He was indeed courageous, but of course, he could do that. Global capitalism had his back. It's even more courageous to take a stand when true risk is involved. So, perhaps a hopeful harbinger of future athletic heroes -- regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation -- were the members of the predominantly Black Atlanta Dream team in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) who, in 2020, wore T-shirts endorsing Raphael Warnock, the Black Democratic opponent of Georgia Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler. It was a gutsy move, since Loeffler, a white woman who had disparaged the Black Lives Matter movement, just happened to be the Dream's co-owner.
It was, in fact, particularly gutsy because WNBA players are among the most vulnerable in big league sports, playing in a relatively small league that pays relatively low salaries -- the average is $147,745 while eight players in the National Basketball Association make $40 million or more annually. That's why so many of those women play internationally during their off-season. It's why WNBA star Brittney Griner was en route to a Russian team when she was arrested and detained for 10 months after vaporizer cartridges with less than a gram of hash oil were found in her luggage. (She was finally released in a prisoner exchange last December.)
Although widely admired as warm and friendly, before her incarceration in Russia, Griner seemed to have something of Jim Brown in her personality. She was active with her Phoenix Mercury teammates in protests against the police murders of unarmed Black people and insisted that the national anthem should not be played before sporting events. Since returning from Russia, she's been active in campaigns to release others who have been wrongfully detained. A lesbian, Griner and her partner were arrested in 2015 for assault and disorderly conduct in a domestic violence case. They subsequently married and divorced.
She may well be LeBron's successor in the evolution of the Black athlete. At the least, her mission statement, as described in a 2019 interview with People magazine, is both humble and complete. She said: "People tell me I'm going to break the barrier and trailblaze. I just kind of look at it like, I'm just trying to help out, I'm just trying to make it not as tough for the next generation."
These days, that's heroic.
Copyright Robert Lipsyte 2023
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