Making Sense of the NBA on MLK Day

Filed under: NBA Fans

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. may have been a rabble-rouser under investigation by the FBI, but he was also a great man. That's why he has a holiday named after him; why we know his landmark speeches by heart; and why today, the NBA offers up a full slate of early games -- suggesting that watching midday ball is the proper way to observe MLK Day. Never mind that, on what's supposed to be a national day of service, these games make it all the more likely that basketball fans will stay at home. Conflating the NBA and Dr. King, while well-meaning, may end up doing more harm than good. Not just to the ecumenical call to service that the holiday's become, but to the real legacy of King.

Community service may be colorblind, and King himself was as concerned with class as race by the end of his life. But let's be real about this: King did more than anyone else to foment for equal rights in this country; the NBA, a majority-black league that's a constant lightning rod for issues of race and a conduit for pop culture influence, is more than just sports. It's inextricably linked with the issue of race in America.

If the NBA really wanted to acknowledge its importance, and the ways in which it's part of the same story as King, it would schedule zero games today.

 

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Full story at http://nba.fanhouse.com/2010/01/18/making-sense-of-the-nba-on-mlk-day/