Veteran sports journalist and author Bob Lipsyte has spent his career writing about sports and race. Lipsyte, 82, co-authored comedian and social activist Dick Gregory’s 1964 autobiography, “Nigger,” as well as “Free to Be Muhammad Ali” in 1978 on the boxing icon.
While complimentary of Emmanuel Acho’s series, “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man,” Lipsyte was frustrated that the fight for equality and social justice still plagues America.
“I watched the first two videos, and … it was f---ing heartbreaking,” explained Lipsyte, who also served as ombudsman for ESPN.
“I thought what he did was brilliant and wonderfully conceived, and he really comes across in so many ways. I want him to be talking to my grandchildren — that’s the age group I want him talking to.”
Actor Matthew McConaughey joined Acho for Episode 2.Courtesy of Emmanuel Acho
But sociologist and civil rights activist Harry Edwards — who has spent the better part of six decades focused on the experiences of Black athletes — adds that Acho’s mission falls short.
“Bravo for the brother — I understand what he’s trying to do,” Edwards, 77, explained. “But this thing about, ‘We need to have honest and open conversations about race and racism between Blacks and whites’? That went out when they murdered Dr. King. We now have to begin to look at a focus on the problem because we’ve been organizing and mobilizing around the pain, going all the way back to the Civil War.”
Continued Edwards, who led the Olympic Project for Human Rights that called for the U.S. team’s boycott of the 1968 Summer Olympics to draw attention to racial inequity facing Black athletes: “We have to now recognize that the discussion that needs to take place is not between Blacks and whites over racial issues; the discussion needs to be among whites.”
Acho acknowledged that there are a multitude of ways to approach “the Black fight.”
“The only way we will ever accomplish anything,” he said, “is if we take heed to the words of those who have been in this fight for far too long. This is what I was told by so many of my different teammates and friends: Some people will demonstrate on the front lines, and some people will march. Others will raise a fist [or] take a knee.”
“Historically, we’ve seen John Carlos, Muhammad Ali and others all trying to fight oppression in their own way. And now you see what my approach is.”
