Historically, teams have received “the death penalty” for illegal recruiting or paying players under the table. The cynics – or perhaps the realists – will point out that most of the programs on the college football map are dirtier than a Vegas city council meeting. Why single out Notre Dame? Simply put, those running the football program in South Bend are guilty of something worse than the payoffs and kickbacks that pepper many of the top so-called amateur teams.

First there was the death of 20-year-old team videographer Declan Sullivan in October. Amidst a hurricane, Sullivan was ordered onto a 50-foot high “scissor lift” to videotape practice. Coach Kelly was apparently still angry that the previous day’s practice had to be conducted inside, and practice even in inclement weather, demands to be recorded. After the tower blew over, killing Sullivan, practice continued another 25 minutes. Sullivan’s death wasn’t just an accident. It was utter negligence.

As school President, the Reverend John Jenkins correctly said in an email to students, “Declan Sullivan was entrusted to our care and we failed to keep him safe.”

But Reverend Jenkins also defended the man in charge saying, “Coach Kelly was hired not only because of his football expertise, but because we believed his character and values accord with the highest standards of Notre Dame. All we have seen since he came to Notre Dame, and everything we have learned in our investigation to date, have confirmed that belief.”

The Sullivan story was awful enough. Now there is the emerging truth behind the September 10th suicide of first year student Elizabeth Seeberg. Seeberg overdosed on anti-depressants ten days after telling friends and campus police that a University of Notre Dame football player had sexually assaulted her.

After the alleged attack on August 31st, Seeberg wrote an account of what took place, was treated at a local hospital, and gave DNA samples to the authorities. There is no evidence that the case was taken seriously and the accused player who has been neither charged nor cleared, remained on the team. Seeberg, according to reports, became fearful in the days following her statement to police that she would be outed as someone hurting the team. She made a point of wearing her Fighting Irish gear around campus and getting fake ND tattoos on her face, all the better to blend in. It all proved to be too much for her and the 19 year old who had dreams of becoming a nurse, took her own life. She was found in her dorm room by rape crisis coordinators alarmed that she’d missed her latest session.

It’s a horrible story that shines light on something that occurs on far too many campuses, where sexual assault is part of the culture of entitlement conjoined with big time men’s college athletics. But even worse was the response by the supposed adults in charge. Less than a month after the death of Declan Sullivan, Coach Brian Kelly, the guy with all that “character” remember, was asked by reporters about Seeberg’s suicide. Coach Kelly repeatedly deflected the question. When the fourth reporter from the Tribune company asked Coach Kelly, he smirked, ‘”I didn’t know you guys could afford all those guys,” referencing the financial foibles at the paper.

This is the man who, according to Rev. Jenkins, represents the “highest values” of Notre Dame. He’s the sort of man who brings his team out to practice in a hurricane and doesn’t pause when a 50-foot tower falls to the ground. He’s the sort of man who turns his back on a sexual assault involving one of his players and can’t bring himself to show empathy for a 19 year old woman’s suicide.

This is a program that has officially gone off the rails and it clearly goes well beyond Coach Kelly. If these are the “highest values” of Notre Dame and if the NCAA gave a damn about the lives of the young people in their charge, they would take this program of Rockne, Hornung, and Montana, and shut it down. If the NCAA doesn’t have the guts to do it, Rev. Jenkins should do it for them: take a year off, reassess your mission, and try to understand why life on that campus has become so terribly cheap.

The Ali way is to tell the truth as you see it, consequences be damned. Last week, Lebron dipped his pinky-toe into his Muhammad Ali persona during an interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien and set the sports world on its ear. O’Brien asked Lebron about the fury he provoked when he left his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers this past summer. She wanted to know if he felt issues of race and racism might be connected to both the rage in Cleveland and the fact that Lebron has seen his popularity plummet, according to the advertising industry’s annual Q rating score.

Lebron answered, “I think so at times. It’s always, you know, a race factor.” That’s all. Just 12 words where a 25-year-old athlete dared say that news footage of people burning his jersey in the streets of Cleveland might have something to do with racism, and even then, as he was careful to say, it was just a factor.

It’s hardly Ali saying, “Damn America! Damn the white man’s money!” But given the response, you would think that Lebron had changed his name to Farrakhan bin Laden. Sports Illustrated’s Peter King, a self-described liberal, tweeted that Lebron’s affirmation of racism was “garbage.” Jason Whitlock, a man who says he “never leaves home without his race card” said, “Give me a &*%$ing break.” He then, with his typical lyricism, praised America for “taking a dump on Lebron” (It’s like Grantland Rice still walks among us!)

Charles Barkley also piled on, saying, “It’s like watching a movie. Just when you think it couldn’t get any stupider, it gets more stupid.” The only thing getting “stupider” is how we discuss these issues in America and in the world of sports.

I was neither a fan of Lebron’s move to Miami nor his egomaniacal ESPN informercial, “The Decision” where he revealed that he would be “taking [his] talents to South Beach. But to say that racism doesn’t shape our perceptions of controversial, narcissistic or outspoken athletes is to deny that the sky is blue or that most sportswriters could stand to bathe. Just look at the aforementioned Q ratings. The six least popular athletes in America are Michael Vick, Tiger Woods, Chad Ochocinco, Terrell Owens, Kobe Bryant, and Lebron. Yes, Vick, Woods and Bryant have had their share of off-field scandal, but so has Ben Roethlisberger, Brett Favre, and even Tom Brady. To say that racism doesn’t shape the volume of the anger at black athletes, is to say that sports somehow exists in a magical, hermetically sealed universe where the sewage of our society never manages to seep.

It also shapes the near-lockstep hostility Lebron provoked from the sports media. There is a valuable lesson for the King to learn: If you really want to walk in the footsteps of Ali, especially in the age of 24 hour news media, Twitter, and Whitlock, you had better develop a serious backbone. If your goal is to “be revolutionary”, then going on ESPN the next day to complain that people are making such a big deal over your comments, is like wearing red to a bullfight. You had better be prepared to handle the backlash, and like Ali, punch back.

If you really want to be the richest athlete on earth, then speaking about how race and racism affect your life is not exactly torn from the Michael Jordan playbook. But if you are going to “go there”, you had better be able to take the heat. Whether or not the self-proclaimed King James can, or even if he wants to, is an open question. Right now Lebron is walking on the fence between being a rebel and just another creature of commercialism. The problem with walking that narrow fence though, is that eventually you slip. Then comes the pain.

Imagine if someone ran for the Senate on the strength of their experience as CEO of a billion-dollar company. Now imagine if, as an aside, their employees kept ending up dead. They would routinely die of heart attacks, drug overdoses, suicides and strokes before the age of 50. Imagine if their company had put a “death clause” in their contracts that prevented employees and their families from suing the company. Imagine if they had gag orders to prevent family members from speaking out against what could be fairly called the most dangerous working conditions in the United States. Imagine if this candidate was so sociopathic that she would look at this billion-dollar business built on broken bodies and death as a source of pride and even as a motivator for why she deserves the power of public office. And lastly, imagine the media happily joining in with the sociopathology and giving her a free pass. Welcome to the race for Senator of Connecticut, where Republican Linda McMahon is self-funding her campaign on the bodies of the dead wrestlers who have built the billion-dollar empire that is World Wrestling Entertainment.

Just this fall alone, during her campaign, we have seen the deaths of wrestlers Eddie Fatu aka Umaga at 36, Lance Cade at 29, Luna Vachon at 48 and Jorge Gonzales at 44. In recent years we have seen the death by heart attack of wrestling legend Eddie Guerrero in 2005 and the suicide of Chris Benoit, which took place after he murdered his wife and child in 2007. To call the response to these tragedies coldblooded would be an insult to reptiles. Here is WWE spokesperson Rob Zimmerman: “Ultimately…stars in any form of entertainment should be held personally responsible for their own actions. Prescription drug overdose is a problem not only with former WWE talent, but society as a whole according to the Centers for Disease Control, as it is the second leading cause of unintentional death (particularly among younger people) in the U.S.” This is like a tobacco company executive saying, “Well, lots of people get cancer.”

As for Linda McMahon, the wife of WWE founder and impresario Vince McMahon, she was blasted by Lance Cade’s father after brushing off a reporter’s questions about his death saying she “might have met [Cade] once.” McMahon has also brushed off suggestions that the WWE is a serious business with a body count by repeatedly 
saying that the whole thing is a “soap opera” that “isn’t real.”

