The NBA was born in 1949. It was a League of 11 teams. And it was a League of white people. The owners even voted a season later on whether to accept black players in the competition, and the result was only 6-5. The first quintet of black players, which included Bill Russell, would take 15 years to arrive. Thus began a deep-rooted relationship between the mecca of basketball and racism that continues to this day. 80% of the players in the NBA are black, the raw material of a huge show, but the majority of coaches are white, like the general managers, and all the commissioners in history, and among the 30 franchises there is only one owner. black michael jordan That is to say, contrary to the image that it may project on the simple track, one of the greatest attractions in the world of sports continues to move, just as when it was founded, in the hands of a white elite.
This game between basketball and racism travels from the University League, a business in which hundreds of players, the majority black, receive scholarships for their physical condition to become, free of charge, the center of a huge movement of money in which their educational future does not matter, until Black Lives Matter and the numerous cases of players who recount their experiences of being stopped by the police just for being considered suspects because of the color of their skin.
In Basketball and racism. An inseparable history (Editorial Catarata), the sociologist Pablo Muñoz Rojo approaches this scourge through the basket industry, mainly in the United States, but also with the cases that have been experienced in Spain.
NBA players have raised their voices (and have even stopped dribbling the ball) as a reflection of social protests that shook the entire country after the murder of black citizen George Floyd on May 25, 2020 by a white police officer. Already before Donald Sterling, millionaire owner of the Clippers, had been banned by the League for some racist comments, becoming the first dismissal for this reason in the most shiny competition. Floyd’s murder, and others that followed, involved more than players taking a knee against police violence against black people. The competition was about to not resume and many stars of the best League in the world publicly shared their fears when they go out on the streets just because of the color of their skin.
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