When Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem, critics labeled him unpatriotic. When LeBron James talked politics, a television news host told him to "shut up and dribble."
This time feels different.
The wave of athlete walkouts last week, sparked by the police shooting in Kenosha, Wis., of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, could not be as easily dismissed because it wasn't only one or two voices speaking out.
This time, when the Milwaukee Bucks decided to sit out an NBA playoff game, their protest swept quickly through the league and across all of sport, forcing postponements in baseball, soccer, hockey and tennis.
There was some pushback, most notably from President Trump, who said the NBA had become "like a political organization and that's not a good thing. I don't think that's a good thing for sports or for the country." Such dissent was largely drowned out by support from league officials, team owners and fans.
To say the walkouts represented an evolution, the next step in a history of athlete activism _ like Muhammad Ali refusing to report for military induction or Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists on the Olympic podium _ doesn't quite suffice.
The players this time had the same moral conviction, the same desire for social change, with the addition of something more _ a confluence of circumstances and opportunities their predecessors never had. They just needed the confidence to act.
"When you have a whole team that decides not to play, and other teams follow suit, it's on a much different level," said Todd Boyd, a USC professor of race and pop culture. "This is new territory."
