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The Graphic Truth: Racial diversity in US professional sports

August 31, 2020
Carlos Santamaria
and
Ari Winkleman

In an unprecedented step to protest racial injustice, several US professional sports teams last week staged a walkout after the shooting of an unarmed Black man by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The boycott was initially led by the Milwaukee Bucks of the National Basketball Association, a league where three-quarters of players are Black. But Bucks were soon followed by other teams and sports — including several from Major League Baseball, where whites make up nearly two thirds of players. As professional athletes take bolder stands on the contentious conversation about race relations in the run-up to the November presidential election, we took a look at the racial breakdown of the players in five major US professional sports competitions.

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