Late high school is when I actually started accepting who I was - the curly hair, the dark skin, all of it. But that wasn't without difficulty. There were still multiple instances in which others got under my skin, making me question my worth yet again.
One time that has stuck with me was my junior year of high school. I was on the basketball team and we were playing at another school. They had a decent student section that had been chanting stuff all game. Most of the stuff was what is usually heard at games, but there was one specific thing they yelled that caught me off guard.
I was the point guard at this time meaning I would get the ball thrown to me to bring up the court. My teammate had been handed the ball by the ref and she threw it into me. When I caught the ball, I heard someone in their section chant "single parent" - inferring that because I was black, my dad wasn't in the picture and I was being raised by a single mother.
Most of the time, I'm able to block out what I hear from the crowd. I mean, my nickname from other student sections my sophomore year was "air ball". But this one really caught me off guard. I can handle people talking about physical abilities or lack thereof - saying "you suck" or "you're not a shooter" or things along those lines. But coming at me simply for the color of my skin during a sporting event isn't something I had expected from any school.
I think another reason why I was so shocked to hear that was there was another person of color playing on their own team. There was a couple things I was questioning after that.
Did she hear it herself?
If she heard it, was she offended?
How would she, or any other person of color at that school, be affected knowing people there at their own games would be openly racist like that?
I can't remember exactly what happened, but I do know that school had disciplinary actions on a couple different occasions for different counts of racism at sporting events.
Even when trying to be funny, making racists comments is never okay. And that includes saying them to athletes during competition. Instead, maybe try supporting your own team and not trying to put the other team down.
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