. Yet, despite these stark reminders of structural inequities, many of our people allow themselves to be distracted by utterly insignificant things. Who gives a damn how these owners spend their money? If they want to spend it on paying a black man 12 million a year to play a sport, more power to that brother. Do we really think that if they did not spend all that money on that brother, that they would spend it on programs of social uplift? If you believe that, then I have some “clean burning” Obama coal to sell you. Fact of the matter is, if an owner paid a black player $7 million a year as opposed to $12 million, that $5 million dollar difference is going into the owner’s bank account, his hedge fund, or his kids’ trust funds.
Hundreds of millions of dollars a day are being spent on destroying people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, yet many of us wish to waste idle time arguing about how much money sports team owners are spending on black athletes. If you must debate how rich elitist white people spend their money, why not also ask why some actors get paid 20 million a movie or why would anyone pay the racist-policy peddling ex-president Bubba Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak. However, those debates are a waste of valuable community organizing time too.
“Why not ask why would anyone pay the racist-policy peddling ex-president Bubba Clinton hundreds of thousands of dollars to speak.”
Why not spend some of our precious time raising the social consciousness of these black professional athletes? How about engaging them in discussions about pooling their resources, and starting to make political demands for the benefit of the communities they derive from? As it stands now, many of those athletes are allowing themselves, and their respective communities, to get the short end of the proverbial stick.
Take the NBA for instance, where the vast majority of the players are of African decent. These black players, directly and indirectly, help create strong economic foundations for the National Basketball Association, team owners, the corporate media, video games and clothing merchandise, etc. But how many corporate sports contracts are doled out to black businesses? What companies make the merchandise? Who owns the media that broadcasts the games? Mainly, white men.
Black and brown athletes help generate capital for so many different white business owners it is utterly pathetic. We can talk all we want about all the millions of dollars that some players earn, but that’s a mere pittance compared to the mother load of cash that others reap.
The National Football League is a glaring example of professionally sanctioned exploitation. They have shaped football into a brutally violent sport that offers no guaranteed contracts for its “gladiators.” To most professional sports owners, a player is only as good as his last productive game. The professional leagues are vertical industries built and sustained to support the select few within their “good ole boy” network.
“Most players of color are simply symbols and tokens of a deceptively exploitative system.”
Imagine if all of the black and brown athletes got together and demanded that these leagues offer more corporate contracts to minority business owners. Imagine if the players demanded that contracts be in proportion to the percentage of black and Latino players in the game. Wouldn’t that be a beautiful sight to see? As things stand,most players of color are simply symbols and tokens of a deceptively exploitative system.
Remember what happened when black baseball players began to migrate from the Negro Leagues into white run MLB? As those players followed Jackie Robinson’s lead, the Negro Leagues began to crumble. Are we once again fooling ourselves into thinking (or not thinking) that MLB offered a place and space for black owners of Negro League teams within the confines of a predominately white baseball league? Integration only truly works when the integratee is allowed the same rights, respect, and privileges as the integrator. This did not occur in professional American sports –not by a long shot.
We tend to overly romanticize sports, in this country, without examining the contextual fabric in which sports take place. We often hear that sports bring people together from across cultural lines, and it most certainly does. However, what does it mean when the game is over and those black and white players step back out into a world that world rewards the white players for simply being white and punishes the black players, and the communities they derive from, simply for being black?
“We cannot afford to be distracted from the gravity of the world that we live in.”
Sports can be a great distracter from the social ills that continue to plague society. We are too often suckered into mental traps with catchy phrases like, “Sports is a fantastic distraction from the world we live in.” We buy these foolish trains of thought without thinking analytically about what the statement means. We cannot afford to be distracted from the gravity of the world that we live in. It is a world dominated by racism, white supremacy, classism, sexism, unfettered capitalism, and imperialism, just to name a few of the most odious isms.
For the elite, entertainment is the perfect distracter and pacifier of the masses. This is not to say that we should not enjoy sports on a participation level, as well as a spectator level. However, we cannot allow ourselves to become more preoccupied with the final score of the Sunday afternoon NFL game than we are with the current 15 percent unemployment rate within the black community. What is ironic is the fact that, when examined closely, it is professional sports that provide us with some of the most blatant reminders of the kind of unequal society we still live in.
Take the Michael Vick dog fighting incident. It was incredibly interesting to witness the scores of white people outside of the Atlanta courthouse, many of whom held signs like, “Vick is Sick.” They were picketing as if they were on strike. Some had even dressed their babies in miniature t-shirts adorned with the same un-clever, “Vick is Sick” slogan. It was eerily reminiscent of the mobs that would gather to witness the lynching of black men, in a previous century.
You will never see those same white people publicly demanding that police officers that abuse and kill Black citizens be brought to justice.
“We cannot allow ourselves to become more preoccupied with the final score of the Sunday afternoon NFL game than we are with the current 15 percent unemployment rate within the black community.”
In America it is far more acceptable to assassinate black men than it is to be cruel to dogs. This is the world we step back into upon completion of that professional sports game. This is America, the land of social apathy, white privilege, institutional racism, and unfettered capitalism.
Being against racism means being against all forms of racism, especially institutional and structural forms. As Malcolm said, “Where the really sincere white people have got to do their ‘proving’ is […] on the battle lines of where America's racism really is - and that's in their own home communities; America's racism is among their own fellow whites. That's where sincere whites who really mean to accomplish something have got to work.”
White America’s several hundred year disease of racism has to be cured internally from the inside out. There needs to be self-medication – but if white America is unwilling to take its medication there will be no cure.
America has some real issues it must deal with, racism being one, before it can truly be a “beacon of hope.” Cheering for a black professional athlete does not make one non-racist anymore than it makes America less racist. As long as we believe that “supporting” mainstream entertainers is a barometer by which we can gauge America’s racism levels, we will be distracted from vastly more important issues. Police brutality, racist housing practices, unequal school systems, racial profiling, housing gap, wealth gap, achievement gap, and unemployment gaps are forms of institutional racism. They won’t go away without a collective, organized and concerted effort. Placing more emphasis on which team you root for on Sunday afternoon rather than on how you help our communities will not help in the struggle against racism and white supremacy. It will merely continue to keep our collective eyes off the “ball.”