Sports, athletes, and StAnding up for rAciAl injustice in the world of white sports fans

As I listen to cries of white sports fans who want sports to “just be a distraction” and are offended because Black athletes want to have reminders on their uninforms affirming their lives, let’s clear up a couple of things.

NONE of you complain about Breast Cancer awareness or Coaches for Cancer. Is Cancer not depressing and something you want to be distracted from?

We literally start every game with the National Anthem and carry out paid military recruitment throughout games all year. Is that part of our political budget? Is the idea of combat and what people endured or are enduring not depressing, sad, or something you want to be distracted from?

No? Why do you think that is?

I’m betting if there were a campaign to combat the opioid epidemic, your white hands would be calloused from the amount of clapping you’d do.

We literally bring awareness to 9/11 every year at games, again, a non-happy moment and I’ve never heard cries about wanting to “get away” from these things.

It’s time to face the facts. The issue isn’t that you want sports to be a distraction from real life or even politics.

The issue is that you want to be distracted as always from racism and issues relevant to Black people because you’ve been coddled and socialized in this country to be selfish AF with the emotional maturity of 2 year olds regarding empathy.

It’s the same reason you don’t want to face the realities of COVID-19. “I don’t know anyone who has died....” Congratulations! A lot of other people do, especially Black and brown ones. 190,000 deaths in 6 months is more than 2,996 9/11, 48,000 (opioid), and 42,000 (Breast Cancer) in 12 months. We care about those lives, whether personally being impacted or not.

Death at the hands of police is the 6th leading cause of death for young Black men and they are the group most at risk for this type of death.

So they can honor things that are concerns to you, but not things that are concerns to them? Sounds about white.

It’s past time for you to grow up and stop using the word “divisive” when you are triggered by the realities of Black America that you want to turn a blind eye to for another 4 centuries. It’s divisive to tell a bunch of Black athletes to erase their Blackness for your entertainment. That’s what’s divisive.

If someone kneeling during the anthem or wearing Black Lives Matter on a uniform pushes you over the edge about watching your “favorite” team, it might to be time to ask yourself about the role race plays in your life?

Hint, the answer isn’t, “nothing.”

And lastly, kindly remove the word “snowflake” from your vocabulary. 🇺🇸