America’s history is filled with examples of exploitation. From General Amherst giving Native Americans on the Trail of Tears blankets infected with smallpox to the horrendous capture and transportation of Africans to the New World to work for Europeans for free. Now if Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is accurate, then the same historical practices are occurring today, since energy can neither be created nor destroyed but only altered in form.
Some would argue that slavery does not exist in America in light of the passage of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, if we examine the world of professional sports, it could be noted that a large body of evidence suggests otherwise. In America, people are excited and happy when they cheer for their favorite professional sports team, but rarely see the similarity to the former practice of slavery and rich whites owning and utilizing blacks for profit and personal gain.
I know some people would say that the difference is that athletes are paid vast sums of money. This may be true, but slaves were paid with a place to live and food. Not to mention that pro sports is a microcosm of our society, because when athletes can no longer play in the NFL or NBA, they are discarded like waste material.
A slave by definition is “a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another.” This would be applicable to sports because African Americans have turned sports, both college and pro, into a multibillion-dollar industry but collect a paltry amount of the money they help a franchise earn.
So let’s be realistic when we look at professional sports in America and the role African American men and women play. All they do is play, because none own any of these plantations, er, organizations. Not since the Negro Leagues have blacks owned professional sport organizations, and we won’t anytime in the near future. – torrance stephens, ph.d.
