Kevin B. Blackistone, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland and former ESPN analyst, is calling for the MLB to pull its All-Star Game from Georgia over the state’s new election integrity law.
In his March 28 Washington Post op-ed, Blackistone insisted that sports have “given so much” to Georgia. However, because the state is trying to prevent the chaos that occurred during its 2020 elections from happening again, the columnist now wants the Peach State to “lose something.”
Blackistone praised Atlanta for having one of the first liberal activist mayors in the south and noted that the NBA gave the city a team a few years after Mayor Ivan Allen, Jr., testified before Congress in favor of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Since 1968, Atlanta has been the focus of much professional sports activity, Blackistone says.
“In recent years, Atlanta got a WNBA team, an MLS club, and two NHL franchises (though it lost both). It has hosted several Super Bowls, Final Fours and those Olympic Games centered on that park off Allen Jr. Boulevard. It would have been the site of the 2020 Final Four, but that event was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic,” he wrote.
But, like most leftists, Blackistone is furious that Georgia is attempting to prevent future election debacles by making changes in its election laws. And like most leftists, Blackistone is mischaracterizing what those changes are.
Blackistone claims that Georgia is now “threatening the protections for Black Georgians,” and so, “until further notice, what sports brought to Atlanta, it should take away.”
The columnist was incensed when Georgia state troopers arrested a black Georgia State Rep. who tried to get herself on TV by screaming and yelling and pounding on the governor’s door to illicitly disrupt the bill-signing ceremony as he signed the election bill into law last week. Blackistone absurdly claimed that the arrest was somehow “mimicking the worst scenes of the old Jim Crow South.” Except, of course, that the woman arrested was a duly elected official and a black woman — something that could not have happened in the Jim Crow South.
Blackistone next pointed out that the leader of the MLB Players Association said that the union is hoping the league will entertain the idea of taking the All-Star Game away from the Braves’ stadium. Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts also said he may refuse to attend the game because of the state’s election law update.
The columnist then praised the WNBA for its combined effort to oust Georgia’s Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler from her seat, and then from ousting her as an owner from the league. “That was using sports as an agent for social change,” Blackistone crowed.
With that in mind, Blackistone thinks that sports should turn against Georgia because he doesn’t like the state’s laws. Pro sports need to punish Georgia. “Sports,” Blackistone concludes, “should remind those elected Georgians — the ones acting to take the state back to an ugly yesteryear — right now,” and take away what it has given the state.
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