Mollie Hemingway: 'Unclear' what the goal is of boycotting your own sport
Mollie Hemingway, The Federalist, reacts to sports teams boycotting games, and an NBA analyst protesting the Jacob Blake shooting
Veteran sportscaster Bob Costas shamed the Republican Convention for failing to "express basic sympathy" to the ongoing civil unrest and the Black Lives Matter movement.
As the NBA began postponing its playoff games Wednesday following the players of the Milwaukee Bucks boycotting their game over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis., Costas began by saying "the situation has reached critical mass."
"People will get on me or us for saying this, but you cannot have a more stark contrast with this happening during the week of the Republican Convention," Costas told CNN anchor Jake Tapper. "And most of those voices there standing not just in sympathy with -- you don't have to agree with everything, you don't have to agree with the rioting, you don't have to agree with every assertion made by every NBA player or every person who is with sympathy with the cause of Black Lives Matter. There are legitimate disagreements, but so many of the voices among at the Republican National Convention stand in stark opposition and cannot even bring themselves to express basic sympathy with the overall issue."
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Costas, 68, who was recently hired as a CNN contributor, continued.
"Not just to say, 'Oh yeah, there are one-offs and they're exceptions,' No. There's a systemic problem here and it resonates all the more because it has such historical antecedents," Costas said. "If you can’t acknowledge that, no matter where you fall generally speaking on the political spectrum, I think history has long since left you behind."
The NBA postponed all of Wednesday's playoff games after the Bucks opted to boycott Game 5 of their series against the Orlando Magic and other teams quickly followed suit in protest the Blake shooting.
"We’re tired of the killings and the injustice," Bucks guard George Hill told The Undefeated.
The game was scheduled for 4 p.m. ET, and at that time the Bucks still weren't on the court, so NBA officials decided to go into their locker room to check on the players.
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According to The Athletic, Bucks players were trying to reach out to the attorney general of Wisconsin, Josh Kaul, and the Magic players said they would not accept a forfeit win after the Bucks left the court.
The Bucks put out a statement about their decision to boycott the game.
"Despite the overwhelming plea for change, there has been no action," the team said. "So, our focus today cannot be on basketball."
Fox News' Daniel Canova contributed to this report.
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