The United States of America was born from protest: the country’s roots grew from dissent. Yet, today, social protest is often looked upon with disdain, even as selfish. If any evidence is needed, just look at how Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel for the national anthem effectively cost him his NFL career. While the fallout from Kaepernick’s actions became an international talking point, it wasn’t at all unsurprising. Especially if you were to ask former NBA player Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who, 20 years before Kaepernick, himself began to protest oppression and tyranny during the national anthem – and also suffered the consequences.
“When I first heard [of Kaepernick kneeling], immediately I ended up sending – I didn’t have access to him, so I sent something on social media saying, ‘I’m with you 1,000%’” Abdul-Rauf tells the Guardian. “But my mind was – he’s getting ready to get it, right? Because history shows that any time an athlete, particularly a Black athlete, says something like that, whether it’s Muhammad Ali or Tommie Smith and John Carlos, you’re going to be ridiculed and condemned for it.”
Without even speaking to Kaepernick, Abdul-Rauf knew the retribution would be swift and comprehensive. Indeed, Abdul-Rauf “wasn’t surprised” when Kaepernick soon found himself out of the league and gone from the NFL. Because on 12 March 1996, Abdul-Rauf, himself, was suspended by the NBA for refusing to stand for the national anthem. He was also fined nearly $32,000 for the single game he missed by then-NBA commissioner David Stern. While he had support from some players like Denver Nuggets teammate Jalen Rose and former LSU teammate Shaquille O’Neal, Abdul-Rauf was widely admonished, including by Chicago Bulls coach Phil Jackson. After that season he was traded to Sacramento, where his appearances and minutes diminished and soon, he was practically out of the NBA before the age of 30 (Abdul-Rauf had a 41-game comeback with the expansion Vancouver Grizzlies in 2000-01, playing only 12 minutes per contest).
Today, Abdul-Rauf says he doesn’t “have a relationship with the NBA”, though he does have a relationship with certain players in the league, including those he’s helped train like Victor Oladipo, DJ Augustin, Spencer Dinwiddie and Dennis Smith Jr. Other veterans have remained close friends, like Rose and fellow protestor Craig Hodges, who once urged Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson to boycott an NBA finals game in the wake of the brutal Rodney King beating. Comments like those also cost Hodges his career, as he documented in his recent book, Long Shot. Today, Abdul-Rauf calls Hodges a “brother”.
Fans of the NBA may have recently seen a preview for a documentary about Abdul-Rauf’s life and career, Stand, which is set to air on Showtime in early 2023. And while he doesn’t have a formal relationship with the NBA, Abdul-Rauf does have a relationship, professional and personal, with Kaepernick. In fact, Abdul-Rauf has a new memoir set to release on 18 October through Kaepernick’s publishing company. More than two decades after leaving the NBA, the 53-year-old continues to teach the necessity of protest. The question is, what kind of toll did his work take on the now grey-bearded Abdul-Rauf?
Abdul-Rauf was born Chris Jackson on 9 March 1969, in the small rural town of Gulfport, Mississippi – a dangerous region for people of color, even today. Growing up raised by his mother in a single-parent home, he (along with his two brothers) knew poverty and hunger, as well as dedication to basketball. By nine years old, he’d fallen in love with the sport, specifically the sound and rhythm of the ball bouncing between his hand and the pavement. He loved seeing it swish through the net. He calls his affection for the game “a natural love”. He adored the fluidity and creativity, that he could practice by himself or with others. There was a mysticism to it, in a strange, beautiful way.
He was discovered by a girls’ basketball coach and, as a teen, he became a standout high school player, playing in the McDonald’s All-American Game. He was named Mississippi’s Mr Basketball in 1987 and 1988. For college, he attended LSU, setting scoring records, despite being thought of as undersized. In his sophomore year, before declaring for the NBA, he played with a young O’Neal.
He was selected by the Denver Nuggets with the third overall pick in the 1990 NBA draft. He averaged around 14 points his rookie year, about 10 in his second, but his average ballooned to just under 20 points per game his third season, earning him the 1992-93 NBA Most Improved Player Award. He led the league in free-throw percentage numerous times, and once scored 51 points in a single game against the Utah Jazz.
