ESPN anchor and UCLA alumna Cari Champion, left, and the panelists agreed that sports and politics have never been separate.
Sports in the United States have always been political.
In a panel discussion Feb. 5 at UCLA, experts made that case by pointing to municipal governments subsidizing new stadiums, the racial and gender barriers to participation in sports and even the charitable causes leagues choose to support.
The one-hour discussion about athletes and activism was part of a series of events recognizing the 100th birthday of Jackie Robinson, the UCLA alumnus who broke the Major League Baseball color barrier in 1947.
The panelists were Pat Turner, vice provost of UCLA undergraduate education and professor of African American studies; Chris Kluwe, a former punter for UCLA and the Minnesota Vikings and now a writer and LGBT equality activist; Damion Thomas, museum curator of sports for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture who earned a doctorate in history from UCLA; and Kaiya McCullough, a current UCLA women’s soccer player. The moderator was ESPN anchor Cari Champion, a UCLA alumna.
McCullough made news in 2017 when she began kneeling during the national anthem before UCLA soccer games — joining a movement that began with former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick as a call for social and racial justice. She said reading on social media about the repeated shootings of African-American men inspired her to take action.
“You see all these stories and it’s hard to not be moved,” McCullough said. “And it’s hard to not feel sadness for people who are going through things that you couldn’t possibly imagine. I grew up really privileged, too. I have a white mother and black father……
