AFP, Washington :
Donald Trump’s feud with black athletes in the NBA and NFL has drawn attention to the racial fault lines which divide sport in the United States, analysts say.
Trump triggered a firestorm of controversy last week after taking aim at American football players who knelt during the national anthem to draw attention to racial injustice. He later revoked a White House invitation to the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.
The US president’s tirade against NFL protesters culminated in an unprecedented show of defiance on Sunday when a large number of mostly black players dropped to one knee during the national anthem.
Other players stood with arms interlocked while “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played in stadiums across the league.
The playing of the national anthem is customary before sporting events in the United States.
Trump has sought to reframe the meaning of the anthem protests as an unpatriotic gesture which shows disrespect towards the United States and its flag.
“Sports are interlaced with the issue of race,” Jay Coakley, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, who described sport in America as “racially segregated.”
“We have created a system of sports in the US that reflects our society,” Coakley said. “Eighty percent of the different US sport teams in the last Olympics were either all-black or exclusively white. Sports where fans are the more mixed are the NBA and NFL.”
Donald Trump’s feud with black athletes in the NBA and NFL has drawn attention to the racial fault lines which divide sport in the United States, analysts say.
Trump triggered a firestorm of controversy last week after taking aim at American football players who knelt during the national anthem to draw attention to racial injustice. He later revoked a White House invitation to the NBA champion Golden State Warriors.
The US president’s tirade against NFL protesters culminated in an unprecedented show of defiance on Sunday when a large number of mostly black players dropped to one knee during the national anthem.
Other players stood with arms interlocked while “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played in stadiums across the league.
The playing of the national anthem is customary before sporting events in the United States.
Trump has sought to reframe the meaning of the anthem protests as an unpatriotic gesture which shows disrespect towards the United States and its flag.
“Sports are interlaced with the issue of race,” Jay Coakley, a professor of sociology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, who described sport in America as “racially segregated.”
“We have created a system of sports in the US that reflects our society,” Coakley said. “Eighty percent of the different US sport teams in the last Olympics were either all-black or exclusively white. Sports where fans are the more mixed are the NBA and NFL.”
