If I talk about fan bases here, it’s because I see my own white privilege and racism in them. I hate like 75-90% of the sports teams in America for dumb reasons, and will continue to do so forever, but this is not about that. I truly believe I could hear ugly stories about every team and fanbase I care about, here in Minnesota and elsewhere, and I root for one of the teams I talk about below. Anyways.
I love Mike Wilbon.
He reminds me here of a couple of things that really changed my understanding of my privilege, and my own racism. One is the many, many parallel conversations that happen because people of color have long lived in and talked about a very different Minnesota than I have (even if the city under scrutiny here is Boston). The other is the question of ownership.
Ownership is where our own internalized racism comes in. All the times we recognized there was racist behavior, but just didn’t recognize its significance. I’ve heard the same apology from many places in the US and elsewhere for racist taunts in sports (and I could give many examples) and it always comes down to saying it’s sort of an arbitrary thing: they don’t do it because they have hate in their hearts, they do it because they want to rattle their opponents and because they think it works.
It thrives not because of its effectiveness (Torii Hunter’s story that started all this shows black athletes are way too used to hearing it) but mostly because white people don’t attach any significance to this. It may register as a darn shame, but it doesn’t ruin the game for any of the thousands of white fans who all watch this happen. It just doesn’t seem important enough. The last Superbowl featured a really odd set of interviews with fans asked about the tomahawk chop, many of whom sort of cringed but admitted they still joined in. They were actually consciously sensitive to how awful that gesture feels to many Americans, but that feeling of guilt wasn’t strong enough to forgo the feeling of togetherness with the crowd when they joined in. Owning our racism means figuring out why we care, but don’t care enough to do anything.
The Red Sox issued a rare public statement about racist fans, which is a good thing, and surprisingly more direct than most “we regret the feelings stirred by the incident” statements issued by organizations. However I hate one thing they said, invoking once again the idea that a “small minority” who are not “true fans” are the ones responsible. Assuming that’s true, those people will always be with us. The problem is everybody who just watched, and let it be part of their experience, and said, “Oh, the bleachers are like that. It’s a shame.”
In contrast, a few weeks after 9/11, US national soccer team captain and New Jersey native Claudio Reyna (known to fans as Captain America) played in the Glasgow Derby. When he took a free kick for Rangers near the end occupied by rival Celtic fans, somebody stood up to taunt and distract him. Normally part of the game, like chanting during at-bats and at outfielders in America. In this case, the Celtic fan got up and spread his arms and started making airplane noises. Everybody around him immediately recognized it as evocative of the planes on 9/11. You can tell, because they all got up and physically shoved him back in his seat. They knew when something went too far. That same fan base (along with many in Europe) has a history of making monkey noises and throwing bananas at Black players, and while deep inside they may have seen the harm… it took a long time to reach the point where these people are now thrown out of games in Britain. I remember not long ago this behavior was defended by the top officials in the sport in Europe, deflecting and minimizing. 9/11 was somehow easier to understand than 400 years of institutional violent racism. (Also by far not the worst organized thing I’ve seen or read about happening in the stands somewhere.)
The one time I know I was personally present for somebody dropping the N-word at a football game, what happened all the white people took the lead of the people of color in the stands around us, who just clearly wanted to ignore it and watch the game. I will never forget the Black men in front of me saying, “Didn’t hear anything worth paying attention to,” and “Didn’t hear nothing but the wind blowing by.” The Latino man next to me grumbled and shook it off. What the man said was actually directed at white visiting fans and intended to shame us, but it was a threat to everyone else. None of us got up and told security, “This is different. We don’t need to hear that here.” Maybe they would have blown us off (we were visiting fans, I’m totally fine with most kinds of mild abuse, even from security) but it’s weird that we weren’t sure if this would be recognized as transcending football. So they let it go, and we let it go.
I was reminded of that experience for a different reason while watching this clip. These hosts basically turned a decades long shouting sports argument over their Washington Post desks into a tv show, and are never short of opinions. What happens when the n-word is invoked is Tony Kornheiser shuts up and gives the entire time (and more) to his colleague. On Riley Cooper, and Richie Incognito, he introduced segments but noted that this is a topic where nobody is interested in the opinion of an old white man. And I agree with him. Give the floor to Wilbon for as long as he wants it. I like that the producer eventually realized there was no need to show Tony nodding.
BIPOC speakers should take the lead on this conversation and others, but I don’t want to lose that part of this particular topic is the deathly silence of white people. What happens if nobody turned up to an NFL game against Washington? What if you couldn’t buy beer while wearing racist gear? Whenever we hear opposing fans chanting something we don’t like for football reasons, the simple solution is to drown it out. (e.g. We hear “Go Pack Go” and drown it out with “Packers Suck” or “and take the Brewers with you” until they give up.) Fan bases across the country who have inherited the tomahawk chop could start something else and drown it out. A girl in Chicago redesigned the Blackhawks logo to not have a floating Native American man’s head, and it looks super cool. People could wear that, until the old logo stops being iconic and ubiquitous and the team has no reason not to phase it out once fans have essentially drowned it out.
If we want to. If we wanted to, nobody would ever hear this mythical racist minority shouting racial epithets at a Black player, because they’d be drowned out by everything else. Right now they’re not. Because we shake our heads silently, and then let it go, because it bothers us… but just not that much. Love may conquer hate, but along the way it has to crawl through a minefield of indifference.
If I ignore it, I own it.
Coq au Vin 