President Donald Trump continues to complain about professional athletes who are undertaking peaceful protests to bring attention to the plight of black Americans across the country. Many of these athletes themselves are black, and most recently, the NBA postponed all of its games that had been scheduled for Wednesday night after players decided to go on strike to protest the police shooting of a black man named Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Blake was shot seven times in the back, and he is reportedly paralyzed. Trump, who claimed that he was not acquainted with the recent player strikes, complained that the NBA had become supposedly “like a political organization.”
During a press conference following the landfall of the major Hurricane Laura on the Gulf Coast, Trump complained, discussing the NBA:
‘They’ve become like a political organization, and that’s not a good thing. I don’t think that’s a good thing for sports or for the country.’
Watch his whining below:
President Trump: "I don't know much about the NBA protests — I know their ratings have been very bad." pic.twitter.com/fO8zXm6R5Y
— The Hill (@thehill) August 27, 2020
The NBA has not become “like a political organization.” The athletes who are in the league have simply spoken out about acute issues of racial injustice that have unfolded, in some cases, in the players’ own home area — the first NBA team to go on strike this week was the Milwaukee Bucks. One of the team’s own players, a black man named Sterling Brown, was harassed by police in the area. Brown has sued the city of Milwaukee and its police department, insisting that he was “unlawfully stopped, subject to racist language, beaten and then subsequently tasered in a parking lot.”
Outside of the current situation that has unfolded following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, NBA players have made their political stances known — not a single championship winner in the league has gone to the White House for a customary, ceremonial post-win visit since Trump took office, and figures like Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr have been outspoken against Trump.
Meanwhile, Trump has himself complained about peaceful protests from professional athletes in the past. Infamously, he has suggested that NFL team owners should fire the “sons of bitches” who have taken a knee during the national anthem to draw attention to police brutality. In the current situation, other White House officials including the president’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner and the vice president’s chief of staff, Marc Short, have derided the NBA strike. Short called it “absurd and silly.”
