“Lakers-Trail Blazers boycott Game 5 of their series. No playoff games will be played today.”

With no context at all, this seems like something worth celebrating. In fact, many people did celebrate and dared to call this moment historic because games were boycotted following the shooting of Jacob Blake who was shot seven times in back in front of his children after breaking up a fight. But with context, it becomes less earth-shattering and the context I am referring to is this:

• George Floyd had already died with his murderers charged with punishments that did not fit the crime.
• Breonna Taylor’s murderers have not only not been convicted, but they also have not been arrested or charged.
• The NBA players were given weeks to consider if they would even return to finish the season, and they have guaranteed contracts ensuring that they would be paid whether they played or not. Though, those who opted not to play received lesser salaries.
• A bubble was created to attend to and anticipate their every desire and need.
• Many in this country, specifically the Black community, have been in turmoil, have been oppressed, and have been deprived of freedom, of justice and of love since we were brought here over 400 years ago.

Let me preface this by saying that I don’t doubt that NBA players, athletes and Black people everywhere are exhausted and sick and tired of being murdered in the streets, of being systematically oppressed, and of being treated like second-class citizens. But I do caution us celebrating the fact that they sat out one game, especially since it has been reported that they intend to complete the season anyway. To that point specifically I ask, why? Why boycott now when they have plans to return to the game? More importantly, what does returning to the game to complete the season do to the meaning of them boycotting? I will answer my own question and tell you right now: that it cheapens it because it is not as though in the time they boycotted their game that Breonna Taylor’s murderers were arrested, charged and convicted or as though they or we received the change they seek. So why is there even a season to discuss? It’s not about money because their contracts are guaranteed, so it has to be about the game itself then, correct? Now, I have no athletic drive or inclination whatsoever, so winning means far less to me than it does to men that have been training their entire lives to be the best and play among the best, but what does winning mean when you achieve victory while your brothers and sisters are slain while you are protected and enclosed in a remote environment no less? What is a game in a context like ours that has always been fraught with racism and just about every other -ism there is along with a global pandemic killing millions every day?

But more generally, my question is why are they playing anyway? They boycotted the game because they demand change as if we were not in need of change before they entered the bubble, as if we have not been demanding change since we were dropped off here. Now, do not get me wrong, I understand this game is not only their love, but their job, but if justice and equality truly is what we are fighting for, if change is what we seek, then something has to give. To get something we’ve never had and that is justice and that is freedom to exist in a world where there aren’t different rules for us, then we have to do something we’ve never done.

Now, I cannot tell people how to protest and how to stand up for what they know is right, but since there is a propensity to draw parallels to what these players are doing and what was done in the Civil Rights Movement, I will say this. Our predecessors, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Medgar Evers fought effortlessly for equality and justice. They were arrested chronically, attacked by dogs, called out of their name, all while their homes and churches were set to fire and their families’ lives endangered. I mention them specifically because they paid for their activism with their very lives. I am not suggesting that we ought all to be martyrs or that we are all even capable of sacrifice on that level, but it is not enough to put peace on the back of your jersey and Black Lives Matter on the court. It is about using the power, the authority and the platform that God has given you, about the effort you put forth to make a change wherever we are and in any way we can. Though their intentions were to fight a system that has been beating us for centuries, did they sacrifice truly? How historic is this moment actually?

We have been so deprived of justice that we rejoice every time we see any efforts made on our behalf, but just as we push back on the institutions we pay tuition to, the industries we aspire to be a part of, and the teaching we were raised to believe was okay and free of offense, we ought to push back against the idea that this is historic and that this is progress. You may not agree with me and you don’t have to, but my only plea is to consider and examine all the facts and all the information before us before we deem it revolutionary, or celebratory or historic and not just as it relates to this, but all things.

A Blog Post by Danielle Clayton