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Gregg Popovich’s biggest win was making America confront uncomfortable truths
"He’s now won more games than anyone in NBA history, but the Air Force veteran’s most important legacy will be speaking out on injustice, racism, police brutality to a red-state audience
With San Antonio’s 104-102 victory over the Utah Jazz on Saturday night, longtime Spurs coach Gregg Popovich recorded his 1,336th regular-season win to pass Don Nelson for the most in NBA history. . .Under his leadership, the Spurs organization became the league standard for professionalism, respectability and doing things the “right way”, a reputation that rubbed off on San Antonio greats like David Robinson, Manu Ginobli, Kawhi Leonard, Tony Parker, Avery Johnson, Sean Elliott, LaMarcus Aldridge, Patty Mills, DeMar DeRozan, Rudy Gay and countless others.
But what makes Coach Popovich really special, as well as unique, is the way he used his voice and his platform to speak out on injustice, racism, police brutality and the rest of societal ills that plague American society, not only on a daily, personal basis, but a systemic basis. As a white man, in the state of Texas of all places, this not only requires a lot of courage but commands a lot of respect.
Pop had a knack for utilizing NBA press conferences and post-game interviews to express his thoughts and opinions on various topics, often without prompting or provocation.
After George Floyd was murdered, Coach Popovich’s heartfelt address said what a lot of people needed to hear.
“In a strange, counterintuitive sort of way, the best teaching moment of this recent tragedy, I think, was the look on the officer’s face, [during Floyd’s death]. For white people to see how nonchalant, how casual, just how everyday-going-about-his job, so much so that he could just put his left hand in his pocket, wriggle his knee around a little bit to teach this person some sort of a lesson – and that it was his right and his duty to do it, in his mind.
“I think I’m just embarrassed as a white person to know that that can happen. To actually watch a lynching. We’ve all seen books, and you look in the books and you see black people hanging off of trees. And you...are amazed. But we just saw it again. I never thought I’d see that, with my own eyes, in real-time.”
. . .Asked to reflect on the life of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and race relations in the country, part of Popovich’s answer focused on the country’s leadership.
“It seems like a lot of roll back in that regard, especially as we look at the race situation in our country. Everybody wants to forget about it but it should be there, front and center, constantly,” Popovich said.
“Race is still the unanswered dilemma that everyone continues to ignore. Dr. King did not ignore it, and it’s a big fear now that we have a group in power that is very willing to ignore it. It’s not just with their words, but their actions prove it, and that is scary.”
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Now. Coach Popovich wasn’t the first and definitely won’t be the last in sports to verbally spank the former US president or call out the blatant and the prevailing racism and bigotry that is currently running rampant not only throughout the Republican Party but America as a whole, yet he’s certainly one of the most important and unique for a number of reasons:
1) Coach Popovich is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and works in a military town.
2) The aforementioned standard that he and the Spurs organization has set would appear to be in direct opposition to his public chastisement of the America.
3) Coach Popovich was making these statements in the ultra-red state of Texas, arguably the most conservative of the conservative states based on the state legislature and the congressional delegation, one that has voted Republican in 10 straight presidential elections and saw 52.6% of voters punch for Trump.
For my book Police Brutality and White Supremacy: The Fight Against American Traditions, I interviewed former NBA player Rex Chapman, who is white. He spoke to the power of white people in particular speaking out on injustice.
“A big part of it makes me sad that we have to have white people speaking out in order for it to resonate with a lot of white America,” Chapman said. “It hurts my heart when I see my friends Steve Kerr, Steve Nash, Stan Van Gundy, Greg Popovich picking their spots, because they’re still in the NBA. I know the tightrope they do have to walk on some issues, but some of the stuff they’ve said Black people have been saying for decades. I’m proud of them for saying it now Proud to call them my friends. I’m proud to be of the group of white people who genuinely want to be allies in this fight.”
> The reality is, there are segments of people in America who will give one big collective eye roll to hearing any Black person talk about systemic racism, police brutality, white supremacy, and bigotry. Doesn’t matter if it’s LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick, Barack Obama or anyone else. But they will hear it from someone like Coach Popovich. They will think about it. Reflect on it. And not be immediately offended or dismiss that he is ‘playing the race card’.
