Whenever a story is written about a player from any sport opting not to play in order to call attention to racial injustices happening on an all-too-frequent basis in the United States, there’s always a line of responses that resemble some form of “I don’t want politics in my sports. Sports is my escape.”
But that’s exactly why not playing is the point.
Escapism allows us to bury our heads in the sand, to not address heavy emotional, racial, social, economic, or other inequity or issues the world around us is going through for a few hours.