It is a funny thing the moment when your perception of the world changes. It’s not that anything in reality has actually changed, it is your perception of the world and how you are perceived in it that has been forever indelibly and irrevocably altered. That life-changing moment happened to me September 9, 2015, on a sunny Wednesday afternoon as I stood outside my hotel near a bustling Grand Central Terminal. I was in New York and on my way to the US Open tournament to do corporate appearances for my role as chairman of the United States Tennis Association (USTA) Foundation.
I have played tennis for most of my thirty-six years, professionally since 1999. My parents loved the game and they passed that love on to me and my older brother, Thomas. My mother, Betty, is British, and my father, Tom, was African American. They met on the court and fell in love playing the game. My mother is in her eighties and she still plays once or twice a week. My oldest daughter is a toddler and already has a racket. I started playing tennis with Thomas and my parents when I was five years old. I began taking lessons when I was ten or eleven. When I turned thirteen I decided to quit other sports and focus exclusively on tennis. That was a suggestion from my dad—not for tennis specifically, but just to pick one thing and be good at it. At that time I was all over the place, as any energetic teenager would be. I had hobbies and loved sports of all kind. Dad told me, “You’re doing a bunch of things; why don’t you pick one and try to really excel at it?” I decided on tennis because I felt I was the best at it, but I also liked the individual aspect of it. Being a professional tennis player is like being an entrepreneur. All the decisions fall to me, but I can customize my game, my training, and my approach, which suits my personality.
Every weekend my parents, Thomas, and I would leave our house in Yonkers and head to Harlem to play. Even when we moved from Yonkers up to Connecticut, on the weekends we still headed down to the courts in Harlem. When I turned seventeen, I followed my brother to Harvard. I played on the tennis team for two years, from 1997 to 1999. After being approached by an agent my sophomore year, I decided to go pro and play professionally.
Over the course of my career as a pro tennis player I was among the top four players in the world, and a Davis Cup champion. During that time I wrote my memoir, Breaking Back, about the challenges I faced coming back from a traumatic injury and overcoming a family tragedy. Those fourteen years taught me how to persevere not only on the court but also off the court, as I overcame many challenging professional and personal issues. I retired from pro tennis in 2013. In 2015 I became chairman of the USTA Foundation, which is the charitable arm of the association. My role as chairman keeps me connected to the game I love so much and allows me to stay involved in a very positive way.
As I stood waiting for the car to arrive to take me to the US Open for sponsor appearances and USTA Foundation meetings I saw a man running toward me. He reminded me of one of my friends from high school. Freshman year I was on the wrestling team with several seniors. I was the tiniest one. The seniors would pick me up and throw me around. It was fun, and what you’d expect from teenaged boys. They were wrestlers, so they would wrestle me, and joke around.
A few days earlier my friend had written on my website, “Hey! I haven’t seen you in twenty years, just checking in. We’re all proud of you.” I was glad to hear from him. Considering that he had been a senior when I was a freshman, he was pretty nice to me in high school. He was a big guy too, with a shaved head. As I stood there, in front of the Grand Hyatt, in Midtown Manhattan, three days after hearing from him, I saw a guy running toward me. He had a bald head, and was a big guy. What a coincidence to see him there, I thought, and I smiled. When he reached me he picked me up and slammed me to the ground. The next thing I know, he’s sitting on top of me, yanking my arms behind my back and handcuffing me.
At this point I knew it was not my friend from school and I figured out that despite his not wearing a badge or identifying himself as a cop, he must be one, because he had handcuffs. Despite what you may have heard about New York, I couldn’t imagine I was being robbed in broad daylight outside Grand Central. As I lay on the ground, my face pressed into the concrete, going through my head was, Oh my god, this is wrong!
