My All-White Baseball Team Said The N-Word A Lot
I am not acquitted from the title. I said it too. Aware that it was wrong and knowing that it could hurt people, but never said it in front of someone we thought could be hurt by it. It wasn’t that we didn’t care about the dangers of specific letter formations, but for me and the rest of the team, there were no repercussions.
We spit dip. We ran every day. Bought flavored sunflower seeds. Stole Phiten necklaces from the Rockaway, NJ Mall. Yeah, those dumb “dipped in titanium” things. Dozens of them. I think I still have them somewhere, in some drawer or a shoebox. Never any repercussions for those either.
We made fun of a young man that took his own life. Called other players and each other “pussies” and other things. Teenagers who thought they were invincible. Above the law and beyond “law and order”. The farthest thing from a wallflower.
I wanted to be a teacher. One of our coaches was my inspiration for that. Others just wanted to play ball. In my head, I told myself that I was better than them. Better because I had higher grades. Because I received several scholarships. Better because I came from a single-mother household and accomplished as much as they did. A better person, but I still said the N-word too.
I wasn’t better. Thinking so was foolish. It was jealousy. Seeing two parents for every player in the stands while my one was at work. Jealous from working two jobs and never going out on the weekends because tables needed bussing. They were carefree and I was envious.
We called ourselves the “N’s”. It wasn’t abbreviated; we said it. We wrote it on Facebook pictures and in text messages. I wasn’t better than the rest of the team and we were no better than any of our peers.
You might be thinking why I would out myself. I’m not. It was public knowledge. Find our old Facebook pictures. We didn’t hide it.
I’m not talking about this because of White guilt or because I want to show people of color whom I know that I’m different now. They know that about me.
This is a call to the White folk hiding behind their walls. The ones who tell me “I can’t even watch the news right now”. The silent retweeters and, yes, the MAGA super-fans.
No one is saying that you have to change the world yourself. Or that you hate Black and Brown people. Leave your ego at the door and enter the building for discussion. Right now, maybe more than ever, we, White people, need to accept the challenge of self-analysis and reflection.
We need to look at the ways we have benefited from the world we live in. We need to acknowledge that our privileges exist and that we’ve benefited from them. Our ancestors let it happen and we have allowed it. Our parents too. Theirs too.
My all-White baseball team used the N-word a lot. We didn’t fear the letters. And we didn’t sympathize with what the spelling meant. I’d like to think other guys from that team feel regret for those days. I do.
But it doesn’t make us bad people today. We can always change our position on the game board. It is our responsibility to do so.
For anyone reading this, I have benefited from White supremacy. If you’re White, so have you. Accept it and question why. It’s gonna be hard. It was for me. Hell, it still is. I still use my privilege without realizing it.
But you will feel clean after you think hard. And you’ll be able to move across the game board. You can become an “ally”. Though, the title “ally” is not yours or mine to bestow upon ourselves. The fight doesn’t stop after the initial awakening.
To any all-White baseball teams that use the N-word: knock it off. You may not know why yet, but you’re above that shit and need to be better.
The fight to be both White and anti-racist starts right now and we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
I want to thank a young woman who’s name sometimes begins with a N and other times with a D for giving me the courage to write this.
