I don’t know.
That’s not a great way to begin an opinion column, but as our cities continue to tremble with anger and pain after another series of high-profile police killings of black men and women, it is the only way to begin.
I don’t know.
I don’t know what it is like to be black in America.
I don’t know what it is like to be Toledo offensive lineman Bryce Harris, or to be 10 years old and have the cops called on my three friends and me because we looked “suspicious” as we went door to door with our plastic rakes in the hope of earning a little spending money.
I don’t know what it is like to be Rockets safety Tycen Anderson, or for my dad to tell me, “son, driving while black is a crime,” before he instructed me how to handle a traffic stop.
I don’t know what it is like to be UT defensive line coach Larry Black, or to fear for my safety when police lights flash behind me on a recruiting trip in Mississippi.
I don’t know.
And if you are not black, neither do you.
So a request to the rest of us: Pay attention.
See the fire, hear the fury, built up over generations, spilling over once more.
I could go on here about the systemic rot of racism, its stench knowing no bounds, including among the few vile cops who make the hard job of policing our communities damn near impossible for the many good ones.
But we’re better served to listen, including to the athletes.
If their games have been silenced, their voices have not. Stick to sports? What, and ignore the truth? Not a chance. Not this time.
“We do have a voice,” said Anderson, a St. John’s Jesuit grad. “We do deserve to be heard."
At Toledo, Anderson and his teammates have been encouraged to let their feelings on the current events pour out, a nod to the reality that the prism through which one player or coach experiences the world may be very different from another. “Often we ask students to learn from our experiences,” Rockets coach Jason Candle said. “This is a time where the shoe is on the other foot.”
Added Anderson: “Coach Candle and the staff, they're making sure we know that we have their support. That's the biggest thing. We're having a bunch of uncomfortable conversations, but that's the only way."
The only way forward.
The only way — as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar put it in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times — to keep the light on.
“Racism in America is like dust in the air,” he wrote. “It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere. As long as we keep shining that light, we have a chance of cleaning it wherever it lands.”
What kind of chance?
Black, for one, wishes he knew.
“My guys, they're hurt, they're frustrated,” he told me of his players. “You look at the video of what happened to George Floyd and you can’t get it out of your head.”
Further, the 30-year-old Cincinnati native tweeted: “Like most black people, I’ve had trouble sleeping for the past couple of nights. What is happening in our world? I’m a black coach in the college football profession and I have staff meetings every morning where I log on and put on a front like everything is good. In reality, deep down it’s not. ... Our players are 95 percent black, especially in my defensive line room where they’re all black. Talking football and playing a game are the last things on my mind right now.”
He wonders: “What if this happens to one of our players?” And ... does white America understand why he wonders?
Black mentioned his wife, Kaylin, who is white and as open of a spirit as they come.
“My wife knew when she chose to marry a black man that our lives are totally different,” he said. “It took her time to understand [and] she still learns. It’s still different worlds for me and her. I wonder how many people out there in the white community truly understand.”
That’s worth remembering.
Unless you have walked a mile in a black player’s cleats, let us not pretend to know.
And, more important, let us not change the conversation, as too many have tried to with the protests, their focus not on the root injustice but the few lawbreakers using the occasion as cover to destruct, no differently than a few would during the celebration of a sports championship.
No, let us stop, open our eyes, and listen to the cries for help.
In a warped way, college and pro basketball and football are often the highest-profile crossway of the black and white worlds, with largely white crowds rooting for teams filled with black players.
But the connection ought to be more human, with fans not just watching the athletes on their favorite teams — including Toledo — but seeing and hearing them, too.
The time to stand (and cheer) for them will come again soon enough.
Now is the time to stand with them.
First Published June 2, 2020, 7:56 p.m.
