From our Migration Issue: The Left Hook
Besides being a professional boxer, Manny Pacquiao is a Philippine congressman. He used his international fame to win elective office in one of the country’s poorest regions, where he was born and raised, then began to fight for economic justice, health care, and education.
Sports, meet the political left; the left, meet sports. You used to know one another so well. Half a century ago, on April 16, 1947, Jackie Robinson desegregated baseball and never stopped fighting for civil rights. The greatest boxer in history fought racism and the Vietnam War. Tommie Smith and John Carlos celebrated their medals in the 200-meter dash at the 1968 Olympics by giving the black-power salute in a silent protest for human rights.
Sports is one of the great pleasures of civilization, one that naturally inclines enthusiasts to impose grand narratives on simple physical contests. Yet its political consciousness is AWOL during the greatest economic upheaval in almost a century.









