“This is a book that should be
read by all”

Duncan R. Jamieson
Ashland University

The outcome is overdetermined.
White makes right.
Right makes might.
Might kills.
Black bodies.

Grant Farred

Following a fascinating Prologue in which he explains first that the title may be hyperbole, Grant Farred offers his rationale for the book as he outlines the racial problem in American society, connecting it to other issues which exacerbate it.  Only a Black Athlete Can Save Us Now is both a jeremiad against capitalism and racism, forever laid bare by Covid 19, as well as a love letter to his son, Ezra. The book is built around the 2020 NBA Bubble in Orlando, Florida which allowed the championship games to be played without fear of exposure to COVID 19; in reality this is just the impetus to examine racism and more specifically police violence as well as the abuses of politics and capitalism against the disadvantaged and impoverished.

A South African, Farred earned a B. A. from the University of the Western Cape in 1987 followed by an Honours B. A. the next year. He came to the United States and earned a M. A. from Columbia University in 1990 and then a Ph. D. from Princeton in 1997. Currently he is Professor of Africana Studies and literatures in English at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.

While the Orlando Magic warmed up for their game against the Milwaukee Bucks, the Bucks backup guard, African American George Hill had decided not to play, focusing on the horror of police violence. His silent protest spread to the team and soon other teams and other sports joined the protest. The Women’s National Basketball Association and the National Football League joined the movement. It spread across the Atlantic when the Black Briton “Lewis Hamilton, the reigning—and seven-time—Formula I (FI) champion /…/ is unarguably the non-American who has done the most to champion the cause of black (sic) life in America internationally…” (xvi). Even though a predominantly white sport, most FI drivers have followed his lead and take a knee before the start of each race. From there it spread to England’s Premier League.

Unfortunately, the misplaced beliefs in America’s exceptionalism, white supremacy and white privilege are stumbling blocks for further progress.

Farred is not at all shy about his political leanings, especially following the 2016 election of Donald Trump and his 2020 failed attempt for a second term. Considering the very public rise in racism, Farred wonders “how could any thinking person continue to support Trump? Even countenance voting for him, as more than seventy-four million people did in the 2020 election” (89). To me the answer is obvious: the people in the quote above are NOT thinking and/or they are so enamored of the white privilege that has been baked into our nation’s DNA since 1619. Likely a significant percentage of Trump supporters view the issue as a zero-sum gain; any social or economic advances by Blacks will result in an equal or greater loss by whites. Within our capitalist system perhaps the greatest problem is the distribution of wealth in the United States. According to one metric the median African American family holds only 1.5 percent of the wealth held by median white families. As Farred points out repeatedly, this wealth gap has existed for generations, sometimes shrinking and other times expanding, but the division of wealth, and then by extension both social and political power, is nothing new.

In addition to his political beliefs Farred is adamant on two points. First, unlike Covid, there is no possible way to return to “normal,” which would mean the continuation of police (and other types of) violence against Blacks, such as food insecurity, lack of access to affordable housing, health care and decent education. “The slogan No Return to Normal stands as the refusal to reinstate the brutalities of inequality” (xxiv). Second is “enough.” How many Blacks (or Asians, Latino, Indigenous), hungry, poorly educated, harassed or worse by the police, are enough before the nation’s foundations are shaken to the point that a complete reorganization of society can be achieved? “When will it be no longer necessary for a black (sic) athlete to save us”? (54).

Neither the Bubble nor George Hill initiated Black athletic protest. For that one needs to return to San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick when in August 2016 he “took a knee to bring awareness to police brutality against minority communities in America” (51). Even before Kaepernick it was Muhammad Ali refusing induction into the military and before him John Carlos and Tommy Smith at the 1968 Summer Olympics, and before them Althea Gibson breaking the color line of international tennis, and before her Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier of major league baseball, and before him Jack Johnson defeating Jack Jeffries, the ”great white hope,” and though not mentioned by Farred, before him the Black cycling champion Marshall “Major” Taylor.

To complement Farred, more an impassioned plea than a screed like Farred’s, James Baldwin’s 1963 The Fire Next Timecomprises two essays, the first, “My Dungeon Shook,” a letter to his nephew, similar in content and construction to Only a Black Athlete Can Save Us Now. Though Farred never mentions Baldwin, they both seek the same goal. The poet philosopher of the 1960s civil rights movement urged whites and Blacks to accept each other’s collective humanity.  What makes this sad is Baldwin’s book appeared on the one hundredth anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Sad because sixty years further on, Farred’s work indicates that while in some ways and for only some people have race relations and their quality of life improved.  Sad because those who have gained are more likely the exception than the rule. Unfortunately, the misplaced beliefs in America’s exceptionalism, white supremacy and white privilege are stumbling blocks for further progress. As Farred explains, despite the progress demonstrated by the 2008 and 2012 elections of a Black president, the road ahead to achieve racial equality continues to be long and torturous.

This review barely scratches the surface of all that is contained in Only a Black Athlete Can Save Us Now, a take on a phrase used in Martin Heidegger’s interview for Der Spiegel in 1966. Heidegger’s philosophy of being is interwoven throughout Farred’s analysis of the role Black athletes have played and continue to play in awakening Americans to the inequality in society. Farred also makes repeated references to the perfectionist and communitarian movements in the mid-19^th century. While they did not have any major impact on the broader American society, they did attempt to bring about a new direction for the American social and economic environment.

This is a book that should be read by all, but especially by those who see nothing wrong with the racism that has and continues to rear its ugly head. Without question, any such discussion would be a long, difficult and emotionally charged dialogue, but it is one desperately needed if we are to move toward a new society open to all who believe in and honor the rights of all to have access to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Grant Farred repeatedly asks the question, “when is enough;” for this reviewer fifty-five years after the 1968 Kerner Commission concluded “our nation is moving toward two societies, one black (sic), one white, separate and unequal” is more than enough!

Copyright © Duncan R. Jamieson 2023