‘Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!’: Sport as a site for political activism and social change

Abstract

Is sport an appropriate forum for activists to engage in political protest? In recent years, this question has been the subject of conversations in households, public spaces such as barbershops and coffee shops, and social media and newsrooms, as various high-profile athletes have used their sport platforms to call attention to various social injustices existing within the US society. The purpose of the following interview is to provide further insight into this intersection between sport and politics and the use of sport as a site for political resistance and social change. Dave Zirin, a critical sports journalist, is the sports editor for The Nation and author of several books on the politics of sport. This interview with Dave Zirin offers a nuanced understanding on the recent occurrences involving athlete activism and the overall use of sport as a site for political activism and social change. Topics covered include race and racism in America, social responsibility, and social movements, among others.

Keywords

Activism Black lives matter organizational theory race social change social movements sport

Is sport an appropriate forum for activists to engage in political protest? This question has garnered a lot of attention in recent years, as various athletes have used their sporting platforms to highlight societal injustice and inequality, particularly in the United States. Contemporary examples of athlete activism include, Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) players wearing t-shirts in demonstration after the killings of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling; National Basketball Association (NBA) players wearing ‘I can’t breathe’ t-shirts to protest Eric Garner’s killing and subsequent refusal of the New York Police Department (NYPD) to indict the police officers involved; former National Football League (NFL) quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the US national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality; and the US professional soccer player Megan Rapinoe kneeling in protest of police brutality and racial inequality. In the context of the current interview, we focus primarily on the activisms of Black American men in sports. Although, it should be emphasized that the examples of athlete–activism discussed here are embedded within a much larger societal context in which a long list of athletes across various dimensions of diversity have used their affiliation with sport organizations and institutions as a platform for political activism (see for example, Delsahut, 2019; Griffin, 1992; Lansbury, 2014; Ware, 2011). Still, a popular belief among fans and non-fans alike is that sport should not be intertwined with politics. For instance, in a 2019 interview, ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro alluded to this notion, saying, ‘Without question our data tells us our fans do not want us to cover politics’ (Battaglio, 2019: para. 23). A popular sentiment among many fans and other observers is that athletes and the sport organizations they represent should ‘stick to sport’, as evidenced by Fox News commentator, Laura Ingraham telling NBA superstar LeBron James to ‘shut up and dribble’ after LeBron criticized the US President Donald J. Trump.

Whether this perspective is a result of existing sport/political ideologies, individual identity preservation, the explicit (re)framing of existing social and political structures, or an attempt to maintain the mystique of the sport fan experience, the belief that sport is and should remain apolitical (see Coakley, 2015) has been ever-present in shaping today’s institutional context in which athletes engage with political activism. Interestingly, in 56 BCE, Roman public official and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero referenced the venues in which potential activists may voice their concerns (Bond, 2017): ‘In truth, there are three places in which the opinion and inclination of the Roman people may be ascertained in the greatest degree; at speeches, the assemblies and at the games and exhibitions of gladiators’. The lesson from this is that sports and politics are not mutually exclusive and, perhaps, never will be. Indeed, extensive scholarship in recent decades has further exposed the connection between sport and politics from a variety of angles (e.g. Allison, 1986, 1993, 2004; Carrington, 2010; Edwards, 1969; Grix, 2015; Miller and Wiggins, 2004; Nauright and Schimmel, 2005). However, the organizational context of sport is often framed as an ancillary field for inquiry. Yet, it is because of its ubiquity that sport serves as an ideal institutional field for critically interrogating issues locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally (see for example, Chalip, 2006; Coakley, 2015; Slack and Parent, 2006; Wolfe et al., 2005). As a precursor to our interview with critical sports journalist, Dave Zirin on sport as a site for political activism, we provide an overview of relevant research on this topic.

Organizations and activism

Studies examining social movement activity (e.g. protests, boycotts, legal action) represent a growing body of literature within organizational research (see Soule, 2012), likely because organizations are often subjected to various types of activism and/or resistance (Ball, 2005; Pullen and Rhodes, 2014). Moreover, social movements themselves regularly manifest in and through formal organizations (e.g. Black Lives Matter). Despite these connections, it is only recently that social movement and organization scholars have realized integrating these two areas would benefit each other’s scholarship (Davis et al., 2008). Davis et al. (2008) reasoned world events drive this increasing convergence we see today and that it is not uncommon to witness social movement activity occurring in organizational spaces. For instance, much of what we see happening in and around sport as it pertains to activism today is the result of police-involved shootings of Black men in the United States.

