Now maybe we're getting somewhere:
The NAACP is calling on Black athletes and fans to boycott the
athletic programs of public universities in states that are taking steps
that the nation's oldest civil rights group says are restricting Black
voting rights.
Launched Tuesday, the "Out of Bounds" campaign
urges prospective Black athletes, their families, alumni and fans to
"withhold athletic and financial support" from major public universities
in states that "have moved to limit, weaken or erase Black voting
representation."
If Black athletes participate in the boycott, it
could deplete rosters for powerhouse football and basketball programs
across the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference.
The
NAACP is among groups responding to a wave of gerrymandering in the
aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling that winnowed a key provision of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Civil rights activists have mobilized
across the South to protest redistricting plans by Republican state
legislatures that eliminate majority-Black congressional districts after
the high court's ruling. Activists have looked for pressure points to
dissuade GOP-led states from redistricting maps, including calls for
mass protests and economic boycotts.
"Across the South, Black
athletes have helped build some of the most profitable college athletic
programs in America," said NAACP president Derrick Johnson. Johnson
noted that the programs "generate hundreds of millions of dollars in
annual revenue, national television value, alumni donations,
merchandising sales, ticket sales and brand equity -- much of it powered
by Black football and basketball talent."
The NAACP's campaign
calls out Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and
South Carolina as states to boycott, arguing that the athletic programs
of those states' flagship universities are especially reliant on Black
athletic talent and should protect Black political interests.
"Black
athletes should not be asked to generate wealth, prestige, and power
for state institutions while those same states strip political power
from Black communities," Johnson said.
Black lawmakers themselves
are also pressuring athletic leagues to take action against
Republican-led states that might redistrict longtime Black members of
Congress.
The Congressional Black Caucus on Monday sent a letter
to the commissioners of the SEC and ACC athletic conferences, as well as
NCAA president Charlie Baker, stating that its members will oppose the
SCORE Act, a bill to standardize athletes' contracting rights across the
country, unless conference leaders oppose GOP-led redistricting efforts
in states that include major conference members.
"The
Congressional Black Caucus believes institutions that profit from Black
talent and Black communities have a responsibility to stand with those
communities when their fundamental rights are under attack," the CBC
said. "Silence in the face of injustice is not neutrality -- it is
complicity."
If there's anything more sacred to the knobs that vote for MAGAt Republicans in the South, it's sports, especially football. Having the black athletes that bring glory and cash to the State universities in the States noted above (but why not Tennessee, the first and most egregious Jim Crow state??) not participate in their athletic programs would hit those States where it hurts. Likewise, donors to those schools must withhold their financial support. It would let them know there's a price to be paid for setting the clock back a hundred years on black voting and representational rights. But the black community (organizations like the NAACP and National Action Network, churches, politicians) needs to work with black athletes and their families to inform, energize, and organize them to look outside of the deep South to achieve their athletic and academic goals. We'd see how the smirking good ol' boys in those Jim Crow Republican legislatures like that.