Well, Mrs. McMahon, the results of matches may be predetermined, but the risk is very real. The injuries are all too real. Darren Drozdov was made a quadriplegic because a routine move went wrong. Bob Holly suffered a broken neck in a similar fashion. Reconstructive surgery and painkillers are as normal part of professional wrestling as shaved torsos and fake tans. And wrestlers play hurt or they don’t get paid. They don’t have much of a choice. Unless you’re Linda’s son-in-law, multiple-time champion Triple H, there are no guaranteed roster spots and no guaranteed contracts. Taking too long to heal from an injury is simply career suicide. If you sprain your ankle in Denver on Saturday but have to be on television in LA on Monday, there aren’t many options. There is no union to fight for healthy safe work conditions in the WWE. Wrestlers are expected to do minimum 200 shows a year crashing through tables, bouncing off steel and falling hard on a concrete floor. If you’re hurt during a match, but you can somehow move, the show must go on. Sometimes, even if you can’t move, the show still goes on. This culture of playing through pain results in a culture where saying your prayers and eating your vitamins means praying for health and popping Vicodin.

To hear Linda and Vince McMahon talk about their “family business,” you’d think they were florists. You’d never imagine that the day after the great “Flyin’ ” Brian Pillman was found dead in his hotel room, Vince would drag his grieving widow on television for an interview and force her to call her just-dead husband a drug addict. It’s hard to imagine that this mom and pop operation forced Owen Hart to wear a ridiculous costume and descend from the rafters at a pay-per-view—a stunt that resulted in Owen falling to his death in front of tens of thousands of horrified fans. That night, as always, the show went on as planned.

Linda McMahon believes she should be elected to the United States Senate because she is the CEO of a company that happily exploits young men and women during the best years of their lives and, with few exceptions, cares little for the collateral damage. Her campaign website claims that she wants to “put people first.” This certainly doesn’t mean the people who work for her. The website also tells us that Linda is not a career politician. The McMahons have left a trail of dead and broken bodies in their wake on their way to becoming billionaires. They don’t seem to understand that they’ve become successful by seeing the people in their employ as less than fully human and therefore disposable. Linda McMahon may not be a career politician, but she already embodies everything wrong with both political parties in Washington, DC.

As the Reverend Astley Cooper first proposed in 1891, a “Pan-Britannic-Pan-Anglican Contest and Festival every four years [could act as] a means of increasing the goodwill and good understanding of the British Empire.” Today this sporting festival involves 71 countries and a series of games that spring from the UK like lawn bowling, rugby seven, and netball.

I don’t know if the CWG has created goodwill, but as the 2010 Games are set to start in Delhi, we are getting a very good understanding of empire, at least the 21st century variant. The games are teetering on an unprecedented implosion and the problem is not just that India, a country where 46% of the children are underweight, is spending $2.5 billion on athletic facilities alone. The problem is not just that India, a country where 42% of the people live under the World Bank poverty line of $1.25 a day, promised $100,000 to every country’s delegation to secure the games (what is called in less refined circles “a bribe.”) And the problem is not just that this state of affairs raises the question about whether India, with all it’s nouveau economic might, should be playing footstool for the inert Queen’s “Empire Games.”

The games might not go on because the CWG facilities, built at great economic and social cost, have been flagged as a serious health hazard. In preparing the various arenas, dozens of workers have been grievously injured in accidents due to faulty materials and equipment. This week alone a ceiling collapsed at the weightlifting venue and a bridge crumbled outside the main staging ground, Nehru Stadium, injuring 27.

Commonwealth Games President, Michael Fennell, expressed in writing his “great concern” over the current situation. “Many nations that have already sent their advanced parties to set up within the village have made it abundantly clear that, as of the afternoon of September 20, the Commonwealth Games village is seriously compromised,” he said.

Mike Hooper, the CWG chief executive, sniffed, “the village is filthy… one can’t occupy the rooms. There is building dust and rubble and the toilets are not working. Reports of excrement being found are true…. [It’s not fit] for human habitation.”

The chairperson of the Commonwealth Games Council for Wales, Anne Ellis, raised the unprecedented prospect of canceling it altogether. [We will see how London handles the 2012 Olympics, for example, and recoil anew without the comfort of xenophobia.]

There is more than a little dollop of paternalistic racism in CWG officials’ assessments of Delhi. The critiques that matter, though, come from inside of India where the Commonweath Games are called the “Corporate Wealth Games.” Currently, India is suffering through one of the worst ever outbreaks of Dengue Fever, which spreads through mosquitos, exacerbated from a particularly harsh monsoon season.

Pranav Jani, an American professor living in Delhi, wrote, “many are saying [the outbreak comes is due] to the massive digging and construction from the upcoming CWG.” You will hear CWG officials complain about Dengue. You will hear athletes raise it as a health concern and decline to compete. But you won’t hear their complicity.

Regardless, if the CWG bureaucrats want to vacate responsibility for the state of affairs every day, the Indian press discusses the problems in grand detail. This is the first time India has ever aimed to host an event of this magnitude. The country’s leaders are aiming to accomplish what China did with the 2008 Olympics, South Africa with the 2010 World Cup, and what Brazil hopes to do with the 2016 Olympics – namely, demonstrate that they are willing to and pull out all the stops to raise their international prestige at put on a good show.

There is a reason why the so called BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China) are the 21st century hosts for these elaborate sporting spectacles. One reason is that they are willing to do whatever it takes to make the games happen. That means repression. That means massive debt-public works projects. In China, we saw the price of this, with two million people displaced from Beijing. In South Africa, a million-strong public sector strikes mark the hangover after the party. In Brazil, a police helicopter was shot down over the favelas, in October 2009, just southwest of an Olympic Zone. In Athens, before the 2004 games, anywhere between 40 and 150 construction workers died as the International Olympic Committee deadlines hovered.

In India, we see similar stories.  As Ravi Chaudhary reported:

On the 7th of July 2010, during work hours, a government funded demolition team took bulldozers to the Yamuna Khada school (funded by donations) in order for it to be ruthlessly demolished. Those who attended and worked at the school were given three hours to vacate the property with no alternative. Police were present along with the construction teams and were seen destroying whatever could be demolished by hand in order to put fear into local residents. Many were removed with physical force.

And yet, the world has looked away, because the trains have always run on time; to put it another way, the games went off without a hitch and the body count was ignored. Just as in 1968 in Mexico City, when hundreds of students and workers were killed before the games and the world looked away, it is seen by organizers as a plus – not a minus – that such extreme prejudice can be introduced with impunity. In India, we are seeing how this process of rapidfire development on the quick has crossed the line that divides the development from the spectacle. Now not only are dissidents and workers endangered, the athletes, themselves, are imperiled as well. For the first time since World War II, the show may not go on. But this time, the war is the show and the show is the war.

No, this isn’t a summary of the “WikiLeaks scandal” that exposed the brutal facts that surround the US quagmire in Afghanistan. It’s Major League Baseball and the leaked private financial statements that show how some teams claiming poverty, demanded tax dollars for new stadiums while pulling in record profits. Like with the war in Afghanistan, it’s a reminder that for people in power, words like “democracy” and “transparency” aren’t sacred values. They’re punch lines.

The leaked Major League Baseball documents show the National Pastime to be an unaccountable, highly secretive legal monopoly that demands and receives billions in tax money for publicly financed stadiums while willfully misrepresenting their bottom line. They show that despite team protestations of perpetual poverty, the Pittsburgh Pirates have made a fortune while not fielding a winning team in 18 years. Pirates owner Robert Nutting pulled $30 million in profit in 2007 and 2008 despite fielding losing teams with a 23 million dollar payroll, the lowest in the game. As long as he receives revenue from big market clubs via the luxury tax and extorts millions in revenue from their publicly funded home at PNC Park, he could care less. If the old Willie Stargell Pirates of 1979 won a World Series to the tune of “We Are Family”, the Nutting Pirates dance to the beat of “Gangsta Gangsta.”