As a result, we now see a rich body of research with several themes (Davis et al., 2008). The first theme involves organizations being the target of social movement activity (e.g. King, 2008). For instance, consider how Nike altered its business practices after a wave of protests regarding child labor and the use of sweatshops (Bain, 2017). Although the response by Nike can certainly be considered minimal – if not antithetical to – change under neoliberal axioms (Banerjee, 2008; Weems et al., 2017), it is organizational change nonetheless. A second theme concerns organizations collaborating with or responding to social movements (e.g. Georgallis, 2017). For instance, in response to stadium building in the Amazon for the 2014 World Cup, FIFA claimed to be partnering with various deforestation projects (Sustainability Report, 2014). While corporate responses may not be in collaboration with social movements, they are often mobilized through the institutional pressures created by social movements (Hensmans, 2003). The same can be said about many NGOs, which are more likely to be shaped by social movements than are large corporations. Yet, it should be emphasized that social movements, NGOs and corporate social responsibility are not synonymous concepts, nor are they necessarily in alignment as politicking bodies (Finger and Princen, 2013; Jad, 2007; Mercer, 2002). Third, organizations can also be the manifestation of a social movement. This is when a social movement’s values are infused within an organization (e.g. King and Haveman, 2008). For instance, Ben and Jerry’s (2016) Ice Cream is noted for its progressive politics, evidenced by their declaration in support of the Black Lives Matter movement (see ‘Why Black Lives Matter’). Another theme is when social movements create markets (e.g. Kurland and McCaffrey, 2016), as shown by the creation of a market for socially responsible products such as TOMS. A final theme, and the one from which this interview is based, is when organizations are the sites of social movement activity. As noted earlier, in recent years, athletes have used their affiliation with various sport organizations as a platform or site to engage in political activism in hopes of shedding light on societal issues. Yet, despite the tradition of sport organizations and institutions serving as sites for political activism, critical scholars in the aforementioned fields have (up until now) been far less likely to study them (see Coakley, 2015). Below, we briefly discuss sociologist and sport scholar activist, Harry Edwards’ four waves of athlete activism as a framework to understand how and why the US athletes (Black athletes in particular) used their platforms to affect change in society and sport. For those unfamiliar with the work of Edwards, he is one of the founders of the Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR), which he used as an organizational platform to help organize the US athletes’ protests during the height of the civil rights era. He is arguably most well-known for helping spark the US Olympic sprinters, John Carlos’ and Tommie Smith’s black gloved fist protest (against racism and economic injustice in the United States) on the victory stand during the playing of the US national anthem at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City (Agyemang et al., 2018).

Four waves of athlete activism in US sport

In 2016, Dr Harry Edwards delivered the keynote address at the annual conference for the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS), and discussed what he termed the four waves of athlete activism as contextualized within broader social movements in the US society from the late 19th century to the present (Cunningham et al., in press; Edwards, 2016). The first wave (1900–1945) was characterized by individual Black athlete activists such as Jack Johnson, Paul Robeson, and Joe Louis, and organizations like the Negro Leagues and athletic departments at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) that fought and pushed for recognition and legitimacy in an openly racist, apartheid society and sport industry. The second wave (1946s–1960s) came to fruition in the years following the Second World War, led by athletes such as Jackie Robinson, a product of the Negro Leagues, and Althea Gibson, a graduate of an HBCU. These and other Black athletes were catalysts for desegregation and access in the US society and the sport industry. The third wave (1960s–1970s) was largely fueled by the Civil Rights Movement and the rise of the Black Power Movement, with Black athlete-activists such as Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Bill Russell, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (formerly Lew Alcindor) boldly and uncompromisingly leading the way in demands for dignity, respect, and social justice. Black athletes organized and collaborated closely with their non-athlete peers by engaging in various protests, boycotts and other activities aimed at securing civil and human rights for Blacks and other marginalized groups.

Edwards (2016) described the period between the 1970s and around 2005 as one of Black athlete activism stagnation. Although there have been some Black athletes such as NBA players, Craig Hodges and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (formerly Chris Jackson) who openly used their platforms (in the 1990s) to engage in political activism, there was a steep decline in Black athlete activism during this time period. Cooper et al. (2019) discussed the primary reasons for this decline. In particular, they stressed how in the wake of the post-Civil Rights era the government and sport governing bodies sought to stifle radical racial progress by offering moderate policy modifications that maintained White supremacy and the inequitable power structures that have long existed in society and sport. The presence of civil rights legislation (e.g. Title VII), adoption of affirmative action policies (e.g. hiring in the workplace), and the increased access for racial minorities to various White-owned capitalist spaces across various sectors of U.S. society and sport contributed to a widespread illusion that racial equality now existed and contributed to this decrease in political activism. Moreover, the rise and commercial success of Black athletes who appealed to race-neutral, apolitical stances (e.g. O.J. Simpson, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods) helped temper political activism among Black athletes, many of whom seemed far more interested in acquiring and protecting their economic interests and rewards (e.g. corporate endorsements, professional sport contracts) than they were in engaging in acts of resistance (see Agyemang, 2012; Crowley, 1999; Houck, 2012; Johnson and Roediger, 2000). Finally, it is important to note that this all unfolded within the context of a societal shift toward multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion and away from racial justice in the 1980s and 1990s (see Thomas, 1990).