But it was his development off the court that began to change his life even more dramatically. It began with reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X, which he received in college. He later began regularly visiting bookstores, learning more. By traveling the country, he met people, engaged in deep, philosophical and religious conversations. He read the Qur’an. “I had to catch myself,” he says, “because I found that I was enjoying reading more than I was enjoying going to the gym. Because I was so excited, like, ‘Man, I can’t wait to get back into this book!’ It was a whole other world for me.”
In 1991, he converted to Islam, changing his name officially in 1993. A few years later, Abdul-Rauf found himself embroiled in significant controversy when he began to refuse to stand for the national anthem prior to games. “I’m a Muslim first and a Muslim last,” Abdul-Rauf has said of his actions. “My duty is to my creator, not to nationalistic ideology.”
He did it quietly, before the media turned it into a firestorm. He was suspended in 1996 but he’d begun to think about his protest of American oppression and tyranny many months prior. After his suspension, Abdul-Rauf compromised with the league and stood, but simultaneously said a silent Islamic prayer, closing his eyes and looking downward. This led to radio DJs mocking him (as seen in this 2001 documentary), fans deriding him and, eventually, his house burning down with the KKK suspected of the arson.
Today, Abdul-Rauf wonders how his life might have turned out if he had he been introduced to these ideas, this thoughtful literature, when he was younger. “Listen,” he says, “I lost millions because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. That personality, I don’t think, would have been any different. So, it’s possible that the NBA wouldn’t have been on the horizon for me. … There are things I’m going to speak about whether a person likes it or not. Not with the intention of being ugly. Just with the intention of trying to be as true to myself as I can be. Some people don’t like that, and I get it.”
Even with the benefit of hindsight, Abdul-Rauf says he wouldn’t change how he felt and “wouldn’t change speaking out”. He does wish, though, that he had included some more proactive efforts with his protest, similar to how more recently Kaepernick created initiatives to send food overseas to Africa and his Know Your Rights campaign. Abdul-Rauf is confident, though, that he did the right thing, for him anyway, because he’s still protesting and speaking out today. “That’s just my personality,” he says.
Even though he stood on his principals, Abdul-Rauf admits he felt anger during the swath of negative reaction to his nuanced stance in the mid-90s. He doesn’t like bullies, though he knows their tactics well. He says he was “deliberately” painted in a false, negative light. He was not a bad teammate, he says, though many said he was. To wit, he maintains good relationships with former squad members, like Rose. His character was “assassinated”. It’s ironic. In a nation built on protest, he was harangued for doing the same. As if others took his protest personally.
“When you exercise that freedom,” he says, “and you exercise it in a way where you’re not coming out blazing with guns or bombs, you’re just speaking your conscious, just like politicians do, then you’re heavily condemned to the point where your career’s in jeopardy – so, that angered me. But it also motivated me.”
In a way, Abdul-Rauf lives by the maxim that if you’re not stirring the pot, you’re not doing your job as conscientious person. Living that life, however, pushed him out of the league. The summer after his national anthem protest, he was traded from Denver to the NBA outpost of Sacramento, where his numbers and minutes quickly dwindled. In 1998-99, he played in Turkey, while the following year he was effectively retired. In 2000-01, he made a brief comeback, playing for the Grizzlies for half a season. But Abdul-Rauf says he liked his time abroad, learning how cities, their governments and the game are treated differently in other parts of the globe.
With this varied life experience, Abdul-Rauf remains resolute about his way of thinking, his orientation to the world, capitalism, militarism and more. While he’s always open to being convinced of a different or better way, he says, he trusts his gut, his studies, his own two eyes. “I’m comfortable with my position,” he says. “[But] if you can convince me [otherwise], then I will submit … I’m always leaving room.”
Abdul-Rauf also grew up with Tourette syndrome. It continues today. During NBA games, fans could see his facial tics. It’s something he’s dealt with his entire life, causing him immense anxiety as a child. Today, it remains a “headache”, he says with a chuckle. But, as with all of the trials and tribulations of his life, Abdul-Rauf is able to maintain perspective. “I wouldn’t be the basketball player that I became if it wasn’t for Tourette syndrome,” he says. “I really believe that.”
