Sports world speaks out

The passage of the extremely racist anti-immigrant bill in Arizona has evoked anger and outrage in the streets throughout the U.S. and the world. A national and international boycott of Arizona tourism will gain steam as long as Senate Bill 1070 is not repealed before it goes into effect some time in early August.

Protest against Arizona Diamondbacks team in Chicago, April 29.

This mass anger is impacting upon professional sports. There have been growing protests at stadiums where the Major League Baseball team Arizona Diamondbacks play. The team’s owners financially backed Republican legislators who supported and pushed through the bill.

A number of baseball players whose origins are Latin American countries have also publicly condemned the racist law. They have been joined by the MLB Players Association. The union is threatening to boycott the 2011 All-Star game in Phoenix if the law is not overturned.

Anger over the Arizona law has also spilled over into the professional basketball arena. On April 28, in a segment of “Ask Charles” during TNT’s popular “Inside the NBA” show, Mexican-American comedian George Lopez made a surprise visit on the set to ask National Basketball Association Hall of Famer and analyst, Charles Barkley, a question.

The question that Lopez asked Barkley, who is African-American and a former Phoenix Suns player, was if he had learned to speak Spanish with the program Lopez had sent to him. When Barkley answered that he had not, Lopez responded kiddingly that Barkley had better not learn too much Spanish if he planned to go to Arizona.

Barkley then spontaneously answered that he and Lopez were going to Arizona together to show how much they didn’t appreciate the anti-immigrant bill. Then Barkley denounced the archracist Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio, and Gov. Jan Brewer.