More recently, however, a fourth wave of activism has formed in response to the unjustified killings and treatment of Black Americans by police officers. Across different sports and at varying levels, many athletes have organized around a broader movement for social justice constituting what Edwards referred to as a distinct and different wave of activism in today’s context. As a significant differentiator of this fourth wave of activism, Edwards emphasized how high-profile Black athletes (e.g. Venus Williams, LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick) marshaled unprecedented independence and influence as mini-corporate entities and social media maestros who espoused the ideologies of BLM and other social justice causes in efforts to secure and transfer power through economic and technical capital. Given this most recent wave of activism among sport actors in the BLM era, the first author of this article contacted (through Twitter) Dave Zirin, a critical sports journalist to invite him to do an interview for Organization’s new space Acting up (Prichard and Benschop, 2018). He kindly agreed, and subsequently, the first author conducted two telephone interviews that were recorded with Dave’s permission. A research assistant transcribed these interviews, and the first author did initial reviews of the transcripts while listening to the recorded audio before sharing the transcripts with his co-authors to review and discuss among the research team. Dave declined to read over the transcripts, citing that he trusted the authors to accurately represent his perspectives on sport as a site for political activism.

Dave Zirin background

Dave is the sports editor for The Nation and author of several books on the politics of sport. He recently co-authored a book with Super Bowl winning NFL player, Michael Bennett, titled Things that make white people uncomfortable (Bennett and Zirin, 2018). He is also a frequent commentator on ESPN, MSNBC, Democracy Now!, and hosts The Nation’s Edge of Sports podcast (The Nation, 2018). The interview below brings to the forefront issues of interest to critical scholars in management and organizations studies, namely race, social movements, and organizations. Despite sport being a core institution within societies across the globe, to date, there are few attempts by management and organization studies scholars to examine sport as an institution for political activism and explore connections between sport and society, more broadly. While such scholarship does exist in fields such as the sociology of sport (e.g. Cooper et al., 2019; Edwards, 1969) and sport management (e.g. Agyemang, 2011; Agyemang et al., 2010; Yan et al., 2018), much of the critical work emanates from journalists and former athletes. For instance, Etan Thomas’ (former NBA athlete) book attempts to illustrate the influence of professional athletes when they engage issues such as race and politics (see Thomas, 2018). In addition, journalist Howard Bryant’s book The Heritage highlights the history of the Black athlete and social issues (see Bryant, 2018), while Leonard (2017) illustrated how sport is a site of Whiteness, even in sports where the majority of the players are Black. These examples of critical works in the broad field of sport represent both a problem and an opportunity for general management and organizational scholars to draw upon the rich legacy of scholarship residing within sport contexts (see Day et al., 2012; Wolfe et al., 2005) to better understand the intersections of sport, organizations, and society.

We hope the interview below, along with our post-interview analysis, encourages future engagement with sport in this particular journal. Our goal is to inspire collaborations between critical scholars in sport management and sociology, management, and organizational theory, among other related fields. Given space limitations, the interview with Dave was edited for clarity and flow. It highlights the perspectives of a critical sports journalist who understands the moment we are in and can speak with boldness and clarity on the link between race, sports, and politics.

Interview with Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports)

KA:

Could you tell us a little bit more about your background? For instance, why you got involved in doing the critical work that you have been doing all these years?

DZ:

Yeah, I grew up in New York City [in the 1980s]. I grew up absolutely a colossal sports fan. But you know also growing up in New York, it was also a time of a lot of conflict, a lot of very high-profile cases. But the point is that sports was always sort of my bridge to other communities and neighborhoods that otherwise you know would just be segregated off. I never gave a lot of thought to the politics of sports until college when basketball player, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, made the decision that he wasn’t going to stand for the anthem [mid 1990s]. And you know I was a history major, and I loved history and I loved sports. But you know, I kept those things very separate and when Rauf made his stand, I’ll never forget watching [ESPN] SportsCenter, and they had a commentator say that [Mahmoud Abdul]-Rauf might see himself in the tradition of activist athlete. And I had no idea what they were talking about, like what that tradition was. That’s what really set me on the path of learning the history and learning about all the ways in which sports has been political, and all the ways in which people have used sports to leverage politics, particularly in resistance politics. Because that was just my logical assumption, you know, looking at Rauf and looking at the history and it was just like,

well, if sports has always been political, then it stands to reason that even if the media, the sports media in the mid-90s, is apolitical and aggressively apolitical, then it stands to reason that there is still a hidden history not being written about sports and politics.

KA:

From a historical perspective, how important would you say race has been throughout American history?