That’s when I tried to remember everything I had heard from the news about resisting arrest, though I had no idea what I was being arrested for. From all the media and news reports of tragic police incidents, I knew there were far worse things that could happen to me during a confrontation with law enforcement. I said, “I’m cooperating, whatever you say. I’m complying a hundred percent, whatever you say.” That’s when he yanked me up and walked me over to five men several feet away. Though they weren’t in uniform, I assumed they were officers because they had badges visible on their belts.
“This is a mistake. This is an absolute mistake, you guys have the wrong person,” I said as I stood handcuffed in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Okay,” one officer said, though he made no move to release me, and they still hadn’t told me why I was handcuffed or what they were looking for. Another officer asked for ID. I indicated that he should look in my pocket. The officer took out my driver’s license, and said, “We have witnesses that tell us that you were involved in criminal activity.”
“Witnesses? What are you talking about?”
“Someone said he’s been delivering things to you for the last two weeks.”
None of this was making any sense. “I’m staying in this hotel,” I told him. “We can go up to my room. I’ll show you the plane ticket. I arrived on a red-eye flight this morning. There is no way that I could have been doing anything here for two weeks, when I just got in this morning.”
The plainclothes officer who had tackled me and was still holding me by the arm was not very open to what I was saying. He just repeated, “We’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll figure this out. We’ll see.”
I kept telling them, “Look, this has nothing to do with me.” I pleaded with them to look at my US Open badge in my back pocket. At this point it was hanging out. “Please, look at my badge, you can tell that I’m not a criminal. I have a badge for the US Open. I was on my way there now.”
“Okay, we’ll see. We’ll see.”
They still wouldn’t take the badge out. They didn’t believe me until about ten minutes later when another officer, an older man, arrived on the scene. As I watched him examine my ID I could see that he realized there was a problem. After he looked at my license and I told him that I was a professional tennis player and was heading to the Open, he took out his phone and appeared to be looking something up. Then he looked again at my ID and what must have been a picture of me on his phone. That’s when he apologized and had the other officers uncuff me. He was the only one, of the five or six officers there, who apologized. The officer who tackled me, whose last name I later found out is Frascatore, never did.
At that moment my car arrived and I walked away in a daze and got in. I didn’t ask for any badge numbers or their names. I didn’t ask for their precinct information. I was just relieved to be away from them. The full effect of what occurred in those fifteen minutes hadn’t yet sunk in. I was still in shock. I had not fully processed what just happened to me on a busy New York City sidewalk. I still didn’t fully realize that I’d been manhandled and handcuffed, then dragged to my feet in full view of crowds of people streaming by. And I was completely innocent. I was just relieved to be away from them and that scene and ready to forget it. I sat in the car still shaken, then called my wife, Emily, and told her what happened.
“I just want to forget about it,” I said. “I almost can’t even believe it.”
“What if that had happened to me?” she asked, her voice trembling with anger.
When I thought about it, I couldn’t even imagine it.
“You have to do something. You can’t just let it go.”
As she spoke, her hurt and indignation for me seeped into my stunned brain. That’s when I got angry. I started to shake just thinking of my wife, a member of my family, or anyone I loved being treated the way I had just been treated. The shock was subsiding, and as my mind cleared I knew that what had taken place was wrong and I had to do something about it. But what was I going to do?
I decided to give an interview about what happened with the press at the Open.
That afternoon, the police department issued a statement, which wasn’t surprising since my interview had just hit the airwaves online in the media. What was surprising was the statement they issued. Although the officers on the scene admitted that something had occurred, their version of the events was very different from mine. They claimed that I was detained for less than a minute, was not manhandled, and that I was never in handcuffs. I couldn’t believe it, but it was the word of five officers against mine.
I went down to the hotel lobby to find the head of security. I asked if there were surveillance cameras outside the hotel. He said there were. I explained what happened and we went to his office and watched the video. As I watched it play out I said to him, “The officers are claiming that I was detained for a minute and that I wasn’t tackled or handcuffed.”
He pointed to the time at the bottom of the screen. “We have the time stamp on it. You were detained for twelve minutes. You were in cuffs for ten minutes.”
