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Old 08-26-2020, 09:56 PM   #20
flylock shox
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This is such an unusual situation. I'm not sure how I feel about it - even in the NBA context.



On the one hand, you've got a bunch of guys whose jobs grant them access to a huge stage on which to raise their voices with respect to civil rights and political issues, perhaps best exemplified recently by Colin Kaepernick and the BLM T-shirts that have become so common at games. These gestures use the stage that's been granted to increase awareness of the issue, but the show itself - which has nothing to do with the issues that are targeted by these actions - goes on. This makes sense to me: attention is drawn to the issue, the show goes on, everyone gets paid.



On the other, the guys who've been granted this huge stage by virtue of the jobs they hold elect not to do their jobs in order to raise awareness of civil rights or political issues, notwithstanding that their jobs have nothing to do with the issues themselves, and their complaints are not with their employers, league, fans, etc. This makes less sense to me: attention is drawn to the issue, the guys get paid, but the show doesn't go on and the other parties in the league (like the owners) don't get paid even though they didn't have anything to do with the issues being complained of.



Translating it to a smaller stage, if someone showed up to an office job wearing a BLM T-shirt but did their job in the usual way, that seems okay. But it would be weird if they just decided not to show up to work at all as a matter of protest, notwithstanding the fact their employer had nothing to do with the issues in question and the action wasn't designed to have their employer change anything.


I guess it may be more effective in that it's more disruptive, but it also seems limited: will every league suspend its games every time something like this makes the news?
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