Dodgers say they have denied the entrance to ice agents
The Dodgers said in a statement that the agents had asked for authorization to access the parking lots but were refused entry.
The very people who insisted that athletes must stick to sports certainly make it difficult to do it these days.
Masked federal agents were spotted outside the Dodger Stadium Thursday morningAnd the team later said that she had denied ICE’s request to use parking lots as a staging area for her immigrant roundups. (This in Chavez Ravine, of all places.) Also Thursday, The Senegal basketball women’s team has abandoned a training camp in the United States After several players and staff were denied visas.
And Wednesday, President Donald Trump used Timothy Weah, Weston McKennie and their Juventus teammates as accessoriesInserting politics into what was to be a photo shoot for the FIFA club World Cup.
“I was caught by surprise, honestly. It was a bit weird,” said Weah, a starter of the American national male team. “When he started talking about politics with Iran and everything, it’s a bit like, I just want to play football, guy.”
There was a time when Trump and his followers said that that was what they wanted too. Trump suggested to the owners of the NFL people of color. Conservative commentators told LeBron James de “Shut up and dribble.” So-American senator and dream owner of Atlanta Kelly Loeffler has disparaged the social justice efforts of the WNBA.
And yet, here we are now, politics and sports mix as if they were the most natural of bed companions.
To be clear, it is impossible to separate politics and sports. Has always been. Sport is a prism through which we see society, our reflections on the thorny problems filtered and shaped through the objective of athletes and games.
There is a direct link between Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier of the major baseball league and the civil rights movement. Billie Jean King was, and is still instrumental in the struggle for equal rights for women. Magic Johnson’s announcement that he was HIV positive caused a seismic change in attitudes with regard to AIDS and, by extension, the LGBTQ community.
And again and again.
But that you thought it is a good thing that often depends on what you think about the policy in question.
Military overflights and sing the national anthem before the matches? It is either patriotic or jingoisical. Politicians are affiliated with sporting events or athletes? This is either what each American is doing, or a shameless coopt. The owners of teams made a donation to politicians and to causes that could be contrary to the interest of their fans? It is either their own business or a slap in front of people who help fattening their wallets!
Players, especially blacks, browns and lgbtq, protest or talk about injustice? It is either hell no, athletes should know their way and stay there, or use their platform to ensure that our country is up to its promises is the ultimate expression of being an American.
It all is fine. One of the greatest things about this country is that we are allowed to have different opinions, to see the same thing from different angles.
What is wrong is hypocrisy, attitude “ok for me but not for you” which permeates so much of our speech these days. You cannot scream that athletes must “silence and dribble” then turn around and encourage a president who uses sports to sunbathe his image. You cannot say that you just want to enjoy the game, then agree with politicians who are inserted in them.
And you absolutely cannot encourage individual athletes while celebrating at the same time harassment, abuse and discrimination of millions of others who love them and love them like them.
Do you want to keep politics out of sport? GOOD. You go first.
Follow the USA TODAY NANCY ARMOR sports columnist on @nrarmour social networks.