![Patty Mills in an Australian Indigenous Basketball All Stars jersey. Picture: Travis Hayto Patty Mills in an Australian Indigenous Basketball All Stars jersey. Picture: Travis Hayto](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/tPntrWhUbGLyDWYCTv46rt/5b6e2b41-b5d1-452a-ba02-051a79bd0d3c.JPG/r0_13_3000_1706_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
The COVID-19 pandemic and racism are now indisputably linked, not just in the USA but in Australia. The link includes the greater health and economic impact on black people during the pandemic and now the Black Lives Matter protests following the death of George Floyd.
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This has led to the undeniable call by protesters that "Racism is a pandemic, too". Some may query the appropriation of the health term "pandemic", but the meaning is clear. While the world's resources are now being devoted to finding a vaccine for the coronavirus, equally the scourge of racism demands the search for a solution with equal urgency.
No vaccine has yet been found for the virus and the search for a vaccine for racism will be even more testing because it will be even more difficult to eliminate. It is such a deep social and economic scourge that eliminating it will take even more levers. Those levers will have to be pulled right across the community from ordinary individuals to government leaders, from education experts to community movements, and from various spheres like business, the arts and sport. These levers will have to be pulled with equal force by the black and white communities and other ethnic communities.
Years have been devoted to apologies, cultural sensitivity training, black deaths in custody, closing the gap and reconciliation. These years have passed without satisfactory achievements. Many people have tried to pull different levers, but with only modest success. A referendum on constitutional recognition for Indigenous Australians continues to be delayed beyond the next election, despite former prime minister Tony Abbott receiving his Queens Birthday AC in part for "significant contributions to the Indigenous community".
That is the context for the huge Black Lives Matter protests in the shadow of the health pandemic. Is this going to be the moment of success, or a flash in the pan? No one knows because no one knows which lever best addresses the deep-seated racism pandemic.
[Patty Mills] should be listened to, and his voice will reach new audiences if he finds his rightful place on the front page.
While some political leaders deny that any comparison with the USA is valid, anti-racism protests in the two countries are linked. Symbolic gestures like "taking the knee" are derived from protests by American sportsmen and women, especially in the National Football League. Despite the opposition of American President Donald Trump, the NFL leadership has now admitted they were wrong in not listening to and supporting players like "taking the knee" leader Colin Kaepernick in 2016. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has now denounced widespread racism in the USA.
Do sporting protests matter? Sport is both powerful and impotent. The health pandemic has demonstrated that.
Sport has been an anti-racism leader but has also suffered setbacks - and racism remains endemic in sport. The Adam Goodes controversy demonstrated the highs and the lows, despite his status as a much-loved Sydney Swans star and an Australian of the Year.
Sport can link the front and back pages of the media. It captures the attention of those sports jocks who are more interested in the sports pages than in political demonstrations reported on the front pages. Potentially, this avenue is a promising political lever.
One important link between the two countries is professional Australian sportspeople, especially black players, plying their trade in the big American market. Patty Mills, the star professional basketballer with the San Antonio Spurs in the National Basketball Association, is one such player.
Canberra-born and educated Mills keeps a keen eye on Australian race politics, and in the USA delivered a Welcome to Country at the first NBA Indigenous Heritage Night. Now he uses his platform to raise his voice in support of the relevance of the Black Lives Matter protests in both countries. His voice is contrary to the opinion of the Prime Minister, who warned against importing overseas developments.
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Mills took aim at sceptical Australian political leaders, writing on Twitter that "Leaders of Australia - We can do better." The statement was strong. "Any Australian leader who thinks that the issue of 'black deaths in custody' is a foreign matter is not truly reflecting the concerns and sufferings of black families and communities across our country who have been grieving and seeking justice for decades on this same exact matter. It doesn't need to be 'imported' because this behaviour has already existed in our own backyard for decades."
The individual high-profile protest by Mills complements the mass protests by demonstrators. They share the necessary attributes of voice and persistence. The key, though, is to link the power of the back pages with that of the front pages. They are stronger together than apart. Mills has personal connections with those who exercise influence in our community that many ordinary protesters do not have.
Some in the community will be equally unimpressed by both the mass and individual protests. They will tell Mills to get back on the court and to leave politics to the politicians. The first Indigenous Minister for Indigenous Australians, Ken Wyatt, who has been fruitlessly pursuing the now-delayed Indigenous referendum, knows that that increasing the number of Indigenous politicians, while a worthwhile aim, is not the single answer either.
Finding the solution to the racism pandemic demands a combined effort. There is no magic bullet and part of the solution lies in a complete change deep in our hearts. We all have our part to play, and mass demonstrations are one element.
Among the many voices, black and white, black sporting leaders like Patty Mills have a special role to play in combating racism. He should be listened to, and his voice will reach new audiences if he finds his rightful place on the front page.
- John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University.