This was supposed to have been a commentary on the Republican National Convention. Unfortunately, I shut down over the repulsive narrative of Donald Trump singlehandedly defeating the coronavirus and championing the cause of Black people. Drastic times call for drastic actions. So, for the first time since leaving journalism school, I started reading the sports section.
To say that I am not a sports fan would be an understatement on a par with the assertion that Yogi Berra was not a skilled linguist. There are, I suspect, some traumatic youthful memories prancing about in the deep reaches of my hippocampus that might explain my estrangement with competitive athletics. Suffice it to say they remain beyond the scope of this essay. The single purpose of this paragraph was to establish my bona fides as a confirmed sports news nonreader. Until now.
I had imagined the sports pages as almost a parallel universe, an abyss of meaningless scores and statistics on the way to the classified ad section. To the delighted astonishment of my wondering eyes, this was far, far from the case. At least in our local newspaper, The Washington Post.
These sports writers have managed to elegantly and empathically capture the poignant and painful ethos of our long summer of racial reckoning. And they have done so in a manner – and with a depth – that far and away surpasses most of the straight news reporting I’ve seen on this issue.
The sports news of the week, of course, was the decision of most professional athletes to cancel games as a way of shining a light on yet another heartbreaking story of a Black person shot by a white cop, this time in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Video shows the officer firing seven shots into the back of Jacob Blake, who remains hospitalized in serious condition, paralyzed from the waist down.
The immediate news reports were heartbreakingly formulaic, only because we’ve been through this too many times. Peaceful protesters march through the streets chanting the names of Black people felled by police. Late into the night, a few among the many of those marchers channel their rage into acts of vandalism, smashing and burning cars and storefronts. This is when Trump reminds us once again that the only way for white America to feel safe is by reelecting him.
The Post’s sports writers reached far beyond the inverted pyramid of basic news reporting. As a result, their storytelling wasn’t just about the Milwaukee Bucks leading an unprecedented strike for racial justice. They captured – as well as any words could – the pain of being Black in America in 2020. Our language has inherent limitations when it comes to conveying the profoundly visceral. Yet, these sports reporters, to borrow a metaphor from their domain, hit it out of the park.
Here’s what Post sports columnist Jerry Brewer wrote: “(Sports figures) do not exist in some imaginary world that can be turned on and off. They are people – part athlete, all human. To be Black and human is to know society can separate the former and dismiss the latter.” That’s why, Brewer wrote in a later paragraph, that “NBA teams stopped dribbling because too many fellow citizens would rather they shut up and watch a man get shot in the back without feeling a sense of desperation.”
This sports coverage was replete with anecdotes about strong, macho, manly players and coaches reduced to tears over what it means to be Black in this country. According to The Post, a New York Mets star sobbed in talking about his fear of what police might do to family members simply because they are Black.
A Los Angeles Clippers coach was quoted by The Post as saying, “You hear Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear. We’re the ones getting killed. We’re the ones getting shot. It’s amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back.”
Post columnist Thomas Boswell, who is white, wrote about being deeply affected by such words from Black sports figures. Not just their words, but also their “facial expressions, their honest human anguish. . . their angry exhausted tears.”
Wrote Boswell: “We white people don’t have to face the daily biases and injustices Black people experience. Nor do we have to live with the fear that we or a loved one might be choked to death or shot in the back seven times by a cop for a minor or imagined wrong. We just need to know it is profoundly wrong, and we need to stand and be counted against it.”
Boswell then ties it all together with this conclusion: “The solution in any society in which one group opposes another is dependent on the majority viewing the afflicted minority as fully human and then saying: ‘Wrong. Our fault. Must be fixed.’”
Since I’m not a regular sports reader, I will go out on a limb and suggest that this is not typical prose for that section of the newspaper. But right now, in these turbulent times, this is journalism at its best. Nothing involving race relations in this country has been the same since George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer more than two months ago. These deaths have been occurring for. . .well, forever. But it’s different now.
The Post’s sports coverage explains why it is different. We see in these stories the intense pain of millionaire athletic stars confronting the reality that they and their kids are just one police stop away from being killed. We see revered sports heroes who are cheered during the game, only to lose their humanity when it ends. And we learn that we white folks will never fully comprehend the pain of being Black and treated as if you don’t matter, but that we need to see the injustice and fight to correct it.
The day may come when a rich blend of police reform and a healing of hearts eliminates the anxiety of Black people upon viewing a flashing squad car in their rear view mirror. Basketball players can then go back to dribbling. Sports writers can go back to box scores and statistical spreadsheets. And I can go back to tossing the sports section into the recycle bin upon its arrival every morning.
Until then, however, I will turn first to the sports pages of The Washington Post to follow our reckoning of racial justice. So far at least, nobody does it better.
An excellent piece, Bruce.
I agree with you.
Keep writing!
That’s interesting – I, too, always skipped the sports pages but these days a significant amount of my time is spent reading almost every inch of the paper (so the Sunday New York Times lasts almost all week). So I , too, had noticed the real shift in sports reporting – – who would have thought it! Impressive.
Beautiful, eloquent, true.