AAPI athletes swept up in protests in professional sports over latest shootings

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Naomi Osaka decided to sit out the rest of a tennis tournament.

In an unprecedented historic action, America's professional athletes scored major points yesterday in protest of police actions in Kenosha, Wisconsin specifically, and the urgent need for police reform.

With the player-initiated cancellation of games in the National Basketball League and Major League Baseball, athletes let it be known collectively at that "enough is enough" after Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, was shot in the back seven times last Sunday and a self-anointed white vigilante fatally shot two demonstrators and  allowed to walk away unimpeded by police.

UPDATE, Aug. 27, 10:30 a.m.: Players will resume playing Thursday in the NBA and MLB.

What sparked the game cancellations was when a 17-year old with a rifle fired at a crowd of demonstrators, killing two and wounding another on Tuesday. Kenosha police a block away allowed the teenager to walk away from the shooting, not detaining him or taking away his weapon even as witnesses shouted out that he was the shooteer. 

The teenager, identified as Kyle Rittenhouse, wasn't arrested until early Wednesday. He faces a first-degree intentional homicide charge in Kenosha County but is currently jailed in Lake County, Illinois, and has been charged there as a fugitive from justice. His extradition hearing is scheduled for Friday.

The concern of racial justice affected players of color in the white-dominated sports of tennis and hockey.

Although Naomi Osaka, formerly ranked No. 1 in the world, reached the semifinals of the Western & Southern Open on Wednesday, she decided to withdraw in a call for racial justice. 

“I don’t expect anything drastic to happen with me not playing, but if I can get a conversation started in a majority white sport, I consider that a step in the right direction,” she wrote. “Watching the continued genocide of Black people at the hand of the police is honestly making me sick to my stomach.

Although she had to declare herself as a citizen of Japan, she was raised in the U.S. and as the daughter of Japanese mother and Haitian father, was clearly troubled with the latest shootings and the state of race relations in the U.S. After her withdrawal, she drew quick support from other players. The tournament paused play for the rest of the day.

“As a sport, tennis is collectively taking a stance against racial inequality and social injustice that once again has been thrust to the forefront in the United States. The (U.S. Tennis Association), ATP Tour and WTA have decided to recognize this moment in time by pausing tournament play at the Western & Southern Open on Thursday, Aug. 27,” the three organizations said in a statement.

FACEBOOK / MATT DUMBA

Hockey player Matt Dumba regularly raises a fist during the playing of the national anthem.

The National Hockey League decided to play its games Wednesday, much to the consternation of the only Filipino American in the National Hockey League.

Minnesota Wild defenseman Matt Dumba, a founding member of the player-based Hockey Diversity Alliance, was disappointed in the NHL for its lack of action on Wednesday when nearly all other professional sports league in the United States halted play in protest. 

“The NHL we’re always late to the party, especially on these topics, so it’s sorta sad and disheartening for me and other members of the HDA, and I’m sure other guys across the league,” Dumba told Sportsnet.

“But if no one stands up and does anything, it’s the same thing — it’s just that silence that you’re just outside looking in on actually being leaders and invoking real change when you have such an opportunity to do so.”

“I hope guys find it in them to stand up,” Dumba said. “You can’t keep coming to the minority players every time there’s a situation like this. The white players in our league need to have answers for what they’re seeing in society right now and where they stand in making a change.”

“What would really make the most impact is to have strong white leaders from teams step up and have their two cents heard,” Dumba said. “All the other white kids who grow up watching them, who might be their biggest fans, can look up and say, ‘Wow. If he’s seeing this, and understanding, and trying to listen, then why am I not as well, and why am I continuing to hold on to this ignorance or hate that I feel towards a subject that I maybe don’t know everything about?'”