But the worst story to emerge from the documents is that of the Florida Marlins, owned by multimillionaire art dealer Jeffrey Loria. The Marlins have secured funding for a new 400 million dollar publicly funded stadium, all while lying about their bottom line to max out their corporate welfare potential. As Yahoo sportswriter Jeff Passan wrote,

The team fought to conceal the $48.9 million in profits over the last two years because the revelation would have prompted county commissioners to insist the team provide more funding. Loria, an art dealer with a net worth of hundreds of millions, wouldn’t stand for that. He wanted as much public funding as possible — money that could’ve gone toward education or to save some of the 1,200 jobs the county is cutting this year.

As politicians begin to rev up their shock and outrage, it’s worth asking why this is a story at all. As with Afghanistan, where for years independent, unembedded media has been raising critical questions about the US military intervention, it should hardly shock us that public funding of stadiums is a sham and the owners of teams simply lie their way to the bank.

Neil deMause, editor of www.fieldofschemes.org, wrote to me:

The remarkable thing to me about the leaked MLB documents is how much of this we already knew: Forbes has been reporting for years that franchises like the Marlins and Pirates were turning profits despite dismal teams, and the leaked documents show that their estimates were generally right on target. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that if you’re eligible for a cut of league revenue and don’t spend anything on payroll, you’re going to make money – does anyone really think it costs that much to paint in the batter’s box every day?

He’s absolutely correct. The numbers have been there for years but politicians simply took owners at their word that Forbes was simply wrong. Politicians now either look incredibly naïve or utterly complicit. They were dupes or participants in what has been a Ponzi scheme of lies and organized theft. Passan was absolutely correct in writing, “The swindlers who run the Florida Marlins got exposed Monday. They are as bad as anyone on Wall Street, scheming, misleading and ultimately sticking taxpayers with a multibillion-dollar tab. Corporate fraud is alive and well in Major League Baseball.”

The question now is about the appropriate response – and this question far transcends the world of sports. It’s about approaching our political leaders with the now indisputable truth: stadium construction deals are corporate welfare hotels that don’t return on their promised investment and most city officials are either too cowardly or too compromised to stop them. The idea that we are giving tax money to owners who are then under no obligation to tell the truth to the public about the general state of their finances is appalling.

Let’s make it clear: to the billionaire owners of baseball teams: pay for your own damn stadiums. If you do take public money from us, then we the people should have a public ownership stake in the teams. Major League Baseball’s owners have been playing dirty for far too long. It’s time to send them to the showers and for fans to get off the bench.

As Mackenzie Baris of DC Jobs with Justice commented to me,  “Turning the tide on hateful laws starts with sending a clear message from the rest of the country to Arizona that what’s happening there isn’t acceptable, and there can’t be business as usual anymore. Moving the All-Star Game would be a powerful statement, not to mention a real economic sanction.  Actions like the one planned for Sunday not only put pressure on MLB, but also help to wake people up to what’s going on.”

Rosa Lozano, the youth organizer for CASA de Maryland, shared this sentiment. “Baseball is an iconic American sport,” she said. “What better way to acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of this country than to have such an institution like Major League Baseball move their All-Star game out of Arizona and send a clear message that there are real concrete consequences for promoting hate?”

This Sunday’s game, however, contains several twists from the typical ballpark demos that have been shadowing the D-backs all summer. First of all, Nationals rookie phenom, Stephen Strasburg, is set to pitch. That means a game between two dreadful teams which would have normally drawn more crickets than people, will now be packed and garner national media attention. And secondly, there will be an opposing rally in front of the park by the utterly unhinged right wing anti-immigrant organization, Help Save Maryland.

As Help Save Maryland’s call to action reads: 

Radical, anti-American groups like La Raza and CASA of Maryland continue to threaten Arizona citizens and Major League Baseball. Using their illegal alien clientele as protesters, they are demanding the 2011 Baseball All-Star Game be moved out of Phoenix, Arizona as part of their state-wide boycott. It’s time for the citizens of Maryland and the Greater Washington Area to fight back…Let’s use this game to show our support for Arizona’s crackdown on illegal aliens and increased border security!

After their rally, Help Save Maryland will be sitting in their own section of the stadium where they will root on Nationals players like Ivan Rodriguez and Alberto Gonzalez. Clearly the one thing they haven’t “saved Maryland” from is irony.

Help Save Maryland does, however, hold one singular distinction: they are the only organization in the state named by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “nativist/extremist group.”

Here is how the SPLC defines nativist/extremist groups:

Organizations identified by the Intelligence Report as nativist extremist are groups that go after people, not policy… Some conduct armed “citizen border patrols.” Others confront Latino immigrants congregated at day labor centers or informal roadside pick-up sites. Some conduct surveillance of apartment houses and private homes. Almost all of them disseminate vicious, immigrant-bashing propaganda.

Now they’re taking this political program to the park. This in and of itself demands a response. While the debate on immigration in the halls of Congress and the Sunday morning talk shows has veered toward frightening territory, the ballpark has been the one place this summer where immigrant rights allies have been able to congregate and get their message out with terrific publicity and purpose. This Sunday is about preventing Help Save Maryland from claiming that space and turning Arizona Diamondbacks games into celebrations of the “nativist-extremist” brand of politics so in vogue from Wasilla to Washington.

It’s particularly galling that they are using the platform of baseball, that historic symbol of community and cohesion, as a staging ground for their hate. In the name of Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente, and every player who has spoken out this year against Arizona’s laws, people should show up Sunday and say to the hate-mongers and their foot soldiers that enough is enough.

Immigrants aren’t the problem. Immigrants didn’t bankrupt the economy or drag us into mulitple wars or jail two million of our citizens. What ails this country, tragically, is home grown.

In the twenty-first century, the heads of far too many sports fans have been bashed by far too many hammers. Our collective migraine comes from the idea that we are loving something that just doesn’t love us back. If sports were once like a playful puppy you would wrestle on the floor, it’s now like a housecat demanding to be stroked and giving nothing in return.

Sports fans are fed up.

It’s the extra commercials tacked on to a broadcast, as companies attempt to use the games to brand our subconscious. It’s when you decide to finally take the trip to the park, look up the ticket prices, and decide immediately to do something –anything — else with your time.

And so you go a year without making it to the ballpark and fail to even notice. Or you don’t feel the same urgency to watch every minute of every game for fear you might miss something magical.

If a car’s brakes failed, you wouldn’t blame the driver. You’d blame the manufacturer. And when we feel bludgeoned by the state of professional sports, it’s the owners who need to answer for this sorry state of affairs.

Players play.

Fans watch.

Owners are uniquely charged with being the stewards of the game. It’s a task that they have failed to perform in spectacular fashion.

In fact, with barely a sliver of scrutiny, they are wrecking the world of sports. The old model of the paternalistic owner caring for a community has become as outdated as the typewriter. Because of publicly funded stadium construction, luxury box licenses, sweetheart cable deals, globalized merchandising plans, and other “revenue streams,” the need for owners to cater to a local working and middle class fan base has shrunk dramatically.

Fans have become scenery for television broadcasts.

Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News once wrote, “You are owed nothing in sports, no matter how much you care. You are owed nothing, no matter how long you’ve rooted or how much you’ve paid to do it.”

I couldn’t disagree more. We are owed plenty by the world of sports.

We are owed loyalty.

We are owed accessibility.

We are owed a return on our massive civic investment.

And more than anything, we are owed respect.

We aren’t owed this respect because it’s the kind or human thing to do.

We aren’t owed any love because we cheered ourselves hoarse and passed the precious rooting tradition down to our children.

We are owed it because the teams are ours as much as they are theirs. Literally.

By calling for and receiving public funds, owners have sacrificed their moral, if not financial, claim of ownership. Cities and city councils that allow their funds to be used by private franchises should, in turn, have some say in the relationship between team and fan.

That means lower ticket prices.

That means an end to the $8 beer.

As sports fans, we have to accept that we do, in fact, deserve better, but as the great abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”

If we aren’t making demands, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

And finally, after 80 years, the World Cup has come to Africa. We should take a moment to celebrate that this most global of sports has finally made its way to the African continent, nesting in the bucolic country of South Africa. And yet as we celebrate the Cup’s long awaited arrival in the cradle of civilization, there are realities on the ground that would be insane to ignore. To paraphrase an old African saying, “When the elephants party, the grass will suffer.”