I watched the video a second time. It was as if I needed to see it again to believe that what I knew happened had actually happened. I saw myself leaning on the building. I saw Officer Frascatore tackle me and throw me to the ground. I saw him kneeling on my back as he yanked my arms behind me and cuffed me. I saw him pull me to my feet and walk me out of view. Then I thought about their statement that none of it happened.
I decided to go to the press, and I did an interview with Good Morning America the next day. It was important to me to tell my side of the story as it actually happened. Three days later the NYPD called a press conference, and William Bratton, the police commissioner, released a statement. This time the officers’ version of the events had changed. Their statement was now a lot closer to what had actually occurred. The police had obtained the surveillance video from the hotel not long after I viewed it, but they did not immediately release it. I found out in the statement that Officer Frascatore was put on desk duty pending an investigation.
It should not matter that I am a tennis star, or a public figure with access to the media, to be treated respectfully and not have my rights taken for granted by law enforcement. All people, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or perceived socioeconomic standing, should know that police officers will treat them respectfully and issue an accurate and timely report of any incident or altercation between them and law enforcement.
That I have a platform and access to the media should not make what happened to me any more significant. No one should be manhandled without due process and definitely not because of a vague likeness to someone else. Even if I were the man they were looking for, why would such excessive force be necessary if I was cooperating? This speaks to a larger issue in America, the use of excessive force by law enforcement, especially against minorities. From what we see in the media and read in the paper, it is clear that there are a few police officers in our country who think that having a badge makes them above the law.
My grandfather, whom I was named after, was a New York police officer, and I am extremely proud of him for his service. But not all officers are like him. Officers who don’t have regard for the public they serve make it worse for the overwhelming majority of police officers who are working hard to do their jobs respectfully and sensitively, even as they put their lives on the line to protect and to serve. Those men and women are truly heroes. I know, because that’s the type of police officer my grandfather was. These officers make the streets safer; they protect us from harm, at times putting their own lives in jeopardy for ours. This is why I hold the police force in high regard.
My wife’s words led me to realize something had to be done about it, that it wasn’t right. If I were heading off to work and it happened to me, after being released I would have had to rush to get to my job because now I would have been late. It would be a lot less likely that I would be able to figure out later who the officers on the scene were, or why they detained me. And without any video evidence, I would have no recourse. More than likely, I would just be happy to be able to walk away, even if I had to live with the humiliation of the encounter.
When I did speak out, it was my word against theirs. The word of five police officers who all said nothing had happened. That’s what I faced before they knew about the surveillance video. Regardless of what the officers said, the video took priority, because you could see the events as they unfolded. You could see it.
When releasing the video, the police commissioner spoke on the record and said it was a case of mistaken identity and that the suspect could have been my twin. However, the photo of the person they showed during the press conference was an Australian national who was not in the US at the time. Misinformation and a lack of reporting by the offending officers and their superiors is a second violation against victims. When you consider that the average citizen does not have the resources or the platform to fight this type of manipulation and cover-up, it is not surprising that more of these instances of excessive force or misconduct do not see the light of day.
Before the video was released, I told some close friends about what happened. These were people who knew me, who knew that I am not one to exaggerate. Of course they were upset about it. Their responses ranged from “Aw, that’s terrible,” to “Oh, that stinks.” Once they saw the video, though, they called me back in shock. They had not realized the severity of the encounter. They did not really believe that the officer had charged me and slammed me to the ground, handcuffed and detained me, and that I was literally standing there doing nothing when it happened. Even people who know me well thought I must have been doing something to have been handled so forcefully. I have a buddy who even joked about it until he saw the video. After watching it he said that it actually made him sick to see something like that happen to a friend. Before seeing the video account, my friends didn’t believe the severity of the incident. Honestly, why would they? It seems almost unbelievable.
I thought about all the incidents in the media of police misconduct, racial profiling, and discriminatory practices, and I wondered how many of them actually happened the way the officers reported it. How many times had officers not reported an incident at all? I wondered how many times innocent men and women managed to walk away and how many times they had not. When I think back to that day I can’t help but consider how badly it could have turned out if only a few things had gone differently.
