Clippers for Justice; Owners for Power

Last year, the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, was put in the spotlight after a phone call between he and his girlfriend was released by TMZ Sports. He called her and made a few remarks about a recent post she had on Instagram of her with Magic Johnson. He insisted that she not publicize that she associates with black people, as it appeared to make him uncomfortably angry.

His comments were undoubtedly racist and aptly he drew an incredible amount of criticism for the phone call. Sterling was banned from the NBA for life. The way the Clippers’ players and some others around the league reacted relates to the piece we read by Kelly Candaele and Peter Dreier, “Where Are The Jocks For Justice?”.

After the phone call was released, the Clippers players discussed boycotting their next game, but ultimately decided against it. Instead, during the pre game warm up, the Clippers walked to the center of the court, and threw their warm up tops on the floor, revealing that they turned their shirts inside out, as an attempt to disassociate with the logo of the team. They claimed that they didn’t play basketball for the logo or brand, they played for each other. They were disgusted by Sterling’s comments and ashamed to wear the logo he owned the rights to.

In the article, the authors described how “pro athletes now have more protection than ever before to speak out without jeopardizing their careers. But, at the same time, they have much more at stake economically.” While the Clippers’ actions, described above, were definitely a statement against Sterling, ultimately it is hard to tell whether or not they accomplished anything. After the incident, it was inevitable that he would get banned, and the “inside-out” jersey protest seemed relatively minor in the scheme of things. This is because the athletes are on the lowest end of the hierarchy. The idea of boycotting would’ve been a much stronger and more meaningful protest, yet of course they couldn’t do that because there was a game to play, and it was the playoffs, forfeiting would not have accomplished anything for them either.

We talked in a recent lecture about what the role of students is when it comes to politics and activism. I think we can compare the role of students to the role of athletes on a team. We are people of the university, these athletes are people of their institution, the National Basketball Association. Is their job to bring in money? be role models? win games? make political statements? All of these seem legitimate except the last. Yet, their positions are so heavily followed by people all across the country that they have the power to make political statements, and bring about controversy and opinion, but they don’t have the power to actually make the change.

Sterling’s situation didn’t reveal anything about new about racism, people know racism isn’t acceptable. No. Sterling’s case revealed a lot about power: that the most influential people in the league are not the athletes who are the faces of it, but the ones in the offices.

It wasn’t Chris Paul or Blake Griffin that got Sterling fired, it was the head of the entire league, commissioner Adam Silver. In their article, Candaele and Dreier spoke in a tone that suggested they wished the athletes would make more movements to speak on behalf of political issues, but unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that the players opinions and attempts to bring change are effective. No matter how strong a protest they make, it will ultimately be the people in charge that make the decisions.