In the hands of FIFA and the ruling African National Congress, the World Cup has been a neoliberal Trojan Horse, enacting a series of policies that the citizens of this proud nation would never have accepted if not wrapped in the honor of hosting the cup. This includes $9.5 billion in state deficit spending ($4.3 billion in direct subsidies and another $5.2 billion in luxury transport infrastructure). This works out to about $200 per citizen.    

As the Anti-Privatization Forum of South Africa has written:

Our government has managed, in a fairly short period of time, to deliver ‘world class’ facilities and infrastructure that the majority of South Africans will never benefit from or be able to enjoy. The APF feels that those who have been so denied, need to show all South Africans as well as the rest of the world who will be tuning into the World Cup, that all is not well in this country, that a month long sporting event cannot and will not be the panacea for our problems. This World Cup is not for the poor – it is the soccer elites of FIFA, the elites of domestic and international corporate capital and the political elites who are making billions and who will be benefiting at the expense of the poor.

In South Africa, the ANC government has a word for those who would dare raise these concerns. They call it “Afropessimism.” If you dissent from being an uncritical World Cup booster, you are only feeding the idea that Africa is not up to the task of hosting such an event. Danny Jordaan the portentously titled Chief Executive Officer of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa lamented to Reuters, “For the first time in history, Africa really will be the centre of the world’s attention — for all the right reasons — and we are looking forward to showing our continent in its most positive light.”      

To ensure that the “positive light” is the only light on the proceedings, the government has suspended the right to protest for a series of planned demonstrations. When the APF marches to present their concerns, they will be risking arrest or even state violence. Against expectations, they have been granted the right to march, but only if they stay at least 1.5 km from FIFA headquarters in Soccer City. If they stray a step closer, it’s known that the results could be brutal     

You could choke on the irony.  The right to protest was one of the major victories after the overthrow of apartheid. The idea that these rights are now being suspended in the name of “showing South Africa… in a positive light” is reality writ by Orwell.

Yet state efforts to squelch dissent have been met with resistance. Last month, there was a three-week transport strike that won serious wage increases for workers.  The trade union federation, COSATU, has threatened to break with the ANC and strike during the World Cup if double digit electricity increases aren’t lowered. The National Health and Allied Workers Union have also threatened to strike later this month if they don’t receive pay increases 2% over the rate of  inflation.

In addition, June 16th, is the anniversary of the Soweto uprising, which saw 1,000 school children murdered by the apartheid state in 1976. It is a traditional day of celebration and protest. This could be a conflict waiting to happen, and how terrible it would be if it’s the ANC who wields the clubs this time around.

The anger flows from a sentiment repeated to me time and again when I walked the streets of this remarkable, resilient, country. Racial apartheid is over, but it’s been replaced by a class apartheid that governs people’s lives. Since the fall of the apartheid regime, white income has risen by 24% while black wealth has actually dropped by 1%. But even that doesn’t tell the whole story since there has been the attendant development of a new Black political elite and middle class. Therefore, for the mass of people, economic conditions – unemployment, access to goods and services – has dramatically worsened. This is so utterly obvious even the Wall Street Journal published piece titled, “As World Cup Opens, South Africa’s Poor Complain of Neglect.”

The article quotes Maureen Mnisi,  a spokeswoman for the Landless People’s Movement in Soweto saying, “At least under apartheid, there was employment—people knew where to go for jobs. Officials were accountable.”

Anytime someone has to start a sentence with “At least under apartheid…” that in, and of, itself is a searing indictment of an ANC regime best described as isolated, sclerotic, and utterly alienated from its original mission of a South Africa of shared prosperity. A major party is coming to South Africa. But it’s the ANC that will have to deal with the hangover.

So said a spokesperson for the Israeli Football Association in response to Monday’s news that the Turkish U-19 (under 19) soccer team canceled its match in Israel. Turkey’s team made the move following the Israeli Navy’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla that left at least 10 dead and scores injured. Then on Tuesday, the Swedish Football Association announced that it would formally request European soccer’s governing body to cancel Sweden’s U-21 game in Israel later this week.     

The SFA said that they felt morally compelled to make the move following the flotilla attack and “the harsh responses to those events in Sweden and around the world.” SFA President Lars-Ake Lagrell said, “Like all human beings, we deplore violence and are shocked at what we saw…It’s not pleasant to play in Israel at this juncture.” On Wednesday it appeared that the game would, in fact, go forward as planned, with Lagrell saying, “Since the United Nations has not decided on any sanctions against Israel we are obliged to go ahead with the match under [European football association] rules.”   

This certainly won’t be the last time we hear about countries, teams, or players holding up the flotilla killings as reason to ostracize Israel in the realm of international sport. The question, to pick up the ball from the Israeli Football Association, is whether it should “sadden” us to see politics and sports so brazenly intertwined? Should Israeli sport actually be safe space from how its government conducts itself?

In my mind, the answer is a simple one: hell, no. Israel committed an act of state terror on an aid ship in international waters whose passengers included an 85-year-old holocaust survivor, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and hundreds of activists committed to delivering the most basic kinds of food and medicine to the Gaza Strip. It’s actually dangerous, in such a situation, to just “shut up and play” as if there is nothing to see behind the royal blue curtain.

International sport, to awkwardly paraphrase Carl von Clausewitz, is politics by other means. It’s used explicitly by all nations as a tool to demonstrate diplomatic goodwill. But in the context of such a visceral crime, international diplomacy morphs into little more than international propaganda and sporting Stratego. If a team refuses to play Israel because they don’t want to be party to the public relations objectives of a state engorged with violence, then that is nothing to be “saddened” about.

But this raises another question: if one supports the boycotting of Israeli teams, then where do we draw the line? Would we praise teams refusing to play the United States because of the civilian death tolls in Afghanistan and Iraq? What about rejecting China as an opponent because of their labor practices or treatment of the people of Tibet? Should teams refuse to play any countries directly involved in what they perceive as injustice?

Once again, I will say hell, yes. These particular games that pit country against country – whether in the Olympics, the World Cup or other avenues of international competition – are exercises in what George Orwell famously called “war minus the shooting.” In his essay, titled The Sporting Spirit, Orwell wrote,

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn’t know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles.”

This quote still holds the ring of truth but needs to be updated for the 21st century. Sports are still used at the service of nationalism. But in our globalized world of savage inequalities and dwindling resources,  they are also used to present the poisonous relations between countries as somehow normal and even harmonious. And if it is business as usual between nations on the field of play, then surely everything must be A-OK when our heroes shower off the sweat and the cheering throngs wander home. But things are, as Marcellus Wallace said, “pretty f–king far from ok.”

If a team wants to stand up and say “hell no” to business-as-usual in international sport, we shouldn’t ask why they are doing it. We should ask why more teams don’t.

In addition to written requests to move the game from the Reverend Jesse Jackson and  Congressman Jose Serrano, whose district includes Yankee Stadium, more than 100,000 people have signed a petition asking Selig to make the move/

As Favianna Rodriguez of movethegame.org said to me, “Not only are more than a quarter of the League’s players Latino, but so is a large part of the fan base. Now, in Arizona, these players and fans risk being harassed and even arrested on their way to the ballpark just because of how they look or their accent. We will not stand for laws like SB 1070, which treat Latinos like second-class citizens, and neither should Bud Selig.”

Selig, after weeks of hemming and hawing, came out with his answer last week. When asked if they would move the game, he fumed, “Apparently all the people around and in minority communities think we’re doing OK. That’s the issue, and that’s the answer. I told the clubs today: ‘Be proud of what we’ve done.’ They are. We should. And that’s our answer. We control our own fate, and we’ve done very well.”

It’s not clear what “minority communities” Selig is referring to, but if he believes that statement is going to isolate Major League Baseball from becoming ensnared in the immigration debate, he is being naive.

As Move the Game has documented, fifteen players have spoken out against the bill: Jorge Cantu, Augie Ojeda, Michael Young Frank Francisco. Alexei Ramírez, Adrian Gonzalez. César Izturis, Heath Bell. Rod Barajas, Scott Hairston. Joe Saunders. Bobby Abreu, Yorvit Torrealba, José Guillén, and Kyle McClellan.

Here’s what Cantu told the Miami Herald: “This hits me in the heart. I do not accept it. It’s a shame. It is sad news for my country, but not only Mexicans. Latin people. It’s just a shame for all those people here looking for a better life. They are looking for a better standard of living, and this knocks down their dreams. It is really upsetting.”