I was tackled, handcuffed, paraded down a crowded sidewalk, and detained for twelve minutes before the officers realized they had the wrong man. Officer Frascatore did not identify himself as a member of law enforcement, ask my name, read me my rights, or in any way afford me the dignity and respect due every person who walks the streets of this country. While I believe the vast majority of our police officers are dedicated public servants who conduct themselves appropriately, I know that what happened to me is sadly not uncommon. This became even more significant when I read in a 2015 New York Times article about the incident titled “Officer Who Arrested James Blake Has History of Force Complaints” that Frascatore had at least three other complaints of using excessive force.1 You have to wonder if those three reports are really forty, or a hundred, because he did not report them in the same way he had not reported mine.
Too often in the recent past, we have watched videos of sometimes fatal encounters with the police that have sparked international outrage. One can only wonder how these victims would have been portrayed in the media without video evidence. One also wonders how many other victims exist that we will never hear about. I am sure many were not as innocent as I may have been, but I cannot imagine any of them, or really anyone, being deserving of such a level of excessive force. According to the Times article, Frascatore’s other alleged victims, who filed complaints of excessive force, claimed to have been punched either in the mouth, the stomach, or the temple. One claimed to have been thrown to the ground and pummeled. Many average citizens do not have a platform with the media, or an opportunity to uncover incidents like mine, which makes me know it is vital for me to speak up.
Two years later the incident is still with me, and I am forever changed by it. I’ve spent some of those years wondering how to address it, the injustice of it, as it relates not only to me but to anyone who has had a run-in or altercation with law enforcement. Think of all the people who were minding their own business and then found themselves unfairly and unjustly detained, harassed, mistreated, embarrassed, victimized, or worse. I can’t imagine how many times something like a case of mistaken identity, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or worse, a case of racial profiling or discrimination, could and has happened. I wonder how often indignities like that occur, to innocent people who do not have the means or a platform to tell their side of the story.
I also wanted to use my voice and my role as an athlete to make a difference, to turn this unfortunate incident into a catalyst for change in the relationship between the police and the public they serve, in a way that would be helpful to both. But for many months I wondered if I was the right person to do it. I’m an athlete, not an activist. Why would anyone care about what I have to say off the tennis court? Then I thought about a man who has been an inspiration to me. Arthur Ashe inspired me as a tennis player. He was also one of the greatest activists of his generation. A man of many firsts on and off the court, Ashe was the first African American to win the men’s singles at Wimbledon and the US Open, and the first black American to be ranked number one in the world. Using his platform, Ashe pushed to create inner-city tennis programs for teens, and he was an advocate against apartheid in South Africa. He even obtained a visa so he could visit and play tennis there to inspire the people of the country.
As exemplary a tennis player as he was, Ashe was also inspirational for how he conducted himself outside tennis. For the last fourteen years of his life Ashe had major health issues. In 1979 he underwent a quadruple bypass operation and then a second bypass in 1983. In 1988, after experiencing paralysis in his right arm, he had brain surgery. A biopsy revealed that Ashe had AIDS. He’d contracted HIV from a transfusion of bad blood during his second heart operation in 1983.
Even during those dark times, Arthur Ashe never asked “Why me?” Ashe believed that to ask “Why me?” of the bad things in your life is to ask “Why me?” of the good things in your life. To him, it was unrealistic to not expect the bad with the good. “I wasn’t saying why me when I’m holding up the Wimbledon trophy. You can’t say why me when something bad happens when you have so many good things,” Ashe often said. That is one of the reasons why he is such a role model to me. Instead of focusing on his medical issues, he decided to bring attention to HIV/AIDS, which at that time was widely misunderstood. Although weakened by the illness, Ashe worked tirelessly to raise awareness and battle misperceptions about AIDS and HIV. In 1992, despite his deteriorating health, he went to Washington, DC, to march in protest over the United States’ treatment of Haitian refugees. During the protest he was arrested and taken away in handcuffs. That image of him being led away is forever burned in my mind.
