The recent protests in the US after the racially targeted killing of George Floyd have once again brought up the issue of racism to the front. George Floyd’s killing shook the world and set the entire social media ablaze. Way back during the 1968 Olympics, the winners of the 200m — Tommie Smith and John Carlos — had raised black gloves on the podium of the medal ceremony. The two were promptly dealt with severe sanctions. Sport is also a reflection of the values of society and thus merely is an exception to the infestation of racism.
English Premier League players have “Black Lives Matter” written on their jerseys instead of their names for the first 12 games after the competition resumed on Wednesday following the Covid-19 hiatus. Besides, the league will support players who “take a knee” before or during matches. In the Bundesliga too, Borussia Dortmund’s Jordon Sancho celebrated his first goal against Paderborn by removing his jersey to reveal a handwritten “Justice for George Floyd” message.
Lately, West Indies opener Chris Gayle, in an appeal on social media, stated that the peril of racism exists in cricket too and that he too had faced racism within teams and across the globe. Darren Sammy raised a similar issue he faced in the dressing room of Sunrisers Hyderabad.
English fast bowler Jofra Archer called for action after receiving racist abuse on social media. While New Zealand Cricket announced that a 28-year-old man, who admitted the offence, had been banned from attending international and domestic games in the country for two years.
Although sports bodies do pay lip services by sporting banners against racism, this has not helped prevent the issue from raising its head often. However, among all these drawbacks persisting in society and the sporting world, there has been an instance when the sporting world took a consistent and hard stand against South Africa for its system of apartheid. The International Olympic Committee banned South Africa from competing at the Olympics.
Also, the International Cricket Council banned them from competing against the regular countries in Test cricket from 1964 onwards. Of course, this ban was followed by a concerted effort by reformers like Nelson Mandela and others to finally dismantle the system of apartheid, after which they were finally re-accepted by the international sporting horizons in the 1990s. However, with the pre-eminent position of the US at the Olympics and in the world of sport, no one as of yet has thought of taking such a strict action against the US as they did against South Africa.
Sport is much larger than a professional entity and has the power to make a change. However, modern professional sports tend to be dependent on TV revenues and sponsorships. That might be the reason why the sporting world is not taking a firm stand against widespread racial injustice.
The writer, a former National Junior Champion in athletics, has studied Sports Science at Loughborough University, UK.