Of these players, Gonzalez and White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen have said that they would be boycott the All Star game if played in Phoenix.

The tension on the field is exceeded by what’s happening off the field. The Arizona Diamondbacks have become the traveling road show for this legislation. This isn’t because they have the word “Arizona” in their name. It’s because their owner Ken Kendrick is a serious money man for the Republican Party.

We’ve now seen protests at every road stop of the D-backs since the law was passed: Denver to Chicago to Houston, to Florida to Atlanta. This coming Saturday, on a national day of action against Arizona’s laws, there stands to be the biggest of these protests in San Francisco, where people will be marching on AT&T Park. Diana Macasa, one of the march organizers, said to me, “We’re marching on the Diamondbacks because if Arizona shows us anything, it’s that the attacks—no matter where you live—are escalating, and we want to send a message that this must stop now.

The players on the field and the protesters off know that Major League Baseball, with its utter dependence on both the Latino players and the economic bonanza of the All Star game, is susceptible to pressure.

As McClellan said, “The All-Star game, it’s going to generate a lot of revenue. Look at what it did here for St. Louis. It was a huge promotion for this city and this club, and it’s one of those things where it’s something that would definitely leave a mark on them if we were to pull out of there. It would get a point across.”

This is what Bud Selig is up against. He is going to have to understand that whatever his final decision, there is no untangling sports and politics here. Players and fans will view his final decision as a political choice.

As Phil Aliff, an Iraq war vet and protest organizer, said to me, “We are protesting at the Diamondbacks game in order to send a clear message to Major League Baseball, the state of Arizona, and legislatures across the country that racial profiling and scapegoating is unacceptable. Everywhere the Diamondbacks go, we should demand that Major League Baseball pull the all-star game out of Arizona in order to hit the state where it really hurts… their wallet.”  

In Miami, the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), the South Florida Jobs with Justice, SEIU Florida, UNITE HERE Local 355, the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, the Rabbinical Association of Greater Miami, and South Florida AFL-CIO are all on board. 

The protests matter because they allow people to nationalize an issue that far transcends the state of Arizona. They also shine a light on Diamondbacks CEO, Ken Kendrick, who, while he says through his public relations people that he opposes the bill, continues to support and promote politicians who wear SB 1070 as a badge of honor.

Now we have another reason to isolate, expose, and protest Ken Kendrick, the Diamondbacks, and the state of Arizona. Gov Jan Brewer just signed into law a bill that should curl the toes of anyone with a thread of anti-racist conscience. Thanks to HB 2281, the Tucson school district’s academically successful ethnic studies program has been outlawed. Brewer made this move hours after United Nations Human Rights Commission formally opposed the bill on the basis that any ethnic group has the inherent right to learn their own history.  

The Tucson ethnic studies program, which serves 1,500 primarily Mexican students, is an interdisciplinary curriculum that focuses on contributions made by Mexican Americans, African Americans and Native Americans in literature, history, and science. Destroying the program has long been a pet project of State schools chief, Tom Horne, who, in the words of the Associated Press,  ”believes the Tucson school district’s Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people.”

Well, if students didn’t believe it before, they would be forgiven for believing it now. Ironically, Horne’s crusade was inspired when a Tucson guest speaker, United Farm Workers leader, Dolores Huerta, said in a classroom in 2006 that “Republicans hate Mexicans.” Hard to see how this bill will disavow any students from agreeing with this assessment. Horne is running for state attorney general and he clearly sees wedge politics as a path to promotion.

The bill’s chief promoter in the State Senate is Russell Pearce, who in addition to being the sponsor of SB 1070, has gotten in hot water for hugging Neo-Nazis on camera and forwarding emails from white supremacist websites.  Pearce said on the Senate floor, “History is one thing. Misinformation, hateful speech, sedition is not appropriate with my tax dollars.” No, but ordering police to stop people without just cause and having the state monitor classrooms for “sedition” is, in his twisted mind, appropriate use of public money.

The bill is equally twisted. HB 2281 bill specifically forbids classes that:

“1 – Promote the overthrow of the United States government; 
2 – Promote resentment toward a race or class of people;
3 - Are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group; and,
4 – Advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”

The first two points are dime-store fear-mongering. There is zero evidence that “revolution” was being taught in Tucson public schools and the idea that a child learning about their ethnic heritage “promotes resentment” is another right wing canard. It’s the last two points that expose the real goals of this bill: HB 2281 proponents don’t want a growing Mexican population seeing the benefits — as every ethnic group in the history of the United States has done — of finding a common political interest.

Political bottom feeders like Tom Horne, intellectual lightweights like Jan Brewer, and stone-cold racists like Russell Pearce worship at the altar of ignorance and want the students of Tucson to do the same. But through both SB 1070 and HB 2281, they are actually giving all of us quite the political science lesson. They are teaching the nation that none of this is about immigration, crime, or “enforcing federal law.” It’s really about, as right-wing radio hero, Michael Savage, thunders, “Borders, language, and culture.”

As a friend of mine, who is a prominent sports radio producer (who happens to be white) said to me, ‘If anyone doesn’t think this is about race and the anger towards immigrations isn’t about race, they are living in an alternate universe.  This is about people being afraid that the Mayberry country they were sold is changing and they don’t like it.”

If Ken Kendrick truly believes that SB 1070 is bad law, if he objects to HB 2281, he needs stop funding the very politicians who promote it. Until then, we should protest the D-backs at every opportunity. The times demand nothing less.

With a near military discipline, this had been the message pushed by much of the sports media in conjunction with the Arizona Republican party. The aim has been to head off any notion of boycotting the Arizona Diamondbacks or calling for the 2011 All Star game to be removed from their home at Chase Field in Phoenix. Governor Jan Brewer was given a page on espn.com to say that boycott campaigns aimed at sports are “inappropriate and misguided.” Diamondbacks executive Derrek Hall parroted the governor, calling protesters “misguided” because “the organization doesn’t take political positions.”

Team owner and Republican Party bankroller, Ken Kendrick, was shaken enough to release a statement saying  that he personally “opposes” the bill.

There is one problem with this public relations fusillade: it’s based on a fundamental lie. Ken Kendrick is showing through his actions that he not only supports this bill, he is using his position as Diamondback team owner to do it.

On May 20th, the Nation has learned, Ken Kendrick is holding a private fundraiser inside his owner’s box at Chase Field for SB 1070 supporter State Senator, Jonathan Paton. The fundraiser will be taking place during the D-backs game against the San Francisco Giants. Paton is attempting to make the leap from the state house to the US Congress, and he is depending upon the deep pockets of Kendrick to make it happen.

Leave aside for a moment the ethical and perhaps legal ramifications that Ken Kendrick is using a stadium built with $250 million in public dollars to raise money for his pet candidates. The fact is that while Kendrick publicly distances himself from the bill, he is using the home of the supposedly “apolitical” Diamondbacks organization as a fundraising center for SB 1070 supporting politicians. As Paton says on his campaign website, “We need to secure the border, and we need to secure it now. That’s why I voted for SB 1070, and that’s why I urge the governor to sign it.”

Jim Nintzel reported in the Tucson Weekly, “boasting that he voted for it [SB 1070] before he resigned from the state Senate to [run for congress]…..Paton said that complaints about racial profiling have been overblown.”

Paton has also received full-throated support from the author of SB 1070, State Senator Russell Pearce. In an open letter, Pearce wrote glowingly of Paton,

I have served with Senator Jonathan Paton for the last five years in the Legislature. During that time he has voted for every single anti-illegal immigration bill I have sponsored…He has done this despite pressure from the open borders crowd…He opposes amnesty or any path to citizenship for those illegally in the United States…I am proud to have worked with him and know him to be a solid patriot. I believe he will make a great Congressman for Southern Arizona, a Congressman we can all be proud of.

Pearce himself has been under national scrutiny recently because of his disturbingly casual connections to white supremacist organizations. As Rachel Maddow highlighted on her show, Pearce has been photographed hugging Neo-Nazi leader J.T. Ready. He also received unwanted attention by forwarding online articles written by the Nazi organization, the National Alliance.

Jonathan Paton trumpets the support he receives from Russell Pearce. This is who Jonathan Paton is. This is who Ken Kendrick is using his publicly-funded stadium to support.

