Following basketball has its own taste, among the majority of Indonesian people who are more interested in soccer, but for me watching basketball is more interesting.
Besides the fast rotation of the game from both sides, various energetic and athletic actions also became an interesting spectacle for me.
Not infrequently I will gape while saying "wow!" when one of the NBA players makes a dunk movement, or alley oops (jumping into the ring to enter the ball that has been thrown first) which is great.
But more than that, the presence of NBA basketball athletes, who are mostly black, gives their own perspective. The reason is, as we have long known that the United States is a country with very high racial sentiment.
Not infrequently we hear from the news of white groups attacking blacks. Not only civilian groups, such as gangs, but also the police and similar regional authorities.
Finally, what has not been lost from our memories is the case of the death of George Floyd, a black citizen from Minneapolis who died of suffocation after his neck was crushed by a police officer named Derek Chauvin.
Following this incident, there were large-scale demonstrations around the world condemning the actions of the police.
The wave of violent protests that spread from all over the world also inspired basketball players in the NBA such as LeBron James and Kyrie Irving to call for their protests with T-shirts that read "I Can't Breathe", a last sentence uttered by George Floyd shortly before his last breath. .
But not only that, a variety of political activism from athletes by sport has emerged long before the protests carried out by these basketball players. One that is quite phenomenal is the rejection made by Muhammad Ali in his involvement in the Vietnam War.
Bill Russell, a basketball Hall of Fame in the NBA became an advocate of black integration after reporting by several black people in the US being banned from entering restaurants, protesting the prohibition against dunking in basketball, because dunks are popular as a movement. Black basketball athletes also became a concern that could not be separated from the spotlight after this was stated by Lew Alcindor, or better known as Kareem Abdul Jabbar, a basketball athlete who played with Bruce Lee in the film Game of Death.
There are many kinds of protests that these athletes do. It is about race, gender, finance, and all sorts of nationalities in the history of American sport and the Olympics, but they all have one thing in common: the constant struggle for justice.
Of course this goes hand in hand with the US Constitution, which turns 230 on March 4. From Muhammad Ali to Lebron James, all used their stage to take the spotlight on them to voice injustice.
The trend of sports athletes in political activism has been going on for a long time, even before the sport got as big a stage as it is today. Long ago, on January 13, 532 AD, at a chariot race in Constantinople, rival drivers of the Blue and Green teams asked the emperor Justinian to pardon two of their followers who had been executed. His refusal led to the Nica Rebellion, six weeks of unrest that resulted in the deaths of 30,000 people.
Athletes in modern times are often moved to protest against conditions, to show that they are citizens of conscience by speaking the truth to power, by taking advantage of the spotlight they receive from the popularity they generate on the field. Sport is certainly part of advocating and spreading awareness together. about the urgency of the social problems that coexist with them.
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