Nobody Wants to Listen in America Anymore: Guest MINDSETTER™ Scott
Guest MINDSETTER™ Jonathan Scott
Nobody Wants to Listen in America Anymore: Guest MINDSETTER™ Scott
I'm familiar with Burrillville and it's Thunderdome. The gym in this rural northern RI community is designed in an octagon shape and it's... well... let's just say it's "cozy". It's loud and the crowd is close to the action. They pretty much surround the floor. Like many rural communities, the fans come out in force and support their teams with raucous fervor. I can speak from experience - Burrillville is not an easy place to be a visitor.
That's why I can't say that I'm totally surprised by what happened in Burrillville last week. If you haven't heard, there was an incident during a girls’ volleyball game between the host school and Central Falls, a tiny, population-dense, community largely populated by Latinx folks. A visiting parent was so shaken by the crowd that she videoed the happenings in the stands and in the parking lot, afterwards. She reported racist verbal attacks and narrated her video evidence with comments about the presence of American flags and red, white, and blue attire. It was, apparently, "America" theme night.
At some point, the Rhode Island Soccer Association got ahold of the video and filed a complaint with the Rhode Island Interscholastic League. They asked for "the death penalty" for Burrillville - a year of no sports participation for the entire lineup of school teams. RIIL later ruled in favor of the Soccer Association, though the penalty was a number of sanctions, including no students at the next home volleyball tilt and a mandate for administration approval of all future crowd "themes". Asking for the "death penalty" was ridiculous.
There are problems here. The most obvious is that the complaint was lodged by the state's governing body for soccer and the incident happened during a volleyball game. What interest does the complainant have in the incident - especially given that they seemingly ignored an actual on-field incident of confirmed racist comments by a player during a soccer game the previous week? It's a fair question.
It's probably also fair to say that, in all of the video footage, I did not hear a single utterance of racist statements by the crowd. The only mention of racism appeared to be the narration of the videographer parent. The Burrillville administration admitted that the crowd was culturally insensitive and certainly unsportsmanlike but there was no blatant racism found.
I'm not saying that it didn't happen. I'm certainly not saying that what did happen - whether racism or not - fails some sort of litmus test for importance. Cultural insensitivity is important in our current climate. Quite often, cultural insensitivity feels like racism. The entire incident is, in fact, very important and a microcosm of America's current conundrum - as coaches always say sports are. It just smacks of a lot of national and local politics.
What has been lost in all of this is that none of this was happening on the floor. At their best, sports are a safe place that proves to be a great equalizer. My guys live inside a team culture that ignores superficial differences and values "commitment to excellence". As one of my crew once told ESPN, "Gay, straight, black, white, Christian, Muslim - it doesn't matter. The only reason I'd have a problem with you is because you're wearing the wrong color jersey".
My teams are built on "family first" and family knows only love for one another. There is nothing outside of the grind... and we do that together. My players who have come out as LGBT will tell you that it was easier because at least they knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that 25 guys had their back. That's the way teams work. This incident wasn't on the floor. It was in the stands and it became a feeding frenzy.
When sharks feed, they roll their eyes back and lash out. They thrash and bite hoping that they'll hit their prey and they always make a mess. That's what happened here.
Nobody actually listens in America anymore.
In all of the accusations and defensive counter-attacks, we've lost a valuable teaching moment. Complaints and video and social media posts rarely lead to constructive progress. We're at an interesting crossroads in America. Patriotism, itself, has become weaponized such that, in order to appear supportive of diversity, one has to renounce our nation and its symbols. On the other side, incredibly, those who do not pledge fealty to every trapping of perceived American exceptionalism are somehow deemed suspect.
The debate has raged on Facebook, of course. "This is about Trump". "America is racist". My favorite was the commenter who immediately branded the videographing Central Fallsian "an illegal alien". Clearly this is about more than a volleyball game between two glaringly different high schools in America's tiniest state.
Nobody listens in America anymore. If they did, they would hear that minorities in America feel under attack. As I said, the flag itself has become weaponized by those who believe that "making America great again" is not the same thing as making America great. Our nation's very colors have, for Latinx and blacks, for gay and transgendered folks, become like the Pavlovian metronome; a precursor to an action - one that rolls back their protections.
For the other side, the 2016 election cycle was a cry to be heard. Their fears that, somehow for some, "progress" means retribution for years of unbalance is very real. Unfortunately, the refrain from the left tends to be "we don't want to punish old straight white men"... yet those who fit the description see actions that would suggest otherwise… so they stand behind the strongest thing they know - a nation that was once the beacon of freedom and opportunity for the world.
Nobody wants to really hear the other side, though. We just dismiss "America" theme nights as racist or decry "white privilege" when someone feels set upon. We call Puerto Ricans "illegal aliens" when they cite incidents of discrimination and we defend police officers who have a terrifying habit of shooting black folks with a hair-trigger. We ignore as "conspiracy theory" the fact that the justice system is broken yet we post articles from clearly questionable sources about how "the US Marines "anti-coup unit" has been called up to protect President Trump".
We all need to slow down. We all need to think back to what our coaches said - that we have one mouth and two ears and we should use them accordingly. We need to remember that, like our HS sports teams, America is a family and FAMILY means "Forget About Me I Love You". That has zero to do with skin color or the religion of political partisanship.
Sports is a great pulpit to preach from - HS sports especially, where there is little promise of money and fame, but where the future burns bright. For some, it may be the only opportunity to "belong" in a world where true connection is lacking and "reality TV" has become actual reality... despite the absence of linkage between the terms.
I'm still not sure about what really happened in Burrillville a couple of weeks ago. What I am sure of, though, is that national politics was involved and that's not a good thing. The lessons of HS sports used to inform us towards adulthood. Now it appears that the political discord of adults is informing HS sports. I've always said that the worst thing about youth sports was the adults... and it seems to be getting worse. We can change it though.
It's simple.
Remember the things you learned from your coaches. Actions count more than words. Understand that competition is good... but hate is bad. Anger stunts performance. As Sun Tzu said in "The Art of War", you must know both yourself and your opponent to be assured of a thousand victories. Know that what you’re saying might not sound the same to those who don’t see life through the same lens. Take a breath. Listen to the other side. It's the sportsmanlike thing to do.
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Jonathan Scott has coached lacrosse, wrestling, football, and sailing. He currently coaches lacrosse with a summer club team for college athletes and at a New York City Independent School. In 2006 and 2008, he was the Republican nominee for US Congress in Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District – which includes both Burrillville and Central Falls. His NYC based company, East Castle Group, specializes in corporate social responsibility and crisis communications within the venture capital sector. He also sits on the NY / NJ Port Authority Bus Terminal Advisory Council.