“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Arthur Ashe embodied those words. He imbued everything he did with passion, pathos, humility, and humanity. He left a lasting impact not only on the game of tennis but also on our country, and on the entire world. His words, and really his life, served as the impetus for me to try to make a difference. It did not matter who I was, or what I did. All that mattered was that I used what I had and did what I could.
Ways of Grace was inspired by Ashe’s memoir, Days of Grace. Illuminating and insightful, his life story is a testament to how moments of adversity can actually move you in a direction of grace, and how you can respond to life in a graceful way as opposed to a reactionary, divisive way. Ashe showed us that we can use adversity to heal and not to hurt; we can use it to unite and not to divide. When Ashe was a Wimbledon champion he was fighting apartheid. He was fighting for those who were less fortunate. He was fighting for people who were in a bad situation that he had the ability and the resources to help.
When Ashe was facing insurmountable physical odds, when he had HIV, when he contracted AIDS, he was helping others who did not have the same treatment that he had, who did not have the money he had, who did not have the voice or the platform that he had. Even as he struggled, he sought to help the cause of HIV/AIDS research. Ashe taught me that despite the situation you are in, no matter how grave, how embarrassing, or how devastating, you can try to find a positive way to affect the world. As I considered Ashe and his profound impact on not only sports but also the world, I considered other sports figures who have sparked change, on the field and off. I wanted to bring to light their stories of activism, advocacy, and courage even as they faced a harsh personal, societal, and financial backlash. As I researched, I was struck by how many athletes—past and present—have championed causes they are passionate about and have created change in positive and uplifting ways, publicly and privately. I want to tell their stories.
Sports have always united us—regardless of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation—as we come together to cheer for and support our hometown, state, or country. When we root for our favorite team, athlete, or sport, it is not race, gender, or religious affiliation that unites us. It is our appreciation of an athlete’s ability to perform—sometimes against overwhelming odds—to rise up from poverty, from war, from divisiveness, from even disability, to advance to the top of his or her sport and to excel, sometimes beyond one’s wildest hopes or dreams.
The journey of athletes not only to overcome their competitors but often to overcome themselves—their backgrounds, their own physical or emotional shortcomings—to be the best they can be, has inspired us since the first Olympic Games in 776 BC. Sports brings different people, different countries, different nationalities, different races, and different religions together, even the most divided. The Olympics became an international event in 1924, unifying countries, even if only for a short time, as athletes from all around the world compete with each other in a mutually tolerant and respectful way. For decades it was the only time historically warring and divisive nations and countries came together peacefully.
Athletes have inspired us throughout history. They have changed not only their respective games, but also the world around them. Some of them have done so in a big way, in front of a crowd of millions, like Billie Jean King. Formerly ranked the number one tennis player, King is also a longtime activist for sexual and gender equality and for equal prize money in tournaments. King not only championed the cause that women could compete on the same level as men, she also proved it. In the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, in the game-changing 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” match, King beat the former number one men’s champion (and self-proclaimed male chauvinist) Bobby Riggs, and the crowd rose to their feet in support of her achievement. Her success that day and over the course of her tremendous career paved the way for equality for all female athletes.
Many of us are familiar with the epic stand that Tommie Smith and John Carlos took during the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics. Standing on the podium in the gold and bronze positions, they bowed their heads and raised their fists while “The Star-Spangled Banner” played. They were showing support for human rights and equality and taking a stand for civil liberties. Although they are now celebrated for their contributions to civil rights, the repercussions of their protest haunted them for decades. There was a third man on the podium whose selfless support and contribution to their protest has all but disappeared from history. A white Australian, Peter Norman, the silver winner, is rarely credited for his support in that riveting moment, but he played a crucial role and faced harsh criticism and severe backlash because of it.