Coach Popovich said that it’s up to white people to call out racism no matter what the consequences and didn’t even really receive any backlash for his comments, not even in an ultra-conservative place like Texas. And that’s what makes him unique and special. Yes, Popovich’s coaching milestone is historic and worthy of celebration, but his activism off the court will endure longer as the standard for all white people who truly want to be allies in this fight against racism and white supremacy."
Reference: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/mar/12/gregg-popovich-legacy-ally-activism-injustice-racism
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Clarence Thomas: supreme court could be ‘compromised’ by politics
"The court is set to rule this year on divisive issues including abortion, gun control, the climate crisis and voting rights
The US supreme court could “at some point” become “compromised” by politics, said Clarence Thomas – one of six conservatives on the nine-member court after Republicans denied Barack Obama a nomination then rammed three new justices through during the hard-right presidency of Donald Trump.
“You can cavalierly talk about packing or stacking the court,” said Thomas, whose wife, Ginni Thomas, has come under extensive scrutiny for work for rightwing groups including supporting Trump’s attempts to overturn an election.
“You can cavalierly talk about doing this or doing that. At some point the institution is going to be compromised.”
NOTE: Thomas was speaking at a hotel in Salt Lake City on Friday.
“By doing this,” he said, “you continue to chip away at the respect of the institutions that the next generation is going to need if they’re going to have civil society.”
The court is set to rule this year on divisive issues including abortion, gun control, the climate crisis and voting rights. Conservative victories are expected. The conservative-dominated court has already ruled against the Biden administration on coronavirus mitigation and other matters.
The US constitution does not mandate that the court consist of nine justices. Some progressives and Democratic politicians have therefore called to expand it, in order to reset its ideological balance. Democrats in Congress last year introduced a bill to add four justices and Joe Biden has created a commission to study expansion.
Few analysts think expansion is likely to happen.
> Republican senators are currently attacking Biden for his campaign promise to nominate a first Black woman to the court, a promise he fulfilled by nominating Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace the retiring Stephen Breyer.
> Republican presidents have nominated justices on grounds of identity, most recently when Trump said he would pick a woman to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the liberal lion who died in September 2020.
> Ignoring their own claims about the impropriety of confirmations in election years, made in denying Merrick Garland even a hearing to replace Antonin Scalia in 2016, Senate Republicans installed Amy Coney Barrett, a hardline Catholic conservative, as Ginsberg’s replacement.
In Utah on Friday, Thomas also voiced a familiar conservative complaint about so-called “cancel culture”, the supposed silencing of voices or world views deemed unacceptable on political grounds.
He was, he said, “afraid, particularly in this world of cancel culture attack, I don’t know where you’re going to learn to engage as we did when I grew up.
“If you don’t learn at that level in high school, in grammar school, in your neighborhood, or in civic organizations, then how do you have it when you’re making decisions in government, in the legislature, or in the courts?”
Thomas also attacked the media for, he said, cultivating inaccurate impressions about public figures including himself, his wife and Scalia.
> Ginni Thomas has faced scrutiny for her involvement in groups that file briefs about cases in front of the supreme court, as well as using Facebook to amplify partisan attacks.
Thomas has claimed the supreme court is above politics – a claim made by justices on either side of the partisan divide.
Congress is preparing for confirmation hearings for Jackson. She will be installed if all 50 Democratic senators back her, via the casting vote of the vice-president, Kamala Harris. Some Republicans have indicated they could support her too.
In Utah, Thomas recalled his own confirmation in 1991 as a humiliating and embarrassing experience. Lawmakers including Biden grilled Thomas about sexual harassment allegations from Anita Hill, a former employee, leading him to call the experience a “high tech lynching”. Biden has also been criticised for his treatment of Hill.
On Friday, Thomas said he held civility as one of his highest values. He said he learned to respect institutions and debate civilly with those who disagreed with him during his years in school.
> Based on conversations with students in recent years, he said, he does not believe colleges are now welcoming places for productive debate, particularly for students who support what he described as traditional families or oppose abortion.
> Thomas did not reference the future of Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision that guaranteed abortion rights. The court on which he sits is scheduled to rule this year on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, concerning whether Mississippi can ban abortions at 15 weeks.
The court is expected to overturn Roe. While the justices deliberate, conservative lawmakers in Florida, West Virginia and Kentucky are advancing similar legislation."
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