DZ:

That’s a defining question of American history. The defining question of American history is the gap between what this country promised in 1776 when it overthrew a king. They said it was going to stand for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but there was a portion of its population living in human bondage. And the defining question of American history is the question that still plagues us to this day, is the gap between the promises of this country and the actuality of structural oppression. And while structural oppression affects people on issues of class, gender, race, sexuality, immigration of course, the very specific question of the two great crimes that this country was founded upon which was: mass displacement and genocide of Native Americans and mass enslavement in the transatlantic slave trade. Those two fundamental crimes are really like to me, as much a defining foundation of this country as the founding documents of this country. And sports, I mean let’s take it to sports because nothing has reflected that contradiction more publicly than sports. Because sports have always contained within it this idea that it represents the meritocracy. This idea that anybody who works hard enough can make it; the idea that we live on a level playing field, and so the only barriers to success in this country is your own hard work. And yet the reality of sports has always been about fighting for inclusion, and so if sports is supposed to represent the best, then how can it represent the best if women aren’t allowed to play or if there is segregation, or if there’s lack of opportunity to play in certain neighborhoods. And the fighting for inclusion in sports has been, I think, one of the great levers that’s exposed some of the unleveled playing field that exist in the United States. That’s why you can’t talk about the turn of the 20th century and the era of hardened White supremacy without talking about Jack Johnson. You can’t talk about early in the civil rights movement without talking about Jackie Robinson. You can’t talk about the 1960s without talking about Muhammad Ali. Or, you can’t talk about sports and politics today and the Black Lives Matter movement without talking about Colin Kaepernick and the protests that are happening right now in the NFL. That’s why the histories are so incredibly intertwined.

KA:

So, from a macro level, what role does government play in addressing these issues of race in our country?

DZ:

I mean it depends on the government and it depends on the aim of the government. I mean as far as this government goes, there are some very, very big reforms that have been suggested that have been largely ignored. They have to do with the issue of basic training of police officers. That’s one of the things that Colin Kaepernick has talked about is that in some states, it takes more training to be a cosmetologist than it takes to be a police officer. Something as basic as making sure that our criminal justice system isn’t set up so police officers can’t effectively be prosecuted for killing unarmed people. You know and there’s lots of things we can say about that. We can talk about government and racism, private prisons, stopping the war on drugs. You know, these are actual reforms that would make the criminal justice system less racist. You know, just overhauling our entire system of punitive injustice, basically. That’s on the most macro possible level. I think there are limitations that we can expect from government because I think that racism has really built into the case of this country. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make the effects of racism less toxic to people who are victimized by it.

KA:

Sure, so let’s turn to that. How would you define activism, and what examples stick out to you as some of the most prominent ones in history up until now?

DZ:

I mean, if we are talking about resistance politics, I think most fundamentally when you look at sports, you have to look at the plights of people who are oppressed on the basis of race, gender, sexuality and the way those fights have reflected themselves in sports. I think most fundamentally, the most important ones are when we see those struggles off the playing field, reflect on the playing field. For example, when we speak about the civil rights movement and the Black freedom struggle and the presence of people like Bill Russell, Muhammad Ali, and Jackie Robinson. The fight for Title IX in this country, which is the most comprehensive and far reaching piece of civil rights legislation ever signed. I mean people like Billie Jean King and also people we don’t talk about like Donna de Varona or Lacey O’Neal who were other female athletes who were part of that struggle. And when we talk about the emergence of LGBT rights, we speak about Tom Waddell and the gay games which emerged in the 1980s. People like Martina Navratilova coming out, proudly, at a time when, you know, that was something that raised more than a few eyebrows, but doing so publicly. And basically, she changed people about their own homophobias and challenging people on that. So, all of that to me is fundamental in this conversation; it’s all about the ricochet effect. The ways in which a struggle off the playing field reflects itself on the playing field, and the way it then ricochets back on, it then amplifies the struggle again off the playing field.

KA:

What parallels would you draw between Kaepernick’s protest and the broader Black American civil rights movement in the 1950’s and the 1960’s? Also, since you wrote a book on Muhammad Ali, what lessons could today’s celebrity athlete glean from those of yesteryear?

DZ:

Well let’s start with the second one. I think that what Colin Kaepernick is doing today connects more strongly with what Muhammad Ali was doing than anything else we have seen. It’s been terrific that in the last several years you see more and more athletes speak out, saying that they have the right to speak out. They’re breaking the sort of corporate- and team-imposed silence that existed on pro athletes that’s existed for a generation, with certainly some notable exceptions, but that’s been generally the rule. And to see athletes like LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony defy that has been remarkable. But Colin Kaepernick is different because he connects very strongly to what was so electric about Muhammad Ali, which was the fact that he wasn’t calling for peace. He was calling for justice, and that’s different. While it’s certainly laudable for an athlete like LeBron James to speak about the need to build a bridge and to stop violence in the community, it’s very different than what Colin Kaepernick is saying. What he is saying is that we need systemic change, that there is something systemically wrong with our police department. That there is something systemically wrong with our system of criminal justice. And that stretches back to what Ali was saying. He wasn’t saying that we need to build a bridge between people who hate the war in Vietnam and people that love the war in Vietnam. And he polarized the question to the point where you have to take a side, you’re either with the war or you’re against the war. And so that’s why it’s fundamentally different than what we’ve seen since then. And I think that’s what makes Colin Kaepernick so electric. And the other thing with Colin Kaepernick, if you recall Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the ‘68 Olympics, and the idea behind the raising of your fists: the ideals of the anthem and the ideals of the flag and calling out the gap that exists between the promise of those symbols and the actuality of people’s lived experience. And like Smith and Carlos, taking a knee is something that can be re-produced on any level; high school or middle school, women’s sports or men’s sports, and then of course you’re not only demonstrating but of course it’s in front of thousands of people and polarizing the question for them, polarizing several questions. Like not only the simple questions, like the question of ‘do we have a police violence problem in this country?’, but also ‘do you think that athletes have the right to free speech?’ And I think that all of those issues are what make this moment that we are witnessing so electric, and also makes it I think the strongest echo that I think we have heard since the 1960s. Of course, it’s not the same as the 60s, but you know there’s this famous quote from Mark Twain, ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme’, and I think the moment today is rhyming pretty strongly with the 60s.