Favianna Rodriguez, co-founder of Presente.org, and leader of the All Star Game boycott campaign MoveTheGame.org said to me, “Latinos and their allies across the country are targeting Major League Baseball to show that laws like SB 1070 will have dire economic consequences. Mr. Kendrick’s continued support of the politicians behind SB 1070 will only further inspire that movement.”

There is only one conclusion. The Arizona Diamondbacks should continue to be boycotted and protested until Ken Kendrick stops supporting these politicians and using his publicly funded stadium to do so. The All Star game should be moved, and anyone who says that sports and politics don’t mix, should first aim that cliche in the direction of the Arizona Diamondbacks owner’s box. Keep the protests going. Keep calling to have the All Star game moved. Any other strategy would truly be “misguided.”

Kenny Smith, like any good point guard, set up the others by saying, “I think it’s great that the team understands, the management understands and now the people of Phoenix are all rallying together at the same time.” Barkley, a long time Arizona resident and a man who once said that he was a Republican until “the Republicans lost their damn minds” chimed in saying, “The only people screwing it up are the politicians. The Governor – the interim governor I might add – J.D. Hayworth and John McCain. They’re the ones screwing this thing up. I really take my hat off to Robert Sarver and the Suns for taking a stand.  You know, living in Arizona for a long time, the Hispanic community, they’re like the fabric of the cloth. They’re part of our community and any time you try to do any type of racial profiling or racial discrimination… President Obama you’ve got to do something because these lightweight politicians in Arizona have no idea what they are doing.”

The typically blunt Barkley speaking in such terms is hardly surprising. But it was Chris Webber who upped the ante, interrupting a visibly uncomfortable Ernie Johnson with, “Public Enemy said it a long time ago. ‘By the Time I Get to Arizona.’ I’m not surprised. They didn’t even want there to be a Martin Luther King day when John McCain was in [office.]. So if you follow history you know that this is part of Arizona politics.” It was a remarkable display and it was difficult to not think of the millions of television viewers around the country, in sports bars, restaurants, and house parties, being confronted with this kind of forthright, plainspoken language.

But perhaps even more important than the support Los Suns received from protestors and broadcasters, was their play on the court. Phoenix trailed by nine at the end of the first quarter and Spurs star power forward Tim Duncan was scoring with ease. The crowd was dead and it wasn’t difficult to envision what would be said in the SportsWorld if Phoenix lost: “The political hoopla was a distraction.” “This is why sports and politics don’t mix.” “They should have been focused on the Spurs and not immigration.” And grinning smugly would have been LA Lakers coach Phil Jackson who chided the Suns yesterday saying, “If I heard it right, the American people are really for stronger immigration laws…. I don’t think teams should get involved in the political stuff.”

In other words, everyone who stands with SB 1070 would be feeling a little more joyful this morning. It would have been an echo of the time Muhammad Ali lost his first fight to Joe Frazier and all the columnists and fans who wanted to see the draft dodging Ali punished, chortled gleefully after he was knocked to the canvas. But just when we were all ready to stick a fork in the brick-laying Suns, something remarkable happened. The slick shooting, fast breaking team started to crash the boards, play ugly, and do all the dirty work that wins games. Doughy, undersized three point shooter Jared Dudley started  aggressively snatching offensive rebounds like his soul had been possessed by Barkley himself, energizing the crowd and shocking his team back to life. The result was a 110-102 victory in which the run and gun Suns were held to just eight fast break points. Coach Alvin Gentry said afterward that he had never seen the team play so mentally tough.

Maybe this will be the start of a new trend where teams see the unifying benefits of going out on a political limb and taking a stand. Maybe players across the sports leagues who oppose SB 1070 will be inspired to come together in a common organization and demand Arizona cease the imposition of “Juan Crow” on the Latino population. Maybe the major sports unions, all of whom have voiced opposition to the bill, will release a joint statement saying that they will support any player or team who boycotts the state as long as SB 1070 is on the books. Maybe this is all utterly unrealistic. But it seems a hell of a lot more possible this morning than it did last night. Viva Los Suns.

This battle has also been joined in the world of sports. On one side is Major League Baseball’s Arizona Diamondbacks. Owned by state Republican moneyman, Ken Kendrick, the team has drawn protestors to parks around the country. On the other side, we now have the Phoenix Suns. On Tuesday the news came forth that tomorrow on Cinco de Mayo, the team would be wearing jerseys that say simply Los Suns. Team owner Robert Sarver said, after talking to the team, that this will be an act of sartorial solidarity against the bill. Their opponent, the San Antonio Spurs, have made clear that they support the gesture.

In a statement released by the team, Sarver said:

The frustration with the federal government’s failure to deal with the issue of illegal immigration resulted in passage of a flawed state law. However intended, the result of passing this law is that our basic principles of equal rights and protection under the law are being called into question, and Arizona’s already struggling economy will suffer even further setbacks at a time when the state can ill-afford them.

He followed up the statement by saying to reporters:

I looked around our plane and looked at our players and the diversity in our organization. I thought we need to go on record that we honor our diversity in our team, in the NBA and we need to show support for that. As for the political part of that, that’s my statement. There are times you need to stand up and be heard. I respect people’s views on the other side but I just felt it was appropriate for me to stand up and make a statement.

After Sarver spoke out, the team chimed in against the passage and signing of SB 1070. Two-time MVP point guard Steve Nash, who in 2003 became the first athlete to go on record against the Iraq war said:

I think the law is very misguided. I think it is unfortunately to the detriment to our society and our civil liberties and I think it is very important for us to stand up for things we believe in. I think the law obviously can target opportunities for racial profiling. Things we don’t want to see and don’t need to see in 2010.

All-Star power forward Amare Stoudamire, who has no political reputation, also chimed in saying, “It’s going to be great to wear Los Suns to let the Latin community know we’re behind them 100%.”

After the story broke, I spoke on the phone with NBA Players Association Presdient Billy Hunter about the Suns audacious move.

“It’s phenomenal,” he said. “This makes it clear to me that it’s a new era. It’s a new time. Athletes can tend to be apolitical and isolated from the issues that impact the general public. But now here come the Suns. I would have expected nothing less from Steve Nash who has been out front on a number of issues over the years. I also want to recognize Amare. I know how strident Amare can be and I’m really impressed to see him channel his intensity. It shows a tremendous growth and maturity on his part. And I have to applaud Bob Sarver because he is really taking a risk by putting himself out there. I commend them. I just think it’s super.”

He said that the union would have their own statement out by the end of the week.

This kind of political intervention by a sports team is without precedent and now every athlete and every team has an opening to stand up and be heard. Because when it’s all said and done, this isn’t just a battle for the soul of Arizona. It’s a battle for the soul of the United States. Here come the Suns indeed.

Padres first baseman Adrian Gonzalez who holds dual citizenship in the United States and Mexico said to Chris Jenkins of the San Diego Union-Tribune, “It’s immoral. They’re violating human rights. In a way, it goes against what this country was built on. This is discrimination. Are they going to pass out a picture saying ‘You should look like this and you’re fine, but if you don’t, do people have the right to question you?’ That’s profiling.”

Venezuelan-born San Diego catcher Yorvit Torrealba agreed with his Gonzalez, saying, “This is racist stuff. It’s not fair for a young guy who comes here from South America, and just because he has a strong accent, he has to prove on the spot if he’s illegal or not. I mean, I understand the need for security and the safety to people here, the question of legal and illegal. I get that. But I don’t see this being right. Why do I want to go play in a place where every time I go to a restaurant and they don’t understand what I’m trying to order, they’re going to ask me for ID first? That’s bull. I come from a crazy country.. Now Arizona seems a little bit more crazy.”

Their teammate Scott Hairston said, “I’m half-Mexican I definitely disagree with it, can’t really see anything positive about it, and I just hope it doesn’t lead to a lot of chaos. It just wasn’t necessary to pass a bill like that.

White sox manager Ozzie Guillen, also Venezuelan, said he would boycott the 2011 All Star game “as a Latin American” if it went ahead in Phoenix as planned. He also said, “The immigration [service] has to be careful about how they treat people…..I want to see this country two days without [immigrants] to see how good we’re doing. . . .

