Melo on NBA response to anthem protests: 'There’s only so far that they’re going to let you go'
On the court, Carmelo Anthony spent the offseason burnishing his credentials as one of the greatest international basketball players ever by helping lead Team USA to a third straight Olympic gold medal in his final Summer Games. The New York Knicks All-Star did his most notable summer work off the court, though, using his fame and platform to call on other prominent athletes to take a stand for black rights after several high-profile shootings of black men, as well as the shooting of five Dallas police officers at the end of an otherwise peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration.
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As Anthony — and his friends and fellow superstars LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Paul — were making headlines with their words on the topics of gun violence, racial profiling and police brutality, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was making them with his actions. Namely, his choice to sit, and then kneel, during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before NFL games, in protest of the oppression of black people and other people of color.
Kaepernick’s ongoing protest has sparked both vitriol and support within and outside the sporting world, including from many NBA players and multiple NBA coaches. With more than three-quarters of NBA players identifying as people of color and the league standing as America’s most progressive major pro sports outfit, that support seemed like a prelude to similar protests prior to NBA games this season.
Thus far, teams and players have tended toward standing arm-in-arm during the anthem. That collective gesture has come in for criticism from some commentators as unchallenging, too vague and inoffensive to constitute a real statement of solidarity with those opposing police brutality and racial inequality, a “team-building, trust-fall form of anti-protest” that “risk[s] nothing and sacrifice[s] even less.”
It’s also a gesture that stops short of violating the NBA’s rule requiring players, coaches and trainers “to stand and line up in a dignified posture along the sidelines or on the foul line during the playing of the National Anthem.” During a fascinating, wide-ranging interview with ESPN’s Howard Bryant about race, policing “and the increasing politicization of sports,” Anthony noted the difference between the tack NBA players have taken and Kaepernick’s kneeling, and the complicated power dynamics at play when individuals, leagues, brands and businesses start making statements:
HB: Whatever gestures you decide to make this season in support of your message, as a team or individually, what do you expect the reaction to be?
CA: The NBA is very supportive. They want to team up with us and be behind it, but at the end of the day it’s still a corporation, so there’s only so far that they’re going to let you go. And one gesture’s not going to change anything. So regardless of if we stand out there and put our arms around each other to show unity and solidarity, on the flip side, at the moment somebody goes out there and puts their fist up, that’s going to be something different.
Colin Kaepernick sat down. That caused a different reaction. And people didn’t even know why he was doing it. They just thought it was disrespectful to the actual soldiers and people who fought for the country, and it had nothing to do with that.
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The NBA last month issued a joint memo with the National Basketball Players Association saying the league and its players “have begun developing substantive ways for us to come together and take meaningful action,” with an eye toward players working in their own communities “to bring people together and build bonds of trust.” It’s not clear whether the league would regard a player standing with his fist in the air, a la John Carlos and Tommie Smith, differently than it has players linking arms, or whether said player would be fined or penalized for running afoul of the “dignified posture” rule.
For what it’s worth, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said on multiple occasions that he supports players “voicing their personal views on important issues,” but that he’d prefer they follow on-court rules and use other platforms (“social media, press conferences, media in locker rooms, however they want to do it”) to share their political points of view. That said, he has also in the past declined to fine players who have made political statements with their clothing.
The WNBA might offer an instructive example here.
The entire roster of the Indiana Fever and two members of the Phoenix Mercury knelt during the performance of the national anthem before a playoff game last month. While WNBA President Lisa Borders said in a statement that “standing for an anthem is a sign of respect and a demonstration of unity across many cultures throughout the world,” the league — which this summer fined three teams and their players for violating league uniform policy by wearing black warmup shirts bearing slogans and hashtags in the wake of shootings by and of police officers, and which later rescinded those fines following heavy criticism — did not fine or penalize the players who knelt.
It’s worth noting that, according to reports from the game, few fans actually saw the players’ kneeling as it happened due to their positioning; it seems unlikely that would go largely unnoticed and unremarked upon at an NBA game. Still, the general point stands: WNBA players knelt during the anthem, and didn’t get punished. Might a similar protest during an NBA game receive the same treatment?
“Something like this creates conversation, and that’s how we create change,” Fever head coach Stephanie White said, according to The Associated Press. “We don’t create change by seeing it on the news and waiting until next time. People who have the platforms have the ability to affect change, and I’m proud of our group for using the platform in a respectful manner.”
Anthony also expounded on something he’d previously mentioned: his own dialogue with Kaepernick about using their platforms to address social issues, and about how the quarterback might proceed once he started down the path of protest. More from Bryant:
HB: Have you spoken to Colin at all? What was your initial reaction when you saw it?
CA: I spoke to him that night. He reached out to me that night. And I’m watching and I’m like, “OK.” Like, “What’s next?” In a very respectful way, he was like, “I took this step and, you know, just wanted to get your thoughts on what’s happening.” And I said, “Well, you’re courageous.” I said, “You just showed a lot of courage in what you just did, but now is the hard part because you have to keep it going. So if that was just a one-time thing, then you’re f****d. But now you keep it going and be articulate and elaborate on why you’re doing it, and be educated and knowledgeable of why you’re doing it so when people ask, you can stand up for what you believe in and really let them hear why.”
Throughout the interview with Bryant, Anthony repeatedly makes clear what he believes: that “the system is broken” in America. He cites poor/nonexistent/adversarial police-community relationships, disparities in the quality of educational opportunities available in white communities and communities of color, a lack of resources in low-income urban areas, and other issues.
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Police brutality is a problem about which Anthony feels strongly; he returned to Baltimore last year to march with residents protesting political and legal inaction following the death of Freddie Gray after he suffered a “significant spinal injury” in police custody. And yet, after holding a town hall meeting with Los Angeles Police Department officers, local community leaders, and black and Latino teenagers, and having other conversations with law enforcement officials, Anthony betrayed to Bryant an understanding of the difficult spot in which many officers find themselves:
HB: You’ve met with law enforcement. What has the response been?
CA: Speaking to them directly, you realize you are very limited in what you can do. I’ve met with a lot of them, all over the country, and they get it. They understand, like, you know, it’s messed up. They’re like, “We don’t condone that.”
HB: But …
CA: “But at the end of the day, we roll with the blue.” Like, “We’re the boys in blue, and we stick by our code.” And I don’t want to sound crazy when I say it’s understandable, because if something happened to somebody on my team, they get in a fight, you’re going to protect them. And from that perspective you understand it, but you realize that what you can do has limitations.
With his “the moment somebody goes out there and puts their fist up, that’s going to be something different” remarks, Anthony seems to acknowledge to some degree that what he and his fellow players are doing has limitations, too — that “showing unity and solidarity” in a way that still colors within the lines of what’s acceptable will only go so far, only move the needle so much.
Many players might not want to move outside those lines. As Warriors forward Draymond Green told reporters at Golden State’s media day last month, while he supports Kaepernick’s right to protest, he doesn’t feel the need to “kneel down and put my fist up” because “it’s already started. There’s already a conversation.”
Then, though, Green asked an important question: “But like I said, is there going to be something done about it?”
In this case, maybe action will beget action.
During a recent interview with Alex Wong of The New Yorker, NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum said of NBA players, “They are some of the most prominent African-American athletes in our country and in our world. They have the ability to influence positive action through their own individual and collective actions.”
Whether the form of those actions changes once the NBA season starts in earnest next week — and whether Anthony or other players “go out there and put their fist up” in hopes of influencing further positive action — remains one of the coming campaign’s most interesting questions.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!
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