Dave Zirin is the author, most recently, of The Kaepernick Effect: Taking a Knee, Changing the World.
The International Olympic Committee has declined to curtail Israel’s involvement in the 2024 games and has placed half-hearted limits on Russia. The IOC claims it opposes the politicization of sport — but the Olympics are a historically political institution.
Over the past decade, sportswriter Dave Zirin has had a front-row seat to the upheavals sweeping professional sports. From Colin Kaepernick to the Milwaukee Bucks’ strike for Jacob Blake, athletes aren’t shutting up and playing anymore.
That’s an individual choice. But imposing boycotts from the outside isn’t how politics works.
Colin Kaepernick’s protest is part of a long history of black athletes taking politics to the field.
Muhammad Ali’s resistance to racism and war belongs not only to the 1960s, but the common future of humanity.