The Black Athlete Revolt

December 15, 2022
An overview of Black athletes' recent history of protest. The Trump era has been an especially divisive one for Black athletes speaking out on social justice issues. NBA players now have more opportunities to use their platform to protest police killings and vocally participate in the Black Lives Matter movement, but Colin Kaepernick remains frozen out of the NFL for kneeling during the national anthem. Meanwhile, Trump and his supporters have routinely strived to shout the athletes down. ("Shut up and dribble," Fox News host Laura Ingraham infamously chastised NBA star LeBron James.) Anderson, a business consultant and professor at Loyola Marymount University, recaps a half-century of shifts around Black athlete protests. Outspoken Black athletes weren't hard to find before the 1980s, from Arthur Ashe to Muhammad Ali. But the arrival of superstars with hefty endorsement deals made apparel companies--and the athletes they sponsored--averse to social commentary, and some were bluntly punished for it. "Black athletes have expressed their discontent with issues such as police brutality, inequality, racism, lynching, and systematic oppression, only to be met with opposition," writes the author. In 1996, NBA player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was indefinitely suspended after sitting out the national anthem in protest. The mood shifted, Anderson explains, once the outrages became too big to ignore, such as Trayvon Martin's murder in 2012 and virulently racist remarks caught on tape by LA Clippers owner Donald Sterling in 2014. The author's discussion of how these incidents ushered in a new era of protest, accelerated further by the Black Lives Matter movement, is workmanlike, but his closing chapter thoughtfully explores how recent trends can fuel a "sport justice movement" that addresses pro teams' relationships with police, equitable treatment of college players, and players' deeper engagement with their communities. Former NBA veteran Len Elmore, also a longtime sportscaster and lawyer, provides the foreword. A useful primer on the ever shifting playing field of sports and race.

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February 15, 2023
Anderson, a professor at Loyola Marymount University who specializes in sports and social responsibility, explores how prejudice and discrimination have affected Black athletes and how, in turn, those athletes have played critical roles in revealing and confronting prejudice, helping in the process to ""bend the arc toward justice."" Not to be confused with Harry Edwards' Revolt of the Black Athlete (but a good companion title), this short book makes a timely contribution to collections on sports and social-justice reform movements. The opening chapter provides a historical overview going back to the early nineteenth century, when Black jockeys dominated horse racing, through the 1960s civil rights movement, and noting why there was a pause in athlete activism during the 1980s and '90s. Anderson excels at showing how historical events led to Colin Kaepernick's "Kneel Heard 'Round the World,"" and he offers a perceptive analysis of the sparks that ignited the Black Lives Matter movement and how it has prompted the "revitalization of athlete activism." This book opens with a foreword by NBA veteran and attorney Len Elmore and concludes with an action plan for creating positive social change.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

May 15, 2023
This insightful debut from Anderson, a communications professor at Loyola Marymount University, examines the relationship between Black athletes and the quest for social justice. Chronicling the highs and lows of “athlete activism,” Anderson explores Jackie Robinson’s integration of Major League Baseball in 1947, Muhammad Ali’s 1967 refusal to serve in Vietnam, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s decision to boycott the 1968 Olympics in protest of racism in the U.S. According to Anderson, activism among Black athletes waned in the 1980s and ’90s as players focused on corporate endorsements and avoided political statements for fear of losing revenue. That changed with the Black Lives Matter movement in the 2010s, which “paved the way for the revitalization of athlete activism” and inspired San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick to protest racial inequities by kneeling during the national anthem. Anderson suggests that BLM has also ushered in a “sport justice movement” grounded in the belief that teams and leagues should actively engage in the fight against injustice through partnerships with nonprofits and the adoption of equitable internal policies. Despite the academic tone and sometimes dry prose, Anderson makes a persuasive case that sports have a “legitimate power to create substantial social change.” Meticulous and enlightening, this scores.