Although not as well known, Norman’s role in advancing equality and human rights was just as monumental and inspiring as that of his colleagues on the podium next to him. Back in Australia, the ramifications of his protest were just as devastating—if not more—as what Carlos and Smith faced, but Norman never recovered from it, and the story of the part he played is not often told.
For weeks it was impossible to turn on the television or go on social media without seeing an image of the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality, while everyone stood around him. His protest has rippled far beyond the football stadium as it gained momentum, in sometimes surprising ways. However, not many people are aware of the former Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf praying during the national anthem in 1996, twenty years earlier. He is a precursor to athletes like Kaepernick, who made the same decision to take a stand against what he felt was unjust. The moment Kaepernick went down on one knee on the football field he made a choice that has since become historic.
We may know of the sports figures like King, Smith, Carlos, and now Kaepernick whose contributions shook the world and changed not only their sport but also how athletes are perceived. There are so many other sports figures who are inciting change in smaller, quieter, yet no less tangible and far-reaching ways. I hope to shed light on the part Norman, Abdul-Rauf, and other, lesser-known activists, accidental and not, played in making history, in their own quiet yet no less inspiring and courageous ways.
While professional athletes can make a significant amount of money in a fairly short time, a slump, an injury, a trade, or getting cut from the team can change things in an instant. These are considerations every professional athlete who decides to speak out for a cause must take into account. We understand that we represent more than ourselves; we represent our team, our city, our state, sometimes our country. But we also represent our endorsers and our corporate partners and our fans.
When Colin Kaepernick takes a stand against police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem, the public does not completely grasp the risks he is taking in doing so. When the San Francisco 49ers safety Eric Reid takes a knee with Kaepernick during the anthem before a game, he is taking a huge financial and social risk. When the New York Liberty guard Brittany Boyd arrives for the first WNBA playoff game of her career wearing Kaepernick’s number 7 jersey, and then does not stand for the anthem, she is taking a monumental risk. When the Phoenix Mercury players Mistie Bass and Kelsey Bone kneel through the anthem, or when the entire WNBA Indiana Fever team kneels and locks arms during the anthem, the public does not fully understand the wide-ranging consequences of their actions. They can and have faced fines and suspensions. When the Seattle Reign star Megan Rapinoe or the Denver Broncos linebacker Brandon Markeith Marshall takes a knee during the anthem, they risk losing millions of dollars in endorsement deals and even face a fierce fan and media backlash. Despite this, the list of sports stars supporting Kaepernick’s protest continues to grow.2
As professional athletes and sports figures, so much of what we do is in the public eye. Even what is considered our personal choices have public repercussions. Decisions we make about how we look, how we want to live, whom we choose to love, and the causes we support affect us publicly because our decisions play out in a very public way and influence how our fans perceive us—whether this perception is correct or not.
The New York Giants wide receiver Brandon Tyrone Marshall knew he would be fined by the NFL when he decided to raise awareness for mental health issues. In 2011, after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD), a mental disorder characterized by unstable moods, Marshall decided to speak out about it despite the social stigma associated with mental health issues, especially for men. When the Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers advocates to bring awareness to the Congo and the conflict diamonds that are mined there, he is fully aware of the possible ramifications of his activism and the potential backlash.
At 6'8" and 207 pounds with an arm span of 7'4", the Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner possesses a gender-bending androgynous beauty and graceful ball play that make her a powerful symbol of sexual activism. Formidable on the court, Griner is also true to herself and her sexual identity as she advocates for gender equality, simply by being herself, comfortable in her own skin, regardless of societal expectations of what women should look like. She is the only NCAA basketball player to score 2,000 points and block 500 shots.
A three-time All-American, and a member of the 2016 women’s Olympic basketball team that brought home the gold, Griner was named the AP Player of the Year and the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four in 2012. She is only one of the tremendously talented athletes in the WNBA who are redefining not only basketball but also gender roles. Simply seeing players like Griner on the court inspires the next generation of female athletes to know they can be true to themselves and also be successful in their sport.
