There’s an exhaustion that sets in when you’re constantly called upon to comment on crimes against your own. donnovanbennett explains why white athletes must do more to fight for racial justice by winning over minds closed to their Black counterparts.
Part of the privilege of being white is deciding when to care about issues that don’t directly threaten your way of life. Black people aren’t allowed the same choice. We don’t move on because we can’t. And we pay a price, despite that lack of control. The long-term toll of worrying about your safety and how you are perceived because of your race plays a role inthat create measurable disparities between the health of black people and white people.
These are both worthy causes — that’s not the point — but it seems as if those same athletes’ voices suddenly go silent when the issue principally affects minorities. That is a huge missed opportunity for the cause of racial justice. Just imagine how powerful it would be if white athletes used their power and platforms even at the risk of making other white people uncomfortable.
Is any of that crazy to suggest? Would any of it even be difficult to execute? And isn’t that how real change happens — when power and privilege is used to uplift those who don’t have any? We had internment camps and residential schools in Canada. Viola Desmond was arrested for not sitting in the back of a theater in Canada. In 2017, six people were killed and 19 injured in a shooting at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City. And our prime minister has engaged in multiple, documented incidents of wearing blackface.
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