What Will Happen If NBA Players Stage a Protest During the National Anthem?

What Will Happen If NBA Players Stage a Protest During the National Anthem?

What Will Happen If NBA Players Stage a Protest During the National Anthem?

And what will commissioner Adam Silver do?

Dave Zirin
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This week we talk face-to-face with Michael Lee, senior writer at The Vertical for Yahoo! Sports, about the prospect of players protesting during the anthem in the NBA—and how NBA Commissioner Adam Silver would handle it.

Also, we speak to Lindsay Gibbs, sports correspondent for ThinkProgress, about Cam Newton’s sexist comments to a female reporter and how racism against Cam became part of the story.

We have Choice Words about the stupidest argument ever against anthem protests, Just Stand Up and Just Sit Down awards, your weekly Kaepernick watch, and much more!

Michael Lee, NBA Senior Writer at The Vertical on Yahoo! Sports
Why NBA players should be allowed to take a knee
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Lindsay Gibbs, Sports Reporter at ThinkProgress & Co-Host of the Burn It All Down Podcast
Cam Newton’s sexist comment: A reminder about what women in media still deal with
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Zirin
Protesting NFL Players Aren’t Being Demonized Only by Trumpers

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

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Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

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Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

Dave Zirin Dave Zirin is the sports editor at The Nation. He is the author of 11 books on the politics of sports. He is also the coproducer and writer of the new documentary Behind the Shield: The Power and Politics of the NFL.


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