Abstract

In June 2020, Black Lives Matter UK (BLM-UK) posted a series of tweets in which they endorsed the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Calling for ‘targeted sanctions in line with international law against Israel’s colonial, apartheid regime,’ one tweet claimed that ‘mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism’. The tweets were seen by some to be antisemitic and resulted in the English Premier League, the BBC and Sky Sports, which had hitherto been supportive of the Black Lives Matter protests, distance themselves from the Black Lives Matter movement. One month later, during the BLM protests in the USA, Black NFL player DeSean Jackson posted material to his Instagram story that was also viewed as antisemitic. This article unpacks, via these two sports-based incidents, the relationship between anti-racism, antisemitism, and anti-Zionism. I discuss how these tensions are not new, but a clear echo of the tensions that existed in the 1960s and 1970s during the height of the Civil Rights Movement; these tensions continue because the foundational issues remain unchanged. These two incidents raise important questions about how sports organisations operate in a world where sport is seen as ‘apolitical’ and strive for ‘neutrality’ but fail to recognise sport is political and that a position of neutrality cannot be successfully achieved. The article assesses the challenges that arise when sports organisations, and their athletes, choose to engage in a certain kind of sport politics.

摘要

2020 年 6 月，Black Lives Matter UK (BLM-UK) 发布了一系列推文，支持亲巴勒斯坦的抵制、撤资和制裁运动。一条推文呼吁“根据国际法对以色列的殖民、种族隔离政权实施有针对性的制裁”，并声称“英国主流政治没有批评犹太复国主义的权利”。一些人认为这些推文是反犹太主义的，并导致英超联赛、英国广播公司和天空体育一直支持“黑人的命也是命”抗议活动，与“黑人的命也是命”运动保持距离。一个月后，在美国的 BLM 抗议期间，黑人 NFL 球员 DeSean Jackson 在他的 Instagram 故事中发布了也被视为反犹太主义的材料。本文通过这两个体育事件展开，反种族主义、反犹太主义和反犹太复国主义之间的关系。我将讨论这些紧张局势并非新事物，而是与 1960 年代和 1970 年代民权运动高峰时期存在的紧张局势的清晰回响；这些紧张局势继续存在，因为基本问题没有改变。这两起事件引发了一个重要问题，即体育组织如何在体育被视为“非政治性”并力求“中立”但未能承认体育的世界中运作是政治性的，中立的立场是不可能成功的。本文评估了体育组织及其运动员选择参与某种体育政治时所面临的挑战。