But the biggest news is that the union, the Major League Baseball Players Association, is now speaking out. Executive director Michael Weiner issued the below statement:

The recent passage by Arizona of a new immigration law could have a negative impact on hundreds of major league players who are citizens of countries other than the United States. These international players are very much a part of our national pastime and are important members of our Association. Their contributions to our sport have been invaluable, and their exploits have been witnessed, enjoyed and applauded by millions of Americans. All of them, as well as the clubs for whom they play, have gone to great lengths to ensure full compliance with federal immigration law.

The impact of the bill signed into law in Arizona last Friday is not limited to the players on one team. The international players on the [Arizona] Diamondbacks work and, with their families, reside in Arizona from April through September or October. In addition, during the season, hundreds of international players on opposing major league teams travel to Arizona to play the Diamondbacks. And, the spring training homes of half of the 30 major league teams are now in Arizona. All of these players, as well as their families, could be adversely affected, even though their presence in the United States is legal. Each of them must be ready to prove, at any time, his identity and the legality of his being in Arizona to any state or local official with suspicion of his immigration status. This law also may affect players who are US citizens but are suspected by law enforcement of being of foreign descent. The Major League Baseball Players Association opposes this law as written. We hope that the law is repealed or modified promptly. If the current law goes into effect, the MLBPA will consider additional steps necessary to protect the rights and interests of our members.

Anyone who straps on the snark and dismisses either the above statements or the protests outside the park, are oblivious to the way sports have historically been an electric political platform for social justice. The actions of athletes can humanize an issue and reach untold numbers who skip the front page and go directly to sports. There are rare historical moments when protest can shape athletes and athletes can in turn shape the confidence, size, and scope of protest. This could very well be one of those moments.

In the context of our enduring global fever-dream, a tacky ad in which Nike and Tiger conspire to exploit the memory of Earl Woods is hardly that big a deal–particularly since if Earl Woods were alive, he would have supported this exercise in grave robbing 100 percent. But the idea that Tiger and Nike would see the incredible turmoil that has engulfed Tiger’s life as an opportunity to rebrand Tiger and sell us more swoosh-laden crap is simply sickening. Every single member of the golf media and every fan who has felt sympathy for his self-destructive plight should feel like a grade-A sucker. Every person impressed with his professed recommitment to the Buddhist faith and his family should be deeply offended that it was all just a springboard aimed at cashing in. And every golf fan and pro golfer should be furious that he’s shellacked another layer of controversy onto the most prestigious tournament on the tour, the Masters at Augusta.

There is a small part of me delighted that Tiger’s awful ad will further cloud an event whose history of segregation and exclusion would even give pause to our Confederate Governnor of Virginia, “Robert E.” McDonnell.

But any joy at the discomfort of grown men with ten figure bank accounts named Hootie and Billy is outpaced by the sheer cultural rock bottom that this ad represents, not to mention what it says about Woods himself.

I really believed that in the wake of his Odyssey of scandal and humiliation, there would be a showdown inside Tiger’s soul between the brand and the man. I couldn’t have been more wrong. There is no man, only brand. If he wants to dehumanize himself on his own time then more power to him. But this ad dehumanizes all of us. One thing however is abundantly clear: If Tiger loses this weekend, Nike loses as well. Neither deserve to make the cut, on the course or otherwise. Tiger the brand has now wholly consumed Tiger the man.

Those are not the words of a Scottsboro Boy or Civil Rights icon John Lewis. It’s not culled from a historical text by Howard Zinn or a novel by Alice Walker. It’s a memory from the mind of golfing great/tabloid target, Tiger Woods. First recounted in a 1997 interview with Barbara Walters and later recorded for posterity in Charles Barkley’s book Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man, it’s a story the privacy-obsessed Woods has actually shared sparingly.

It’s also a story that last week was called a flat out lie. Tiger’s kindergarten teacher at the time, Maureen Decker, held a press conference on Friday and said, “I am asking Tiger for a private and public apology to put my mind at ease and set the record straight.” This isn’t the first time Decker has made this charge. In 2004, with zero fanfare, she told writer Howard Sunes of the incident, saying, “It’s untrue. Absolutely untrue. None of it ever happened.”

But now, as “getting Tiger” has become a speculative growth industry, Decker finds herself in demand. On Friday, she was flanked by superstar attorney Gloria Allred in front of an army of cameras. (Allred, as official counsel of Get Tiger, Inc., also represents Tiger’s mistress Joslyn James.) As Allred scowled on the dais, the 69-year-old Decker repeated something other writers have charged: that Tiger’s father Earl made the story up to burnish his son’s history as a young man who had suffered on his road to greatness.

As Tiger Woods faces the Augusta National press corps on Monday, he actually has a responsibility to respond to Ms. Decker. Forget the sexting and the strippers. Tiger should be indignant at the mere thought that he would lie about something so searing, so inhuman, and so utterly tragic.

He should speak out on behalf of any child forced to suffer a hate crime only to be ignored when they sought help. We live in a country where children are driven by humiliation and violence to commit suicide before their tenth birthday. Often they their complaints are ignored until it’s too late. Here is an opportunity for Tiger to open up about his private past for a higher purpose. It also has political implications: the Fox News Right loves nothing more than calling victims of racism liars.

Most of us could care less about Tiger’s mistresses and his trainwreck of a personal life. That affects no one except himself, his family, and the various parasites connected to his billion-dollar brand. But Ms. Decker’s accusation actually has a ripple effect that touches far too many lives. If Tiger was the victim of a hate crime, he needs to bravely own the experience and tell the world that Maureen Decker is the worst kind of liar: a teacher who didn’t protect a child and is now using the fog of the sex scandal to seek public redemption.

But if there is a shred of legitimacy to Maureen Decker’s accusation, then Tiger has an absolute duty to explain himself. The implications would both damn the legacy of Earl Woods and further complicate our understanding of Tiger’s decidedly unusual childhood.

I personally cannot believe that the Woods family would ever lie about being a victim of racist violence. I don’t believe it because the entire marketing strategy behind Tiger, and masterminded by his father, was to make him an avatar of post-racial “Cablinasian” commercial nirvana. Earl once said that his goal for Tiger was to be, “the bridge between the East and the West.” The aim of this post-racial strategy was for Tiger to be able to play in restrictive country club venues without having to publicly confront the reality of racism in the golf world and complicate his commercial appeal. Being a hate crime victim doesn’t fit this utopian script. Unless Earl Woods was a sociopath, Tiger must be telling the truth.

In the name of his father and in the name of countless children, Tiger has the opportunity on Monday to set the record straight. Unlike everything else in Tiger’s tale, this is a story that actually matters.

Over the course of decades, Fatima Meer confronted apartheid with storied bravery: holding vigils outside brutal political prisons, organizing marches of Indian and African women in defiance of protest bans; surviving assassination efforts after attempting to rally alongside Steven Biko. The fact that she did this as an Indian Moslem woman was, in South Africa, both unprecedented and highly influential. But unlike so many others, her legacy of resistance didn’t screech to a halt following apartheid’s fall. Despite remaining a member of Mandela’s African National Congress, she continued to fight for racial and economic justice in the new South Africa even when it meant harshly critiquing her dear friend Nelson. She stood steadfastly with the social movements saying, “If democracy has been clearly and resoundingly implemented then the people should be able to stand up for their rights and not allow themselves to be trampled by officials or politicians.”

Given her stature, it’s not surprising that the African National Congress rushed to claim her legacy, giving Fatima Meer a public, state funeral, which I attended. Winnie Mandela herself was present and spoke about their decades of friendship. (Dennis Brutus, suffice it to say, did not receive a state funeral. As his friend Patrick Bond said to me, “If Dennis had a state funeral he would have gotten up and left.”) The ANC’s embrace of Fatima in death raised more than a few eyebrows at the service. Many remarked how bizarre it was seeing the very politicians she lambasted, singing her praises and the very police she confronted, carrying her casket. Fatima’s ally, Ashwin Desai, said archly, “I love Monty Python movies and therefore I had no problem with the service. Because that’s what it was: Monty Python.” Another friend whispered to me, “The last time Fatima was near so many police, there was tear gas.”

No one from the social movements that Fatima nurtured was given time to speak. Trevor Ngwane from the Anti-Privatization Forum said to me afterward, “We appreciate the state funeral but she was against the state. She was against state policies. She was against state privatizations. Fatima fought in the streets, in the boardrooms, in the newspapers. So it’s a bit rich of the ANC to claim her. Yes she was with them for many years but she was with us as well.”

