Shut Up and Dribble: Responses to Athletes' Political Activism by Race

• In Event: Poster Session: Political Economy II & Public Opinion
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Public Opinion

Abstract

Martin Luther King Jr. credited Jackie Robinson with making the civil rights movement possible. Robinson broke the modern color barrier in baseball in 1947, before the first bus boycott, before the first sit in, before the first freedom ride. While Robinson's play could plausibly be said to have worked to heal the racial divide in the United States, today the intersection of sports, race, and politics remains fraught.

Using the results of a Pew Research Center survey and an original experiment, this study considers the degree to which responses to contemporary athletes' political activism is driven by race. When athletes take a stand, raise a fist, take a knee, the response has been blistering in some quarters. Is this response driven by ideological beliefs, by a revulsion from the loss of sanctuary from politics that sports once provided, or is perhaps the response driven by the fact that the overwhelming majority of activist athletes in the United States are African American? The distinction is central to understanding our current cultural moment and the hold of race over the American political imagination.

Author

• David Niven, University of Cincinnati