The Art of Protest

Between Tuesday, January 5 and Wednesday, January 6, the country had updates regarding two major incidents from 2020.  On Tuesday, the officers involved in the Jacob Blake shooting were not charged for their actions, and on Wednesday, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol in protest of the election results.  These two events are completely intertwined in the aftermath of year that doesn’t seem to end (even though it has).  While most have focused on the comparison between the Wednesday incident and the Black Lives Matter protests that happened throughout last year, I would like to focus on NBA players’ responses to the Jacob Blake shooting and verdict as well as the riots at the Capitol.

Prior to returning to the NBA Bubble, after several players had participated in peaceful BLM marches in cities and supported the movement in other ways, the NBA strayed from its usual approach and allowed players several opportunities to incorporate social justice on the court, including writing “Black Lives Matter” on the courts, allowing players to have messages on their jerseys where names would go, and not punishing players and coaches for kneeling during the anthem.  When Jacob Blake was shot, the Milwaukee Bucks protested by boycotting their game, which the league responded by suspending games after other teams boycotted as well.  The first thing that the Bucks players did after deciding to boycott was call Wisconsin’s Attorney General and a lieutenant governor to see what they could do for change in the short and long term.  The playoffs resumed after the league agreed to form a social justice committee, donate a certain amount of money, promote voting, and encourage the owners open the arenas for voting, which 23 of the 30 did.  After the Bubble, NBA and WNBA players worked to get many individuals registered to vote that would not have voted otherwise, which changed the result of the general election and Georgia’s runoff.

After both the verdict and the protests occurred, players and coaches were quick to express discontent with what happened.  Warriors player Draymond Green called those who called those involved “f---ing terrorists” when they were called protestors and said they needed to keep playing because “it's extremely important that we continue to speak for [our communities]”.  Many of his teammates responded in similar ways, while Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, among many things, that “the truth matters”.  After contemplating boycotting their game, the Celtics and Heat decided to release a joint statement condemning what happened while saying they were playing “to bring joy into people’s lives”, addressing the issues after the game, and taking a knee during the national anthem.  The Bucks and Pistons took it a step further by taking a turning the ball over intentionally after the tipoff to kneel for 7 seconds, representing the number of gunshots fired at Jacob Blake.  Unfortunately, I do not believe these actions made as much noise as their prior actions due to how loud the Capitol heist was.

After several individuals were fired from their jobs and Donald Trump was banned from multiple forms of social media, I consistently heard one complaint that always seems to seep out:  something along the lines of “that’s a violation of Freedom of Speech”.  The short answer is that this isn’t how it works for two reasons.  The Bill of Rights defends Freedom of Speech in a governmental or public location, but it is not necessarily covered by a private corporation (while not entirely that simple, suppose it is for the sake of this post).  When Twitter banned Trump, this was justified because Twitter is a private entity, and his statements violated the code of conduct for the site.  Social media sites can ban individuals for violating the code of conduct for those sites as a result, and this incident wouldn’t be any different except for the other reason:  he was not protected by the First Amendment due to inciting imminent lawless action, which is not covered by Freedom of Speech.  A violent riot is an example of this, which is something that happened on January 6^th.  A rarer complaint that I saw was that the companies shouldn’t fire rioters based on their personal beliefs.  Companies absolutely can do this because they’re not protected by the First Amendment in this regard and can fire employees if they justifiably are not upholding their standards/mission/rules.  This is in part why a store like Hobby Lobby can list “honoring the Lord” as their first commitment on their site.  While a sizeable population complained about the boycott in the Bubble (one common complaint I saw was that something along the lines of “if I did that, I would be fired”), this situation is a little different because the players are signed to (mostly) guaranteed contracts.  While the league could fine anyone who boycotts, it wouldn’t be a good strategy for future collective bargaining agreements or league health.  That said, there are situations where individuals are traded or cut due to conduct detrimental to the team (less likely to be cut in the NBA due to guaranteed salaries; this happens more often in a league such as the NFL).

Ultimately, the NBA players responded to events they wanted to protest in a productive way, figured out the best course of action, expanded it using their platforms, and found a point of vulnerability that causes people to stop and agree to be involved (money).  The siege of the capitol was not the way to do this; while some would argue many of these points could be held prior to the violence, the fact that it turned to violence from the end of those rallying means that they fount a point of vulnerability that forces others to distance themselves from the protests.  After Joe Biden had been elected, I said that my fear wasn’t that Trump would refuse to leave office, but that he would stage a coup to attempt to reclaim the Presidency.  After January 6^th, I worry that we may see something along these lines as soon as Biden’s inauguration.