KA:

And what would you say is the reason for the rise in activism that we see from athletes nowadays?

DZ:

First and foremost, the Black Lives Matter movement. That’s the lesson of the 1960s. That if you don’t have a movement in the street, you won’t have a movement on the playing field. You know athletes don’t come down from another planet and entertain us; they’re a part of this world too, so that’s the most fundamental part of it. Movement off the field means that you’ll have movement on the field. The second thing is I think absolutely social media and the fact that athletes are able to engage directly with fans about how they feel and move around the filter of the mainstream media and sports media which is still over all these years overwhelmingly White and conservative. So, it allows athletes, if they don’t trust any sports writers, to go around them and speak directly to fans. And I’ll tell you another thing that accounts for it, which a lot of people are not talking about and I think is very significant. The death of Muhammad Ali has had a catalytic effect on a lot of young athletes. It’s a forced public reckoning with Muhammad Ali and his legacy. There was a lot of coverage of Ali that spoke very, very directly about his legacy of resistance and I think Ali in life up until recent decades has been sugar coated. In death, it allows for a more serious discussion about him and his legacy and I think that has had a very strong effect on young athletes as well.

KA:

You brought up an interesting point about social media. Can you elaborate on that?

DZ:

In recent years, I mean if we’re speaking on police violence, there is no question that social media has changed the equation for two reasons. For one, it forces people who have never been affected by police violence or haven’t been conscious of police violence to actually see it with their own eyes. And then other people who have been victimized by police violence, particularly in communities of color who felt like they have been suffering in silence. I can tell you I worked with the mothers of people killed by police since the mid-1990s. I remember holding community forums and panels with these mothers and we would be lucky to get seven people to come out and hear their story. Now you have the mothers of people who have been killed by police being embraced by Beyoncé and Jay-Z, which is a beautiful thing. I’m not saying it is a bad thing, but I’m just saying how do you account for that difference between no interest to the fact that these women are being heralded as these great heroes which they are? I think the answer to that lies in social media.

KA:

Definitely. So, from an organizational perspective, we’ve seen different types of responses from leagues and other organizational actors. What are your thoughts on these seemingly different approaches by these individuals?

DZ:

Well it’s interesting, the most important one for us to look at is NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Because he is basically the representation, the embodiment and personification of all 31 NFL owners and so whatever he is saying, they are the ones who have their hands up his you know what to keep their pockets full [with money]. So, it’s like what he’s saying represents the will of this incredibly big, right-wing cabal of sports owners, and so I just think it says a great deal that Roger Goodell is a person who will fine players for dancing in the end zone or wearing the wrong color shoe lace. It says something pretty crazy that he’s stepping so gingerly around this issue. And I think he keeps stepping so gingerly around this issue, or more likely, why he’s being ordered to step so gingerly is that I think they realize that they’re really standing on some TNT here. And in the NFL, it’s 0% Black owners and 68% Black players. They [these players] are exhibiting social consciousness. So, think about this for a second, like imagine what would happen if Roger Goodell instituted fines and suspensions for players for not standing up for the anthem. It wouldn’t take a big leap for a player to say, ‘I guess Black lives don’t matter to the NFL either’. Or, ‘look at this league, we destroy our bodies for this league, you know we are the reason people pay for tickets to come, but I guess we are allowed to play but we’re not allowed to be heard’. I mean the political connections with this are a public relations nightmare for the league, an absolute nightmare. And I think what they are doing is they are realizing that they need to take a step back. What you’re seeing, I’ve written about this, it’s not just NFL players speaking out for a movement, speaking out against police violence, and for their right to speak out, but you’re also seeing what I think is a historic game changing challenge with a very button down militaristic corporate culture of the National Football League.

KA:

And from a more micro level, what social responsibilities do celebrity athletes have? Does it differ for Black male athletes specifically?

