Pressing Forward: The Desire to Consume Decency Over Politics
Graphic by Habib Salami.
OP-ED
BY RANN MILLER | Pressing Forward
Watching ESPN’s College GameDay Show on Saturdays, and ESPN in general, has become harder these days because it’s willing to air right-wing political talking points and guests.
It’s hypocritical of the network after its concerted push to be apolitical in the wake of what it considered “woke” politics; woke being code for naming anti-Black injustice on its airwaves.
A few weeks ago, the show invited conservative senator Ted Cruz on to speak about the Protect College Sports Act, building on the rhetoric of many of the show’s hosts, namely Nick Saban and Pat McAfee: two conservatives. The problem with this act is that it is designed to strip autonomy from college athletes–namely Black athletes–to leave one school for another for more money, among other things.
When called out on its one-sided hypocrisy, ESPN allowed the president of the NAACP, Derrick Johnson, to appear on its SportsCenter program, which was more of a mea culpa than a genuine effort to frame a debate.
Were ESPN interested in the latter, Johnson and Cruz would have appeared together to debate the act on College GameDay. But that wasn’t the case, because this issue isn’t framed as political, but as a common-sense matter.
But it is a political issue that many conservatives conveniently play dumb about.
Politics for white people, namely conservatives, is making the visible invisible. The terms “white” and “Black” are political terms. They are socially constructed terms but political realities. They are political terms because they were designations that announced class and political status/superiority.
However, the white power structure enabled whiteness as an invisible thing because whiteness is the standard of society against which all racial groups are measured.
So, to announce a conservative political point on a television show that is born from a white institutional space (a corporate television network), which used its power and influence to lobby Congress in favor of legislation that would harm college athletes and return power to coaches, athletic directors, general managers, and universities. Making America great again, I suppose.
Although Black lives are political by nature, we don’t want to have to be on guard all the time. We want to enjoy watching college football programming without being met with conservative talking points that generally run counter to our existence. We’re not naive to think that all the white people in the programming we consume politically align with the politics of Black liberation.
We live with that reality daily… the butcher, the mailman, the proprietor of a cleaners or supermarket… all of these people could be racist and a Trump voter.
But unlike white people, who want “peace” from politics when consuming sports, Black folks want decency in a space, since decency typically isn’t afforded to Black people within many mainstream spaces.
Sports is supposedly the great equalizer, where one’s talent and merit matter more than their racial and economic background. That’s one reason we are drawn to it. But when we witness politics meant to give–or, in this case, return–power to white people and institutions that have exploited Black labor, we speak out, as we should.
… Yet, we are told to quiet the woke politics. Because now “woke” means decency for Black people. The truth is what we’ve always known… “decency” in America is a standard that is based on being good for some but not for all.
That truth unearths an even harder one: Black people cannot find Black liberation in white institutional spaces. Sports do not prioritize Black liberation. They prioritize the use of Black bodies for profit in exchange for paying those bodies enough to be rich, never wealthy.
It is easy enough to boycott or protest organizations or institutions that we know are racist. But, honestly, it’s highly likely that many (if not most) of the places we patronize have the blood of anti-Black racism on their hands.
So, what do we do? Do we not patronize any space? That’s impossible because capitalism makes it impossible. But we can be mindful of what we consume, and when we’re involved in those spaces, we can call out what’s wrong when we hear it. As for watching College GameDay, a show I once enjoyed very much… I’m not watching.
BIO: Rann Miller is a writer, author, and educator. A graduate of Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Rann teaches AP United States History, is the author of Resistance Stories from Black History for Kids, and is an opinion columnist, featured in various news outlets exploring the intersections of race, education, politics, culture and history. You can follow on “X” @RealRannMiller, on IG, and TikTok @realrannmiller.
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