Al Sharpton, the reverend who never met a camera he couldn't race toward, is now calling on Black athletes to boycott competing in Southern states because of redistricting. Not segregation. Not Jim Crow. Redistricting — the thing that happens after every census that 99% of Americans couldn't explain at gunpoint.

But sure, Al. Let's compare redrawing congressional maps to apartheid. That's totally the same thing.

Sharpton appeared on MSNBC's Alex Witt Reports with host Britt Miller on May 24, where he laid out his grand plan for athletic resistance. "What you must do is, on various levels, resist," Sharpton declared, adding that "you cannot use us to make money and then disenfranchise us at the same time." The states on his boycott hit list? Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. You know — only the states where college football actually matters.

Then came the apartheid comparison, because why let proportionality get in the way of a good soundbite? "I remember when we were fighting apartheid in South Africa many years ago, people would say, well, black artists should go to South Africa," Sharpton said, apparently believing that congressional redistricting in Alabama is morally equivalent to a white-supremacist regime that imprisoned Nelson Mandela for 27 years.

We've officially lost the plot.

Sporting writer William Rhoden from ESPN's Andscape — formerly of the New York Times — joined the segment to back up Sharpton's call. Rhoden's contribution was even more revealing. "For the last 50 years, I've spent my career trying to pull this growing black athletic community into the struggle," he said.

Fifty years of trying to recruit athletes into political activism, and he still can't get them to cooperate. Maybe — and I'm just spitballing here — it's because professional athletes have their own minds and don't want to tank their careers over gerrymandering disputes.

But Rhoden had an explanation for that too. According to him, the athletes who won't fall in line are simply "brainwashed." His exact words: "you're talking about a group of people who have been brainwashed." Nothing says respect for Black autonomy like calling successful Black men puppets because they won't do what you tell them.

Let's talk about what Sharpton is actually proposing here. He wants athletes to refuse to compete in eight states. That means skipping NCAA tournaments, sitting out bowl games, walking away from NIL deals — the very name, image, and likeness money that has been a generational wealth opportunity for college athletes. He's asking young men and women to light their own careers on fire to protest something most voters handle at the ballot box.

And for what? So the Congressional Black Caucus and Sharpton's National Action Network can score some cable-news segments ahead of the November midterms? The NAACP gets a press release, Sharpton gets a booking on MSNBC, and the athletes get... nothing. They get to sit at home while their competitors take the field.

This is the grift in its purest form. Sharpton floats an absurd demand he knows will never be followed, collects his media appearances, and moves on to the next outrage cycle. Meanwhile, actual Black athletes — the ones with scholarships on the line and draft boards to impress — would be the only ones paying the price.

The funniest part, as NewsBusters pointed out, is how disconnected this entire segment was from reality. Nobody on the panel stopped to ask: has a single athlete actually agreed to this? Has any team, any coach, any agent said, "Yeah, let's skip the SEC because Al Sharpton compared a redistricting map to apartheid"?

Of course not. Because even in 2026, most people can tell the difference between actual injustice and a 71-year-old activist trying to stay relevant.

Sharpton compared redistricting to apartheid. He wants athletes to boycott eight states. And he called the ones who won't comply "brainwashed" — well, his buddy Rhoden did, and Al just nodded along. That tells you everything you need to know about who this boycott is really for. Hint: it's not the athletes.