Category:Breaking Down Barriers
From Hoopedia
Basketball is a game open to anyone with a ball, a hoop and a dream. But sometimes--too often--society erects barriers to suppress the aspirations of certain groups. These groups may change over time, but overt and covert barriers seem to remain.
In the United States various groups have been excluded from organized basketball over the years. For most of the Twentieth Century African-Americans were not permitted to play alongside or against whites in most places. But other groups found their options constrained too. Name a characteristic, and you can find a place and time where that meant you had a problem; and if you had that problem in your day-to-day life, it followed you onto the basketball court. At one time or another, somewhere in America, that meant being a (pick one: Jew, Catholic, Italian-American, Irish-American, Native American, woman, etc.) made you unworthy to play basketball.
Basketball's history is filled with people who had the courage to stand up to their society's norms and declare them wrong. We must remember and honor those who sacrificed and suffered to open up opportunities to the rest of us.