When we consider athletes like Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova, or Venus and Serena Williams, we see that their presence on the court, and their being the best athlete in their sport—not just the best female athlete—changed the game and also how the world viewed female athletes. They did this by debunking stereotypes of how women play or should play tennis, and how they should look while doing it.
The Williams sisters have been changing the game since they first set foot on a tennis court. Serena Williams’s ferocious play and unapologetic style has made her one of the most successful athletes in the world; not the most successful “female” athlete in the world. Venus Williams has championed equal pay for all women since 1998, and she helped win equal prize money for female tennis players in 2007. At Wimbledon, women had competed for less prize money than their male counterparts ever since they began participating in 1880. By speaking out for equal prize money for women, Venus Williams, with support from other prominent tennis players such as Serena Williams, Jennifer Capriati, Maria Sharapova, Kim Clijsters, and Petra Kvitova, was able to win equal pay for female players, forever altering the landscape of women’s tennis.
Despite substantial fines, corporate and sponsor pushback, losing large endorsement deals, public recourse, social stigma, and fan backlash, athletes and sports stars continue to use their unique platform to advocate for change. Before the 2014 Olympics over a dozen athletes publicly spoke out against the Russian law targeting LGBT citizens. The law resulted in a surge of hate crime and numerous arrests of LGBT people in Russia and has been widely referred to in the media as one of the worst human rights violations in the post-Soviet era.
Some sports figures could lose much more than money, endorsements, or fans when they take a stand. At Wimbledon in 2002, Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, a Pakistani Muslim, and Amir Hadad, an Israeli Jew, took the same side in the men’s doubles draw knowing they would be going home to their divided nations and facing what could be detrimental fallout from their actions.
In Ways of Grace, I explore the many ways that athletes are giving back, taking a stand, and changing the world in far-reaching ways. Sports figures have been championing causes for as long as we have had organized sports. Many were accidental activists, inciting change simply by participating—the boxing icon Muhammad Ali, the baseball legend Jackie Robinson, the tennis superstars Althea Gibson, Billie Jean King, and Martina Navratilova. Merely seeing them perform was powerful enough to change perspectives about their gender or race. Simply by being in the game, these activists fought against oppression, discrimination, inequality, and bias, in whatever form they might take.
Every step forward, no matter how small, every advance in sports to end discrimination and inequality, was a step that brought us closer to the freedoms we all have today. These early accidental activists were not trying to change history; they wanted only to do their best to represent themselves, their race, their gender, and their beliefs, and be allowed all the freedoms they were due. It is their early activism that started and ultimately changed the discourse of human rights and equality. They were the start of the evolution of the sports figure as an advocate for change. I’m buoyed and bolstered by their advancements, by their grit, determination, and drive during a time when simply being on the field, the court, the track, or the baseball diamond brought harassment and threats. The actions of these early forerunners have afforded us many of the civil rights and civil liberties we have today.
Today, the stakes may not be as high politically and socially as they were in the past, but the corporate, media, and fan backlash in professional sports pose their own set of high-stakes risks and ramifications. Despite this, more athletes are taking a stand by publicly speaking out, or quietly advocating for equality or change—regardless of the sometimes harsh financial and social consequences—than at any other time in recent history. And today’s activists are starting earlier, as collegiate athletes are seeing their athletic heroes taking a stand on issues of social justice.
In November 2016, the New York Times interviewed Nigel Hayes, Jordan Hill, and Bronson Koenig of the University of Wisconsin basketball team, the Badgers. These three talented and outspoken young men want their voice heard on political and social issues even though they are just starting out as athletes and may have trouble getting signed professionally because of it.
