Black Women Want NBA Players to Strike Today
February was Black History Month and March is Women’s History Month. Human rights lawyer, writer and organizer Derecka Purnell wants April to be the first full month that NBA players go on strike. Purnell believes that her identity as a Black woman is besieged in America’s ongoing social unrest. The January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters — many known white supremacists — explains her concerns.
After that event the supermajority Democrats opposed a $15 minimum wage, relieving all student debt, and universal healthcare. They also broke their promise to send Americans $2000 stimulus checks. Those policies would especially help Black people while saving money. Purnell sees no other way out. She tweeted her strike request to NBA players Sunday the day of the annual All-Star Game.
Purnell’s tweet thread noted an NBA double standard. The league suspends players who are exposed to the coronavirus but exposed its best players to the disease by holding a nonessential all-star game.
What is typically an All-Star Weekend reformatted this year into one day of Atlanta festivities: the Taco Bell Skills Challenge, the Mountain Dew Three-Point Contest, the AT&T Slam Dunk Contest and the All-Star Game. Packing all events into one day and mixing players from different cities increased COVID-19 risk. However the league wouldn’t sacrifice its corporate sponsorships.
“We all know why we’re playing it,” said All-Star Kawhi Leonard. “It’s money on the line. It’s [an] opportunity to make more money. Just putting money over health right now, pretty much.” To superstar LeBron James it was a “slap in the face.”
This isn’t the first time the NBA pursued money over health. On March 11, 2020 the NBA entered a COVID-19 shutdown which lasted months. National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) union president Chris Paul led discussions between owners and players on how to safely continue the 2019–20 season in the “Orlando bubble” at the Disney Wide World of Sports.
The murder of George Floyd on May 25 by Minneapolis police complicated talks. Numerous players including All-Star Kyrie Irving didn’t want to play. “I don’t support going into Orlando,” Irving told players on call in June. “I’m not with the systematic racism and the bullshit. Something smells a little fishy.”
Systematic racism was on full display last summer as COVID-19 disproportionately hospitalized and killed Black Americans. The subsequent murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Floyd by police and vigilantes compounded the issue. Players organized protests in several cities. Irving viewed sitting out as player allegiance to the Black community.
Paul considered players in a league that was 81% Black in 2019–20 and predominately white male billionaire owners. Owners convinced Paul and others that the league would lose money if the season stopped. Amid the largest national protest in American history the NBA continued its season.
Business as usual meant that injustices did not stop. Sports team billionaires got richer as working people got poorer. In August Jacob Blake was almost a victim of police murder in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Players boycotted the NBA Playoffs for a day. LeBron wanted the season cancelled. Former U.S. president Barack Obama destroyed their movement. He made the neoliberal argument that turning stadiums into voting locations would help Black people so long as the players played.
As applied to the United States neoliberalism is an economic philosophy emphasizing the privatization of social life. This ideology mobilizes social movement strategies to obscure whatever original critique was being made. For example, the Black Panther Party began as a coalition for the empowerment of Black people against state-violence. However by the late 70’s the FBI labeled the organization as a terrorist group, labeling some of its central leaders as public enemies. By 1982 the group was effectively disbanded.
Obama confused the boycott’s language into a capitalist framework. Voting alone is not enough for Black liberation. The Biden presidency proves this. Biden has chosen to antagonize and bomb Black and Brown countries like Haiti and Syria while neglecting Black voters at home. Obama has done similar things behind a Black face. Biden and Obama lecture “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black” and “it would be an insult to my legacy” for you to not vote Democratic. Historically the vote hasn’t given Black people reparations or any other progressive policy results. It has given Black people rights within the law but not in practice.
As a graduate of Harvard Law School and a degree recipient in public policy Purnell understands the limits of the law in advancing Black people. In the article “The George Floyd Act wouldn’t have saved George Floyd’s life” she argues that the police exist to protect capital, not to eliminate class exploitation and poverty. She’s seen police militarization up close and supports community control of the police rather than reforms. “Reforms do not make the legal system more just, but obscure its violence more effectively.”
Biden’s administration so far has embraced reform but not the revolutionary change that would close the racial wealth gap. Biden’s Black business push and the NBA’s money to historically Black colleges and universities may advance the Black professional class but won’t help the working class.
Instead of consulting with Biden and Obama NBA players can look to Purnell for guidance on how to approach its their strike.
Purnell understands that striking is a risk but also understands that neoliberalism is a worse struggle for workers. She wrote that neoliberalism exhalts people like Kamala Harris as the first Black woman vice president but covers her contributions to incarceration and war. It allows NBA owners to say that “Black Lives Matter” while supporting racist Donald Trump. Neoliberalism is not conservatism but they are close.
The goals of the next NBA strike must be centered on redistributive policies for Black people and workers of all races. If unsure of specifics, players can work with Purnell.
“When activists criticized President Barack Obama,” she wrote, “we were scathingly reminded how hard it was for him to be a Black man in the White House. He had significant executive power and influence to shift resources, call for legislation, and even free people from prison (which his own administration seemingly neglected). We were told to wait. Then, after eight years, we were told that too much was at stake to organize for free college, universal healthcare, the end to police and prison violence, and a clean planet. Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” calls this “do it slow:”
But that’s just the trouble, ‘Do it slow’
Desegregation, ‘Do it slow’
Mass participation, ‘Do it slow’
Reunification, ‘Do it slow’
Do things gradually, ‘Do it slow’
But bring more tragedy, ‘Do it slow’
Since the song’s release, the time seems to never be right to push politicians towards progress.
No more slow.”
On the heel of Black and Women’s History Months, NBA players can strike and develop a future with Black women guides. Today can be the day that Joe Biden uses his executive power to cancel student debt, pass a $15 minimum wage and universal healthcare. Those policies would save money and (Black) lives.
