The Bucks’ Historic Boycott
The Milwaukee Bucks made NBA history today by boycotting Game 5 of their playoff series against the Orlando Magic due to the ongoing unrest in Kenosha, WI, which resulted from the near-fatal shooting of Kenosha resident Jacob Blake this past Sunday. The Bucks’ actions led to two other Game 5s being postponed.
Coach Mike Budenholzer addressed the media before the game was supposed to start:
“It is a great challenge to have an appreciation and a desire to want change. To want something different and better in Kenosha, Milwaukee and Wisconsin and then go out and play a game.”
Coach Budenholzer indicated that there was no coordination between the Bucks other professional teams, such as the Toronto Raptor and the Detroit Lions, in staging the boycott.
In Kenosha, businesses have been destroyed, protesters shot and police attacked. As political pundit Bill O’Reilly pointed out, the Wisconsin authorities need to issue a preliminary report ASAP to address the circumstances of Mr. Blake’s shooting-such as if he was reaching for a weapon or not. The uncertainty and silence is making everything worse.
In the past few hours, the Bucks players issued their own statement, in both spoken and written form.
These lines stood out to me:
“Over the past few days in our home state of Wisconsin, we’ve seen the horrendous video of Jacob Blake being shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, and the additional shooting of protesters. Despite the overwhelming plea for change, there has been no action, so our focus today cannot be on basketball.”
The Bucks are saying that there are more important matters than basketball. When certain issues, often political, economic and/or social, reach a tipping point, they are obligated to act.
Professional athletes are no strangers to getting political. In 2010, Bleacher Report correspondent Ryan Vooris complied 10 athletes who have done so. It doesn’t include recent ones such as Colin Kaepernick, but it provides a good overview for the intersection of athletics, politics and social justice.
Some athletes have suffered personally for their stands. Olympic medal-winning sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who, in Mr. Smith’s words, did a “human rights salute” at the 1968 games in Mexico City due to racial injustice in the USA, suffered banishment from the games, economic hardship and death threats. Mr. Carlos said that “raising my fist at the Olympics cost me friends and my marriage-but I’d do it again.”
The legendary boxer Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army in 1967. He cited religious reasons and stated “I aint got no quarrel with the Viet Cong.” His heavyweight title was stripped and he was banned from boxing for three years. According to trainer Angelo Dundee, “he was robbed of his best years, his prime years.”
Mr. Smith, Mr. Carlos and Mr. Ali were vilified and suffered mightily in their times. Now, they are celebrated for speaking up for their beliefs despite personal sacrifice.
The Bucks and the NBA have a chance to follow in these individuals’ footsteps. Unlike them, they are organizations, which makes bearing the consequences of their actions some what easier. In late July, NBA commissioner Adam Silver temporarily waived a long-standing NBA rule that players have to stand for the anthem, allowing for kneeling without fears of retaliation, signaling the organization’s sympathies for BLM, racial justice and police reform movements.
The Bucks said that they cannot focus on basketball today. Boycotting a game is courageous and unprecedented, but only the start. In order for the boycott to have maximum impact, the Bucks and other teams need to be willing to miss multiple playoff games or even the entire postseason if there are no concrete, constructive changes to police procedure and criminal justice reform.
Focusing on basketball may not be possible anymore. Sacrificing revenue and a trophy would help silence the criticism that BLM movement and some of their supporters do what they do for attention or to cash in on “societal wokeness.”
After the 2020 sh-t whirlwind, I really, really want to have pro sports. We all need a distraction. But when distracting ourselves causes human lives and communities to go up in ruin, our entertainment has to be sacrificed.
Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Muhammad Ali sacrificed money, sanity and respect for their ideals. The Bucks and the NBA could do the same.
I begrudgingly accepted the cancellation of college football because of the possible changes to the student-athlete relationship.
I can sacrifice the rest-even the Packers and pro football-if it means genuine, constructive change which improves lives for everyone-minorities, police and the average citizen. It’s the bare minimum of what I can do, as painful as it may be to be exposed to more incoherent political rambling.
Agree?