DZ:

I don’t think an athlete has an obligation to speak out more than any other citizen. I think all citizens have an obligation to speak out when they see injustice. I think that’s actually a prerequisite of being a functioning member of a society. If you see injustice, you speak out about it. I think that athletes don’t have any special responsibility and Black athletes do not have any special responsibility. But if you see injustice, then you do have an obligation to speak out against it. Now the question of Black athletes in particular is very interesting because, without question, it’s egregiously unfair for Black athletes to be asked questions that White athletes are not asked or Black athletes to be demanded to have a social conscience when their White teammates are not. That’s absurd to me. Everybody should be asked; everybody should have an opinion when there’s injustice in the world. It should not be something that is relative to skin color. But at the same time, I agree with my friend Etan Thomas who played in the National Basketball Association when he calls being a Black athlete a curse and a blessing. He says it’s definitely true that it’s not fair that we have this burden of representation, but we also have the blessing by virtue and nature of being a Black athlete of being connected to this remarkable history that involves people like Ali, Smith and Carlos, Bill Russell, and there is a responsibility that comes with being a part of that tradition in American culture.

KA:

You mentioned every athlete should be asked. In a 2014 article, you talked about White athletes wearing shirts that stated ‘my teammate’s lives matter’. Could you kind of speak to the role of the White athlete in this whole conversation?

DZ:

People act like it’s this big mystery or crazy Rubicon River to cross for a White athlete to be against racism. I mean, in reality, it’s very common-sensical. Because people talk all the time about sports teams being families, and if you have a member of your family that’s worried about their kids or you have a member of your family that’s upset about something, I mean, don’t you have an obligation to stand with them? So, it’s not like some crazy thing where it’s like, ‘oh, it’s not my place to say anything because I’m White’, or ‘this is a Black issue’, or ‘oh that’s for them not for me’. You’re either a family or you’re not! And if you are a family, you should say something. And frankly, if White male, professional athletes spoke up, it would take so much of the pressure off of people like Colin Kaepernick, whose careers are in peril by speaking out. And also, it would make life so much harder for the bigots out there who I think are very consciously trying to keep this quarantined, um, among Black athletes, and are scared to death at the thought of it spreading broader than that. I mean, imagine JJ Watt taking a knee for goodness sakes. It’d be the sort of thing where they [racist bigots] wouldn’t even know how to respond. And they would frankly expose themselves, because they would probably call them [White athletes] some sort of race baiter or something, which would give the game away, frankly.

KA:

Sure.

DZ:

So yeah, the role of the White athlete is very important in this. And I think they’ve largely gotten a pass up to now. Even though we haven’t seen any White male professional athletes speak out, what you are starting to see is a reckoning and a thoughtfulness among White athletes.

KA:

How can we translate this activism and social responsibility into action and policy change?

DZ:

I mean, I really do believe that the only positive changes that we’ve really seen in our society have come gradually through grassroots activity and struggle. It’s honestly not the job of a citizen to write legislation or craft a bill or get it through congress or any of that. It’s like Frederick Douglass said, ‘my last words are three, agitate, agitate, agitate’. We gotta keep pushing for change because like former Mayor Marion Barry said, you know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

KA:

What role should critical scholars and journalists such as yourself play in consulting and advising these sport organizations?

DZ:

I think for people like myself, the job is much more is to kind of listen and hear what’s being said and try to amplify what exactly they are trying to do, and write about it. And I think social media, you know, I think that it actually helps, because it allows us to directly connect with athletes and to communicate with them and try to engage with them. You can see if you look at athletes, some of them, their social media feed, they are retweeting articles; they’re not just doing hashtags and that’s a big difference that we’ve seen in the last couple of years. You know it’s not just about the hashtag, it’s not just about recording another loss of life at the hands of an unaccountable police department. It’s about actually deepening our politics and our understanding of why these things keep happening with such regularity. And so that’s really what I think our goal is. I mean, me personally, athletes have reached out to me to talk, and I’m always honored because I understand what it is they’re sacrificing. But like I’m a big believer that sports writers have done enough talking over the years, and when it comes to athletes speaking out, I believe they [sportswriters] are doing a much better job of listening.

KA:

Lastly, for the academic community not privy to work concerning the intersection of sport and politics, can you offer some examples of scholars doing critical work?

DZ:

Sure. David Leonard, Amira Rose, and Damion Thomas.

Discussion and conclusion

In this section, we share our perceptions of the strengths and limitations of Zirin’s discussion on sport and political activism among athletes in contemporary US society. In doing so, we briefly focus our analysis on issues at the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels. We conclude with some practical implications and directions for research going forward.