Dealing with the affliction early on taught him how to deal with hurdles, how to manage a proverbial unfair deal. It taught him empathy, he says. “It develops in you a humility and a desire. … I’ve been given this for a reason.” He says it pushed him where he otherwise wouldn’t have gone. He says he’s far from perfect, though he’s striving to always be better in every respect of his life. And basketball remains in his blood, so to speak, with the former high-scorer sometimes catching himself in places like the grocery store dribbling an imaginary ball through ghost defenders.
For the past few years, Abdul-Rauf has also played in the Big3 league, which brings big-name retired players like Allen Iverson and others to compete in 3x3 games. It’s a way for him to honor the work he’s long put into athletics and a way for people to discover who he is and what he stands for years after leaving the NBA. All the while, he maintains his deep faith. “None of this is possible,” he says, “if God didn’t make it possible.” Despite this, Abdul-Rauf rarely looks for the “limelight”. He encounters fellow pick-up players who realize who he is only after months of playing. “Why didn’t you tell me who you are?” they ask. “I didn’t know I had to,” he replies.
In 2020, LSU retired Abdul-Rauf’s No 35 basketball jersey. This was another way for his name to ring out to those who needed to learn about him. It’s something he’s “grateful” for, even if it was never a formal goal. As with everything Abdul-Rauf participates in, there’s levels of nuance. Like his concept of protesting, which could be thought of by some as extreme. “Radical positions produce radical changes,” he says. “If it wasn’t for those types of things historically that have taken place, we wouldn’t see the changes that we see now. We would still be living in the dark ages.”
Abdul-Rauf stays strong, he says, thanks to his faith. He is not beaten down, not fatalistic. He amazingly calls himself a “people person.” He’s never been one to feel “deflated.” He recognizes the burdens he carries, from Tourette’s to his legacy of protest, but they do not cripple him. He is of the belief that God doesn’t put anything on a person that they can’t ultimately deal with. They’re tests, and his aim is to pass them to honor his creator and leave a legacy that helps his fellow human beings. “Blows that don’t break your back strengthen it,” he says. He says he feels “more free now than I’ve ever felt, regardless of what you throw at me.”
He also knows that changing other people’s habits are hard. Many may never understand his intentions or absorb his ideology. So be it. But that doesn’t mean he’s going to stop trying. To wit, he has his new book set for release as well as the new Showtime documentary. He’s cognizant of mental health issues in the world, physical ones, too. He’s wary of the chemicals in modern medicine and common food sources. He wants to learn, teach. But in so doing, if he makes a mistake, he says he will apologize and work to be better. “I’m always humbled,” he says of the opportunity to do better.
As a Muslim, Abdul-Rauf prays often. For others more than himself, he says. He prays for guidance, health, for his family. For the world to be better, for the eradication (or, more reasonably, the diminishment) of poverty, oppression, unjust systems, racism. At the same time, however, Abdul-Rauf, while recognizing the existence of some positive changes, is not willing to say big, sweeping changes have been made. He’s wary of what’s known as the “narrative of perpetual progress.” Because extreme poverty still exists, as does Imperialism, massive incarceration, racial inequality. War. Even the food we eat seems, to him, all too often to create “a slow genocide.” Yet Abdul-Rauf maintains hope, saying, “The solution is easier than what some are presenting … Things can be much easier than they are right now.”
In the end, when asked how his heart feels today, Abdul-Rauf pauses. Again, he responds with complexity. “You know what?” he says. “That’s a great question. I always try to stay in a place of gratefulness. I think people who are the most grateful are the most at peace. But my heart is disturbed — naturally so. It’s heavy. Because of what I see and hear. I’m not saying good is not happening … [but] I understand that we’re always going to have this dichotomy, right? Of good and evil. Peace and suffering … But I’m happy to be disturbed because if I’m not disturbed then they’ve done a good job of desensitizing me. And I never wanted to be that person.”