Hayes and Hill, both black, took a step away from their teammates during the national anthem before their season-opening game. According to the 2016 article in the New York Times,
Hayes, a senior who was named the preseason Big Ten player of the year, has lobbied for players to be paid, serving as a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking a freer market for top athletes. . . . Hayes has also posted about the Black Lives Matter movement to his more than 80,000 Twitter followers and recently joined other Wisconsin athletes in demanding university action after a fan appeared in a mask of President Obama and a noose at a Badgers home football game. Hill, a redshirt junior, also writes provocatively on Twitter. And in September, Wisconsin’s starting point guard, the senior Bronson Koenig, traveled to support protesters of the Dakota Access pipeline, many of whom are, like him, Native American.3
In response to being asked why he was speaking up when it could affect his draft stock, Hayes replied, “At the end of the day, the quote I hang my hat on is, I was black before I picked up a basketball, and when I retire, I’ll still be black.”
I am proud to take a stand with my fellow athletes and to bring awareness to a cause I believe in. As angry as I am about my incident with the NYPD, that anger is not what made me understand that I had to give voice to it and raise awareness of much-needed protocols between the public and law enforcement. I could not help but wonder how often a situation like mine had played out. When it’s your word against five officers, even if the truth is on your side, those odds are hard to deny. I respect our police officers and understand that they put their lives on the line every day to protect and to serve, but the incident left me wondering: To protect and to serve whom?
Law enforcement, not unlike any other organization, is composed of many different types of people with vastly different personalities and points of view. There will always be a few bad apples, spoiling the rest of the bunch. I don’t think for a moment that those officers are representative of the entire police force. That the officers in my case made a decision to stand together to protect each other could be indicative of a shared mind-set and an attitude that should have no place in the police department. I’m hoping that bringing awareness to my experience will be a catalyst to start a dialogue about law enforcement and how our officers—our public servants—police us. I am hoping it can start a discussion about creating more checks and balances, protocols that protect our officers and also the public they serve.
In January 2017, the US Justice Department conducted a thirteen-month investigation into the Chicago Police Department and found that “excessive force was rampant, rarely challenged and chiefly aimed at African-Americans and Latinos.”4 The headline of the 2017 New York Times article about the investigation read “Chicago Police Routinely Trampled on Civil Rights, Justice Dept. Says.” The article reported that “a blistering report by the Justice Department described far-reaching failures throughout the Chicago Police Department.”
During trials for wrongful death, police misconduct, or excessive force, having an independent, unbiased special prosecutor is crucial. Because of the unsettling Justice Department findings of discriminatory law enforcement practices, every police department in the country should require all of its officers to undergo annual diversity, sensitivity, and bias training.
The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University defines implicit bias as “the implicit associations we harbor in our subconscious[, which] cause us to have feelings and attitudes about other people based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity, age, and appearance. These associations develop over the course of a lifetime beginning at a very early age through exposure to direct and indirect messages. In addition to early life experiences, the media and news programming are often-cited origins of implicit associations.”
It is crucial that our police officers think twice before using excessive deadly force in their interactions with the public. We must train them to be sensitive, unbiased, concerned, and nonjudgmental when interacting with people in the communities they serve. If not, we must put in place oversight and accountability, because right now there is no real incentive for officers with a history of misconduct or excessive force to change how they interact with the public.
It is also just as imperative for me to take something positive out of my experience, to create something uplifting and affirmative from it. I don’t want to ask “Why me?” Instead, I want to use what I have, to incite change in myself, and in the world, in any way I can. That’s what I learned from Arthur Ashe. He taught me that in a good situation, you try to help others. In a bad situation, you try to find a way to make it better. There’s always going to be someone who is less fortunate. You can find a way to help them, and in so doing you will help yourself and the world. Hopefully you will even inspire others to do the same.
My perception of the world was changed irrevocably that sunny September afternoon I stood outside my hotel. What has also changed is my perception that there is nothing I can do to prevent the indignity of what happened to me from happening to someone else. The best way for me to do that is to continue on the path carved out by my predecessors and stand shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues, to use my voice and my platform to advocate for change, even in the smallest way. To that end, I am going to use what I have, to do what I can.