From a macro-level standpoint, Zirin understands that race is central to any discussion of structural oppression, and thus, resistance to such oppression in the US society (see Feagin, 2006). While he acknowledged the historical significance of intersectionality and how structural oppression affects people across identity spectrums beyond race, he made clear that at the root of this structural oppression is the matter of race and racism (specifically the mass displacement and genocide of Native Americans, and the enslavement of Africans through the transatlantic slave trade). Significantly, in critiquing the dominant narrative that sport is a meritocracy where the playing field is level, Zirin offered a counter-narrative by discussing how Black athletes have engaged in various forms of activism to address racial and other forms of oppression during the four waves of activism we outlined earlier. However, one important related issue that did not get much attention in Zirin’s interview is the White nationalist backlash that Black athletes have faced when they use their affiliations with sport organizations as powerful platforms to protest oppression and injustice (particularly during this fourth wave). The NFL is strongly framed as a cultural medium for expressions of White nationalism, which was galvanized in many Whites’ response to recent athlete activisms (Kusz, 2017; Weems et al., 2017). For example, the racist reactions toward and the labeling of Colin Kaepernick and other Black players who kneeled during the US national anthem in protest against police brutality and other forms of state violence against Black people and other racial minorities as unpatriotic and un-American by Whites, including President Donald Trump, is a case in point. Kaepernick himself poignantly noted this nationalist bend in 2016 when he stated, ‘There’s a lot of racism disguised as patriotism in this country. . . but it needs to be addressed’ (Weems et al., 2017: para. 10). Ongoing research that the second and third authors have conducted on cyber-racism against Black athletes who engage in activism provides additional insight into this macro-level issue (Oshiro et al., in press).

From a meso-level perspective, Zirin discussed the conundrum that the NFL as a powerful White owned and operated organization finds itself in as it deals with Black athletes in this fourth wave of athlete activism. In describing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell as a leader who ‘represents the will of this incredibly big, right-wing cabal of White sports owners’ who oversee a league of majority Black players, Zirin articulated how this leader must ‘step so gingerly’ in deciding how to handle players, particularly those who exhibit social consciousness and a propensity to engage in political activism like Kaepernick and others have done. In this BLM era, Goodell and his contemporaries in other sport leagues or entities have to carefully consider how they go about addressing the sometimes competing and contradictory interests of athletes and other stakeholders (e.g. fans, sport media). It should be noted that prior to the 2018 season, Goodell and the NFL attempted to implement a policy that would fine organizations if players kneeled; however, this policy was quickly halted (Maske, 2018). In any case, athletes and leaders of sport organizations also have to consider if there are any potential legal boundaries in the workplace that might preclude athletes or other stakeholders from using it as a site of political protest. Perhaps issues related to free speech are conceivably something to be considered. In addition, issues related to athletes’ contractual rights and obligations are important to understand. For example, how might athletes’ engagement in political activism affect their contracts with the teams they play for or endorsement contracts with corporations that sponsor them? There are several recent articles that scholars can consult for more reading on these and related issues (e.g. Brown and Brison, 2018; Curry, 2018; Maye, 2019; Niven, 2019; Pie, 2019). These are important meso-level questions and issues that were not raised in our interview with Zirin. We acknowledge these questions are critical to the broader question of workplace activism in elite sport. These issues are worthy of and necessitate further exploration, and we call on organizational scholars interested in sport to undertake this charge.

Finally, from a micro-level vantage point, the question concerning what responsibility individual athletes, particularly Black athletes, have to engage in activism was raised (see Agyemang and Singer, 2011). Although he insisted that athletes do not have any greater responsibility than other citizens to have a social conscience or engage in activism and it is unjust for Black athletes to be expected to do so when White athletes are not, Zirin suggested that today’s Black athletes are a part of a rich historical lineage and legacy of Black athletes who engaged in activism across the four waves of athlete activism; therefore, they have an unfair ‘burden of representation’ to shoulder. He also suggested that if White (male) athletes decided to use their privilege to speak up and speak out against injustice it would take great pressure off Black athletes and potentially further expose racist bigots who are against racial and other forms of justice. From his perspective, White athletes have an important role to play and are becoming more thoughtful about these issues.

In sharing some practical implications and future research directions, we situate our discussion within Cooper et al. (2019) typology of African American sport activism, which delineates five categories of activism that individual athletes, sport scholar activists, and sport institutions might engage in the following: symbolic, scholarly, grassroots, sport-based, and economic. Although these authors focus on Black American sport activism, this typology has practical implications across racial groups, organizational contexts, and levels of analysis. First, in regards to symbolic activism, individuals, groups, and organizations could use the unique platform of sport as a site to resist injustice and persist in bringing about diversity and social justice in society and sport organizations. Cunningham et al. (in press) argued that given the significance of sport in society athletes and coaches in particular have taken on a celebrity status, and therefore, are well-positioned to deliberately engage in actions in and through sport that can invoke change. For example, since Trump’s election, White NBA coaches such as Greg Popovich and Steve Kerr and players such as Kyle Korver have more explicitly used their respective platforms and privilege to push back against racism in the broader US society.

In regards to scholarly activism, journalists like Zirin and critical scholars could use their respective platforms in the classroom and research outlets to amplify and transmit knowledge aimed at promoting social change. Similar to what Zirin did in the book he co-authored with NFL player, Michael Bennett (see Bennett and Zirin, 2018), critical journalists, and scholars should collaborate across and within their respective networks of athletes, coaches, and leaders in sport organizations to produce this powerful knowledge.

