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I Spelman Spotlight March 12, 1980 Page 3 Sports and Politics: The Olympics Controversy Blacks Must Oppose U.S. Boycott By Manning Marable Several weeks ago, in the wake of the Soviet Union’s intervention into Afghanistan, President Car ter announced that he had authorized a series of retaliatory acts to punish the Russians. One of his decisions involved U.S. par ticipation in the Summer Olym pic games, scheduled this year in Moscow. “If the Soviet troops do not fully withdraw from Afghanistan within the next mon th,” he warned, America’s athletes would be urged to boycott the games. “If our response to aggression is to con tinue with international sports as usual in the capital of the aggressor, our other steps to deter aggression are un dermined.” Carter’s decision to boycott the Olympic was politically popular at home, and won the support of most of the world’s conservative governments, including the reac tionary administration of Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom. The move was shrewdly timed to coincide with the crucial Presidential primaries in New England, states where challenger Edward Kennedy will probably fare well. Since Carter recognized that the Soviet troops are going to remain in that far- off, central Asian state for the im mediate future, the call for a one month deadline was simply a hypocritical jesture to keep the issue “hot” for the media, and to further frustrate the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts. From the vantagepoint of history, Carter’s emotionally charged call to tie political questions with sports has a cer tain familiarity. Throughout the black American experience, blacks have tried to extend democratic political principles through the vehicle of sports. Ironically, it has been white America who has been the fir mest proponent of the idea that “politics has no place in sports.” In 1900, for example, the greatest professional cyclist in the world was Marchall Taylor, an Afro-American. Throughout the nation he won race after race, and earned the celebrated title of “Black Cyclone.” But in the age of Jim Crow, many white competitors argued that the presence of a black athelete in their sport was “too politically controversial.” The League of American Wheelman kept the Black Cyclone out of many events. After one race, a defeated white cyclist physically assaulted Taylor. Eventually, the sport of cycling became “for whites only”. Politics, white Americans insisted, had no place in sports. In the 1930’s, the greatest baseball players in America were found in the old “all-Negro” leagues. Catcher J osh Gibson was a greater home run hitter than the Yankee’s Babe Ruth. Warren Spahn and Lefty Grove never had the control throwing a curve ball that Leroy Satchell about the summer games. If Car ter and the American people withdraw from the Summer Olympics, a major precedent will be established that will be vir tually impossible to counteract. Socialist nations and much of the Third World, including Africa, may boycott the Summer Olym pics scheduled for Los Angeles in 1984. For black America, the question of the pending Olympic boycott assumes even greater significance. Historically, no nation in the world has done more to oppress our civil rights and to oppose our demands for economic and social equality than the United States. If we ac cept the new “logic” of white Americans, that “politics should have a role in sports,” then we have no business playing for a government that has sanctioned the systematic murder of millions of our people since the beginning of slavery. To see black athletes defending the Cold War-inspired demand to segregate foundations of our Movement. Eventually, the same rhetoric and ex clusionary tactics generated by the Carter Administration will be used against us again. “It is easy and politically profitable” for Carter to capitulate to the anticommunist “hardliners”, observes former New York Times Senior Editor John B. Oakes. “But is it statesmanlike to do so? Is it wise to insist that (this) is ‘the most serious threat to world peace sin ce the Second World War’, which it can indeed become—if we choose to make it so?” The demand to elevate white America’s political interests above the need for world dialogue, peace and genuine cooperation, particularly through the manipulation of the Olympic games, should be rejected by the Afro-American community, and by all other progressive people throughout the country. Paige once had in his prime. And the sterling play of first baseman Buck Leonard would have made Lou Geurig turn around and leave the field. But black baseball players were excluded from com- netition because they were politically (and racially) too con troversial. Blacks played the sport for peanuts while white athletes acquired thousands of dollars during the Great Depression. But black folks were told firmly that politics had no place in sports. In 1968, at the Olympic Games in Mexico City, two Afro- American athletes won gold and bronze medals in the 100 meter dash. On the awards platform. Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in a Black Power salute. Their act of courage was a statement—a symbolic declaration that black America is not yet free, and that the very principles of this nation’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution remain a fraud regarding black, brown and poor people. But white America responded: “these two men have defied our hallowed traditions in athletic competition. The have the right to hold whatever political views they wish, but on the field of play they must conform to the spirit of neutrality and fairness.” As a result, Smith and Carlos were denounced, vilified and con demned. Their chief defender, sociologist Harry Edwards, was subsequently denied tenure at the University of California- Berkeley. Black Americans were warned again: politics had no place in sports. But now the tables are turned; the Carter Administration grasps for international issues to save it self domestically. Its dismal record on protecting minority rights and affirmative action, its failure to create jobs and a decent healthcare system, and its inability to control inflation have led us to the brink of another Cold War. Now, we are told solemnly, politics must intercede into athletics, for the survival of decides” because of his “allegian ce of being an American.” The most pathetic example of this kind of thinking from black athletes who were preparing to participate in the games has come from star high jumper Franklin Jacobs. “What the Russians did was against the prin ciples of what this country stands forTTie stated. “On the matter of a boycott, I just want to say that I have complete faith in President Carter and our country. Naturally I want to jump, but more im portantly I want to do what’s right for America”. star J ulius Erving commented; I’d hate to see anyone go into Moscow now.” I don’t think that a country that has institued an aggressive act by marching into Afghanistan, and preparing to march into other areas, would be the proper country to host something that stands for the coming together of nations.” New York Knicks Earl Monroe declared that he would “Go with whatever the (U.S.) government democracy. It is not very surprising that the bulk of white Americans accept this hypocrisy as fact and, in the spirit of jingoistic patriotism, follow behind their leader. What is especially sad is that so many black athletes are now prepared to do the same thing. Once the victims of political exclusion, some are ready to play the same dirty game at the world’s ex pense. Today’s black multimillionaires in sports have been eager to endorse the Olym pics boycott scheme. Basketball It is of critical importance here to note that the Olympic games, and any major international athletic competition should not be held hostage to any kind of political demands. The Moscow publication Sovetsky Sport, for example, has stated that theSoviet would send their athletes to Lake Placid, New York, for the Winter Olympics, no matter what the U.S. did