Osaka was willing to work with Roland Garros. Their shocking response has gotten us here. They clearly wanted to send a message to a player who spent the last year refusing to "shut up and play". This is as much a part of the "backlash" as that idiot who threw a bottle at Kyrie.
Sports World was willing to abide "Black Lives Matter" because athletes playing - and risking their health - were keeping the lights on and there were no white fans to boo/shower them with trash. Now the signal from the exec suites to the fans is ringing out: it's backlash time.
They want to roll back the athletic political and economic power that's been flexed in the last year primarily by Black athletes. So you go after Osaka. You go after Kyrie. You go after LeBron. That's all this is. #Backlash
Last point: this treatment of Osaka should be a wake up call. Players, their unions and their allies, need to *wake up* and get a strategy for how to deal with this burgeoning backlash and not surrender the ground gained in the last year. It might even mean walking off the court.
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