Racism, Discrimination, Police, Elite Athletes

"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences." ~ Audre Lorde

"Judgements prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances." ~ Wayne Dyer

"The horror of class stratification, racism, and prejudice is that some people begin to believe that the security of their families and communities depends on the oppression of others, that for some to have good lives there must be others whose lives are truncated and brutal." ~ Dorothy Allison

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the 1980s, friends of mine, some with Jamaican roots, and I, Indigenous, walked regularly along 118th Avenue in Northeast Edmonton. The words used to define me-Indian, Native, Aboriginal, Indigenous-changed with the times, as did sources such as the Oxford dictionary.

Two bullheaded white police officers, notorious in our community and throughout rural areas from Lethbridge to Fort McKay, would monthly speed down 118th Avenue at a very high speed. Screeching to a stop with their car dramatically angled, they seemed to be singling us out, young elite student athletes who were training either at the University of Alberta or at Commonwealth Stadium for track and field, basketball, football, and soccer.

In daylight, in front of public, in front of our classmates and teachers and community priests and other holy members, those police would force us against their car, pushing us on the hood or side panel of the police car, to get at our coarse hair and ridicule us. Teasing, to make us hit back, to make us run, and when we would do so, they had every right to shoot. Some onlookers cheered about us getting arrested while other passers criticized the police: "pigs."

Yet despite these experiences, our coaches at the University of Alberta were progressive, anti-racist individuals, most having been elite athletes themselves, they told us that if ever confronted by police we should remain calm, not fight back, not show emotion, and they would protect us like one of their own children. Our coaches at the university of Alberta protected us student athletes.

Our mentors from the professional football team had similar counsel, relating experiences of racism and discrimination in Canada and the U.S. They urged restraint: non-retaliation was a survival strategy. They assured us that patience and composure would eventually lead to being left alone, as they themselves had endured the same hardships throughout their careers.