In terms of grassroots activism, sport activists could create organizations and programs aimed at countering hegemonic norms or forces in society and sport. For example, Joseph Cooper’s Collective Uplift program that was designed to critically engage Black and Latinx male college athletes in a program of excellence beyond athletics participation not only combines elements of scholarly activism (i.e. it is rooted in research with these groups), but also grassroots organizing, particularly in the context of historically White colleges and universities (HWCU) (Cooper et al., 2018).

In terms of sport-based activism, the recent win by the US women’s national soccer team in the 2019 world cup – led by co-captain, Megan Rapinoe, an outspoken critic of injustice who has used her platform to engage in symbolic activism in recent years – is an example of how a sport organization (i.e. team) could use their platform to push for change specifically in sport. In the immediate aftermath of their record fourth world cup victory, the team used it as an opportunity to call for equal pay for women in US soccer. Although the women’s team has historically been more successful than the men’s team (i.e. the men have never won a world cup), there remains a huge disparity in pay between these teams.

Finally, in regards to economic activism, there are opportunities for individuals and groups, particularly those who come from marginalized communities, to focus on creating businesses for their community in and through sport. Cooper et al. (2019) discussed the entrepreneurs who facilitated the growth of the Negro Leagues during Jim Crow and at the height of the Great Depression and how leaders at HBCU created athletic opportunities for Black people to counter the exclusionary practices of the NCAA and other White-controlled sport organizations. As another more contemporary example, we have begun to see Black entertainers and entrepreneurs such as Jay-Z and Ice Cube from the hip-hop community create sport organizations (Roc Nation Sports and the Big3 League, respectively) that demonstrated great potential to stimulate tremendous economic and social empowerment, stability, and mobility for Black people in particular.

In conclusion, Cooper et al. (2019) acknowledged that their typology is not all-encompassing, but instead, is meant to be a building block to our collective understanding of this complex phenomenon of sport activism. Moreover, they suggested that it should not be interpreted as a continuum where one form of activism takes precedence over the other. These authors also insisted that future work in this area should take into account that activism typologies can be time-based (single, time-specific, and legacy), engagement-based (individual or group), types of resistance (class, political, race, gender, etc.), intra- and extrasport-based (within sport or outside of sport), context-based (local, state, intranational, or transnational), and impact-based (awareness, policy change, or cultural paradigm shift).

With all this in mind, we conclude with some fruitful avenues for future research. First and foremost, we encourage management and organization studies scholars to continue engaging in scholarly activism by conducting interviews with prominent people like Dave Zirin and publishing them in journal outlets like Organization. Illuminating the voices of sport industry stakeholders such as journalists, athletes, coaches, and other leaders within sport organizations is in alignment with the theme (i.e. Acting up) for this section of the journal. Second, we propose building from the voice and work of Zirin and other critical sport journalists and scholars to expand and enhance Cooper and colleagues’ typology. Moreover, as suggested by these scholars, future research should consider how this typology applies to athletes and other sport stakeholders across different eras, sports, geographical locations, and different social, historical, and political contexts. Third, research should examine the relationship between athlete activists and activist leaders/scholars outside the sport context. For example, the second and third authors of this article presented a research paper at NASSS a few years ago that critically examined the relationships between three dynamic duos across Edward’s first three waves of athlete activism: Paul Robeson and W.E.B. Dubious (first wave), Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King, Jr. (second wave), Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X (third wave) (Weems et al., 2016). What dynamic duos might or could exist in this fourth wave (e.g. Edwards and Kaepernick), and why is it important to connect the past with the present and the future? Finally, as suggested by Edwards, are we on the brink of a fifth wave of athlete activism? If so, what might that look like, and what does it mean for organizations both within and outside the sport industry?

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Kwame J. A. Agyemang

Author biographies

Kwame J. A. Agyemang (PhD, Texas A&M University) is an associate professor at The Ohio State University. He is interested in systems and institutions, more specifically how and why certain actors within these structures benefit from their existence while others are disadvantaged. He studies the norms and guiding principles that govern such structures in order to inform our understanding of why a given social institution operates in the way that it does and to provide insight for the design of transformational disruptions. Twitter:

John N. Singer (PhD, Ohio State University) is associate dean for diversity and inclusion and associate professor of sport management in the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University. His research spans two interrelated areas: a) Black male studies, and b) diversity and social justice in and thru sport organizations. He is author of the book, Race, Sports, and Education: Improving Opportunities and Outcomes for Black Male College Athletes (Harvard Education Press, 2019). Twitter:

Anthony J. Weems (PhD, Texas A&M University) is an assistant professor of Sport Management at Western Carolina University where he teaches courses on law, ethics, and critical issues in sport. His research broadly revolves around leadership and policy development in sport organizations with an emphasis on race and racism. Twitter:

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