2021 Gumbo final - Book - Page 88
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football march
O
n Friday, Aug. 28, the LSU football team held
a march on campus in protest of the ongoing
epidemic of police brutality and systemic racism in
America.
Players spoke with Head Coach Ed Orgeron and Interim
President Tom Galligan about how they’ve been individually
affected by racism to encourage an open dialogue on race
within the ranks of the administration.
The march was timely, coming at the heels of a summer
of Black Lives Matter protests organized to reckon with the
racist abuse committed daily by American police.
Only five days before the march, police in Kenosha, WI,
shot Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, seven times in
the back at point-blank range. Two days later, 17-year-old
Kyle Rittenhouse, a white supremacist and Blue Lives Matter
supporter, fatally shot two Kenosha protestors.
With a primarily Black lineup, our University’s football
team has a clear stake in ensuring racial equality for its
players and the campus as a whole. When I first heard of
their march, however, I dismissed it. After everything that
had already happened this summer, I told myself the public
was already well aware of the racial injustices plaguing our
country.
The march was a good gesture, but not one I predicted
would result in real change. At the time I felt that in order to
truly make a difference the team should have made specific
demands and refused to play until it received what it wanted.
Then, on Sept. 10, a stadium booed the Kansas City Chiefs
and the Houston Texans when team members linked arms
during a moment of silence dedicated to fighting injustice.
I was shocked. Evidently I had overestimated the social
awareness of the average football fan if even this most basic
demonstration of solidarity had elicited such a negative
response.
I realize now that for many fans, the march was the first
time they were seeing familiar names and faces attached to
a Black Lives Matter protest. Likewise, for the athletes who
participated, it was a solid first step in creating sustainable
change for Black students, faculty and staff members at the
University.
Coach O himself said the “things that [he] heard about
[on the day of the march]...[he] never knew before.” Given
this reaction, the players clearly made an impact on the
administration, the full scope of which may not yet be known
to the general public.
I am far from being the University’s No.1 football fan, but
even I recognize the team’s outsized authority on campus.
When a star like JaCoby Stevens marches on the University,
people listen.
Our football team is just a micro-sector of the American
public — but it’s one with huge visibility among a generally
conservative fanbase. No matter how cynically I downplayed
it at first, the march was a necessary first step towards
creating lasting social consciousness in the locker room,
across campus and among the fanbase as a whole.
Not only that but it was a reminder of the University’s
racist streak, and the progress that still needs to be made;
thanks to the work of leaders like Stevens, Andre Anthony
and their teammates, I have hope that change is imminent.