There will be more grassroots remembrances of Fatima Meer in the weeks to come. And yet the most powerful potential tribute may be less than 90 days away. Fatima told friends that she was frustrated and furious with the financing of the 2010 World Cup to be held across South Africa. One political colleague of Fatima, Dr. Lubna Nadvi said to me after the funeral, “There is no question: the best tribute to Fatima would be the largest possible march on the World Cup.” Given the state attacks on street traders, township dwellers, and students in advance of the tournament, there could be nothing more fitting. Given the fact that the ANC has championed the World Cup, having the memory of Fatima Meer on the other side of the barricades would be a just reclamation of her political identity. That’s where her dear friend Dennis Brutus would be. That’s where she would be. And that would be the ultimate commemoration of their towering legacies.

The present situation in South Africa could be called “Invictus in reverse.” For those who haven’t had the pleasure, the film Invictus is about the way Nelson Mandela used sport, particularly the near all-white sport of rugby to unite the country after the fall of apartheid. The coming World Cup has in contrast, provoked the camouflage of every conflict to present the image of a united nation to the world. As Danny Jordaan, the World Cup’s lead South African organizer said, “People will see we are African. We are world-class.” Note that the concern is about what the world sees not what South Africans see. What South Africans see, as one young man told me, is, “Football … looting our country.” The contrasts are becoming conflicts because the government at the behest of FIFA is determined to put on a good show, no matter the social cost.

There are the dispossessions as thousands have been forced from their homes into makeshift shantytowns, to both make way for stadiums and make sure that tourists don’t have to see any depressing scenes of poverty. The United Nations even issued a complaint on behalf of the 20,000 people removed from the Joe Slovo settlement in Cape Town, called an “eyesore” by World Cup organizers.

There is the crackdown on people who make their living selling goods by the stadiums. Regina Twala who has been vending outside soccer matches for almost 40 years, has been told that she and others must be at least one kilometer from the stadiums at all times. She said to the Sunday Independent, “They say they do not want us here. They do not want us near the stadium and we have to close the whole place.” In addition, FIFA has pushed the South African government to announce that they would arrest any vendors that sell products emblazoned with the words “World Cup” or even the date “2010.” Samson, a trader in Durban, said to me, “This is the way we have always done business by the stadium. Who makes the laws now: FIFA?”

Samson was only referencing the threats toward vendors, but he could have been speaking about the series of laws South Africa has passed to prepare for the tournament. Declaring the World Cup a “protected event”, the government, in line with FIFA requirements, has passed by-laws that “spell out where people may drive and park their cars, where they may and may not trade or advertise, and where they may walk their dogs.” They’ve made clear that beggars or even those found of using foul language (assumedly off the field of play) could be subject to arrest.

Then there are the assassinations. In a story that has garnered international news but little buzz in the United States, two people on a list of 20, have been assassinated for “whistle-blowing” on suspected corruption in the construction of the $150 million Mbombela Stadium. The Sunday World newspaper attained the list, which included two journalists and numerous political leaders. There are accusations swirling that the list is linked to the ruling African National Congress, which the ANC has denied in bizarre terms, “The ANC…wants to reiterate its condemnation of any murder of any person no matter what the motive may be,” said ANC spokesperson Paul Mbenyane. It’s never a good sign when you have to make clear that you are anti-murder.

All of these steps — displacements, crackdowns on informal trade, even accusations of state-sponsored assassinations — have an echo for people from the days of apartheid. It’s provoked a fierce, and wholly predictable resistance. In a normal month, South Africa has more protests per capita than any nation on earth. But when you factor in the World Cup crackdown, a simmering nation can explode. Over 70,000 workers have taken part in strikes connected to World Cup projects since the preparations have begun, with 26 strikes since 2007. On March 4th, more than 250 people, in a press conference featuring representatives from four provinces, threatened to protest the opening game of the Cup unless their various demands were met. These protests should not be taken lightly, A woman named Lebo said to me, “We have learned in South Africa that unless we burn tires, unless we fight police, unless we are willing to return violence on violence, we will never be heard,” Patrick Bond from the Center Civil Society in Durban said to me that protests should be expected: “Anytime you have three billion people watching, that’s called leverage.” Indeed. There is a scene in Invictus where Freeman’s Mandela says, “I thank whatever gods may be for my unconquerable soul. I am the master of my fate.” The people of South Africa still consider themselves unconquerable: whether they face apartheid, FIFA, or their current government. But FIFA insists with equal insistence that the World Cup will brook no dissent. In 90 days, we’ll find out who masters the fate of this beloved country.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

– Frederick Douglass

On Thursday, I was proud to take part in a student walkout at the University of Maryland in defense of public education. It was just one link in a National Day of Action that saw protests in more than 32 states across the country. I am not a student, and haven’t been since those innocent days when Monica Lewinsky mattered, but I was asked to come speak at a post walkout teach-in about the way sports is used to attack public education. It might sound like a bizarre topic, but it’s the world that students see every day.

At the University of Maryland, as tuition has been hiked and classes cut, football coach Ralph Friedgen makes a base salary of 1.75 million bucks, which would be outrageous even if the team weren’t two-steps past terrible. Friedgen also gets perks like a $50,000 bonus if none of his players are arrested during the course of the season.

Ground zero of the student protest movement is the University of California at Berkeley. Over at Berkeley, students are facing 32% tuition hikes, while the school pays football coach Jeff Tedford 2.8 million dollars a year and is finishing more than 400 million in renovations on the football stadium. This is what students see: boosters and alumni come first, while they’ve been instructed to cheer their teams, pay their loans, and mind their business.

The counterargument is that college athletic departments fund themselves and actually put money back into a school’s general fund. This is simply not true. The October Knight Commission report of college presidents stated that the 25 top football schools had revenues on average of $3.9 million in 2008. The other 94 ran deficits averaging $9.9 million. When athletic departments run deficits, it’s not like the football coach takes a pay cut. In other words, if the team is doing well, the entire school benefits. If the football team suffers, the entire school suffers. This, to put it mildly, is financial lunacy. A school would statistically be better off if it took its endowment to Vegas and just bet it all on black.

If state colleges are hurting, your typical urban public school is in a world of pain with budgets slashed to the bone. Politicians act like these are problems beyond their control like the weather. (“50% chance of sun and a 40% chance of losing music programs.”)

In truth, they are the result of a comprehensive attack on public education that has seen the system starved. One way this has been implemented is through stadium construction, the grand substitute for anything resembling an urban policy in this country. Over the last generation, we’ve seen 30 billion in public funds spent on stadiums. They were presented as photogenic solutions to deindustrialization, declining tax bases, and suburban flight. The results are now in and they don’t look good for the home teams. University of Maryland sports economists Dennis Coates and University of Alberta Brad R. Humphreys studied stadium funding over 30 years and failed to find one solitary example of a sports franchise lifting or even stabilizing a local economy. They concluded the opposite: “a reduction in real per capita income over the entire metropolitan area…. Our conclusion, and that of nearly all academic economists studying this issue, is that professional sports generally have little, if any, positive effect on a city’s economy.” These projects achieve so little because the jobs created are low wage, service sector, seasonal employment. Instead of being solutions of urban decay, the stadiums have been tools of organized theft: sporting shock doctrines for our ailing cities.

With crumbling schools, higher tuitions, and an Education Secretary in Arne Duncan who seems more obsessed with providing extra money for schools that break their teachers unions, it’s no wonder that the anger is starting to boil over. It can also bubble up in unpredictable ways. On Wednesday night, after the University of Maryland men’s basketball team beat hated arch-rival Duke, students were arrested after pouring into the streets surrounding the campus. In years past, these sporting riots have been testosterone run amok, frat parties of burning mattresses and excessive inebriation. This year it was different, with police needing to use pepper spray and horses to quell the 1,500 students who filled Route 1. In response, students chanted, “Defense! Defense!” At the Thursday teach in, I said to the students that I didn’t think there was anything particularly political or interesting about a college sports riot. One person shot his hand up and said, “It wasn’t a riot until the cops showed up.” Everyone proceeded to applaud. I was surprised at first that these politically minded students would be defending a post-game melee, but no longer. The anger is real and it isn’t going anywhere. While schools are paying football coaches millions and revamping stadiums, students are choosing between dropping out or living with decades of debt. One thing is certain: it aint a game.