An Open Letter To America About The Sports Boycotts For Police Brutality

I’ll start this by saying that I believe Kyrie Irving is truly owed an apology by everyone who thought differently than him about the NBA restart.

Before the players took their talents down to Orlando, and the bubble, he was one of the main ones who was opposed to the whole idea quoting,

"I don’t support going into Orlando. I’m not with the systematic racism and the bullshit. Something smells a little fishy."

Many players rejected the notion of sitting out the rest of the NBA season mainly because of how much it would affect their livelihood.

And that's completely fair and understandable. 

I mean let’s be real, Kyrie is one of the few players in the league that can probably afford to not get paid for awhile. Contrary to what many people believe – there are many NBA players who just aren't in that same position.

But Kyrie wasn't just talking the talk. He's also put his actions behind those words. Last month, he pledged $1.5 million to support WNBA players who opted out of their season. He also produced a documentary on Breonna Taylor, which debuted in July.

I'm not implying other athletes haven't been doing their part, but Kyrie has visibly been about the action from the jump and now three months later, it took another black man, Jacob Blake, to get shot 7 times by the police for others to start seeing what he saw months ago.

Yesterday, we witnessed the Milwaukee Bucks refuse to take the court before their playoff game against the Orlando Magic without forewarning. Then the Orlando Magic followed. So did the Los Angeles Lakers, Portland Trail Blazers, Houston Rockets, and Oklahoma City Thunder.

The WNBA players also walked out, but not before gathering and speaking while wearing white T-shirts each designed with a letter of Blake's name on the front and seven bullet holes on the back -- the number of times and the location where Kenosha police shot Blake.

Later on, the Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds, Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants, along with 7.7% of Black Major League Baseball, walked out

Last night Tennis star Naomi Osaka said she wouldn't compete in her tournament semifinal today.

Before I am an athlete, I am a Black woman," Osaka said. "And as a Black woman, I feel as though there are much more important matters at hand that need attention, rather than watching me play tennis."

Furthermore, we saw TNT NBA analyst Kenny Smith walk off the set in the middle of a show in solidarity with the players, former NBA player Chris Webber emphatically express his thoughts about the situation on live TV and Doc Rivers, the Los Angeles Clippers head coach, the night before, holding back tears as he talked about the way black people have been treated in this country. 

The so-called irony is that all of this took place on the fourth anniversary of Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during a preseason NFL game.

I'm going to just come out and say it, I personally believe none of these leagues should have restarted in the first place.

Now, before you go off and refute me on this – I also understand that this decision is very nuanced and complex and isn’t black and white (no pun intended).

At the same time, I wholeheartedly feel that radical change requires radical action, but even that is always easier said than done.

"Complex, nuanced, complicated"... these are all the same words that can accurately describe the plight of black people in this country.

I'm reminded time and time again that we've been doing this shit for years.

I remember growing up, my mother would tell me stories about her joining the shrine. And why she changed her name to reflect her African heritage and left home at the age of 16 to bravely impart social change for black Americans. 

I recall the anecdotes about how many black activists sacrificed during that time and how black communities across the country banded together all for a single cause.

Equality for Black America. 

To be honest, those times seemed to have dissipated as we seem more divided as a culture than ever before.

But in a country that sometimes only appears to value black skin for the sweat they produce, whether that be on the court, field (plantation or football), stage or otherwise, it seems the most effective way to invoke true change today would be to remove our worth from these venues.

This historic decision that athletes have made will ripple across sports and all the industries in its orbit, from media to finance.

After all, that is the point.

That is exactly what these players understand and why they are doing it right now.

It's no question that they're taking a huge risk in an effort to dismantle an infrastructure that has been in place for years, but once again, radical change follows radical action.

By boycotting the playoffs, the people at the top stand to lose money and if it’s one thing we know to be true about this country, nobody likes their money played with.

The hard part about all of this is that it not only impacts those at the top, who might be able to take the hit for a while, but it’s also a slippery slope that ultimately might hurt more people at the bottom in the short-term (the workers, employees of the team, etc..).

In a nation where sports are synonymous with religion, taking that away might open more eyes.

It might wake more people up.

But it might not make any difference at all. 

At this point, all we can do is try. Radical action to make a radical change. Even though we've been at it for many years, that doesn’t mean you stop trying to deconstruct the system.

Similar to the physical labor that initially built this country, black entertainment and culture is the engine that rakes in dollars in this country.

Understand that these players, and entertainers, do this as a job. Except we sometimes forget that they are people first. Fathers and mothers first. Sons and daughters first. Husbands and wives, first. 

They do not exist solely for the entertainment of the public perception, especially a white public that often seems to thrive on Black pain.

Howard Bryant states,

“There is no place in America where killing is more frequent, more personal and more repetitive than the killing and assaulting of Black people by police.”

If some of white America can’t understand why we’re angry, frustrated, and rioting by now, then they’ll never probably never understand.

But the questions we really need to all ask ourselves as Black Americans is, “How pissed off are we really and how badly do we want this shit to change?”