The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Sports
Wednesday, September 2, 2020 — 17
Michigan athlete creates group to
battle racism
Last week, NBA players
boycotted games after police
shot Jacob Blake seven times
in the back in Kenosha, Wis.
This summer, the Big Ten
created a coalition against
hate and racism with members
from every school in response
to the police killing of George
Floyd.
But this June, amid the
Black Lives Matter protests,
Briana Nelson felt she needed
to do more than protest.
The senior track athlete
created Wolverines Against
Racism (WAR), a student-
led group within Michigan
athletics focused on student-
athletes coming together to
use their unique platforms
to help fight against social
injustice.
“My ultimate goal would
be for members of WAR to
essentially go out and be the
change,” Nelson said. “There’s
a great variety of people we
have. We have coaches, we
have
student-athletes,
we
have support staff members
and there’s a lot of different
members and each person
has a unique opportunity to
use their platform because
everybody
has
different
followers.”
As a track and field athlete at
Michigan, Nelson recognized
she has a platform that most
don’t — and she planned on
using it to make lasting change
at the University.
After a conversation with
a couple members of the
administration
she,
along
with fellow track athletes
Jeryne
Fish
and
Roland
Amarteifio, hosted a “unity
call” over Zoom with other
Wolverines. Coaches, student-
athletes and support staff
listened and shared their own
experiences as Black student-
athletes expressed the many
emotions they were feeling at
the time. From there, the idea
in Nelson’s head grew into a
full-on plan.
“After that I felt really good
about the community that
we had and that space that
we had created,” Nelson told
The Daily in early August.
“I felt that it should be an
ongoing effort — not only
just have a space to talk, but
also a space to act, a space to
create movement amongst my
peers and staff that want to
be involved and just create a
continuous ongoing act that I
felt was long overdue.”
On
Juneteenth,
Nelson
hosted a second unity call,
this time to help educate those
on the call who might not
know about the holiday and to
discuss further ideas for what
WAR could be. The positive
responses and dialogue that
came from that call affirmed
both Nelson’s desire to start
the
organization
and
the
importance
of
opening
a
communication among those
interested in the cause.
“I think that we’re a lot
stronger when we’re united,”
Nelson said. “Everyone who’s
interested has great ideas and
wants to see change and that’s
why they’re a part of it, but as
we come together the effort
will be a lot stronger.”
Nearly every varsity sport
at Michigan had an athlete
attend one of the unity calls,
from water polo to women’s
basketball.
Going
forward,
that breadth of involvement
will be important for WAR
to both continue and have
its biggest impact. Because
those
athletes
will
have
conversations
with
their
teammates,
their
families,
their coaches.
And
right
now,
most
Michigan athletes are white.
A lot grew up in communities
lacking in diversity. Many
play in sports with very little
diversity at the college level.
So, as the country begins to
reckon with racial injustice,
white Wolverines will, too.
WAR helps bring the issue
to a level relatable for those
student-athletes by sharing
the
experiences
of
Black
people in a way they didn’t get
growing up.
“Seeing
that
there’s
representatives
and
there’s
people interested from all
these
different
teams,”
Nelson said, “and knowing
they’re going to go back and
be a leader on their team and
then educate and lead their
teammates and then their
teammates are going to go out
— it’s a domino effect.”
KENT SCHWARTZ
Daily Sports Editor
ALEC COHEN/Daily
Briana Nelson felt inspired by the Black Lives Movement and began her own group at Michigan to fight racism.
Jacob Blake shooting spurs ‘M’ and
EMU student athletes to protest
As droves of spirit wear-
clad Michigan and Eastern
Michigan
student-athletes
marched through downtown
Ann Arbor, senior defensive
back Hunter Reynolds and
Eastern
Michigan
junior
linebacker
Tariq
Speights
belted
“Say
His
Name”
through their megaphones.
A second passed, and then
the names George Floyd and
Jacob Blake rose from the
crowd with equal emotion
and equal volume.
Until
Aug.
23,
when
Blake was shot by police in
Kenosha, Wis., the response
to Reynold’s and Speight’s
call
would
have
been
a
resounding “George Floyd.”
Instead, there was confusion
over which name to chant.
There have been so many
names.
That’s
emblematic
of why Speights organized
Sunday’s protest.
“Just seeing all the stuff on
social media, it’s to the point
where I’m past being tired
of seeing the videos, seeing
the hate that’s in our country
against people of my skin
color,” Speights said.
Speights
organized
the
protest, and though he had
attended numerous protests
near his home in California,
the
Jacob
Blake
shooting
galvanized him into leading
one of his own. He knows he
has a powerful voice, and he
felt that the time had come to
use it to a fuller extent.
“Everyone can use their
platform
today,”
Speights
said. “There’s a lot of student-
athletes in the crowd right
now, and we have the unique
ability
to
reach
people
because of what we do. In this
age of social media, we have
thousands of people, as soon
as we post something, eyes on
that post.”
Athletes, like many of those
who marched Sunday, have
thousands of eyes on what
they do and what they post.
Speights wants to make sure
they use their voices for good.
“Organizing
it
took
a
conversation
with
(Reynolds),” Speights said.
“We
just
put
together
something, put it on social
media, and reached out to our
teams.”
Nearing
the
end
of
a
summer
that
saw
almost
constant
protests
across
the country, Reynolds and
Speights were delighted to see
how ready their teammates
and fellow student-athletes
were to join the cause.
Each
athlete
has
their
individual following — up to
thousands on social media —
but those are amplified when
combined with the followings
of other athletes, especially
as many as marched on Aug.
30.
The
number
of
people
currently protesting social
issues
could
be
mind-
numbing,
but
Sunday’s
protest is better thought of
as an extension of Speights’s
philosophy for using his own
voice.
“If you’re able to influence
one person, that one person
could go influence someone
else,” Speights said. “So you
can really end up influencing
a lot of people for change just
by influencing one person.”
Almost
anyone
with
social media accounts has
seen the hashtags promoted
by
those
whom
Speights
echoes. They’ve seen other
names,
names
he
doesn’t
want to get lost. They’ve
seen
#AhmaudArbery,
#BreonnaTaylor
and
#ElijahMcClain.
They’ve
seen
#GeorgeFloyd,
and,
most recently, they’ve seen
#JacobBlake.
The promulgators of those
hashtags have been affecting
change for months now with
the goal of dismantling all
forms of systemic oppression,
and the change Speights is
trying to inspire resembles
that which people have heard
about on repeat since George
Floyd’s death in May.
Speights’
various
motivations for organizing
Sunday’s
protest
—
increasing voter turnout and
education,
ending
housing
segregation
and
police
brutality, promoting equality
in education — may seem
separate, but the purpose
boils down to the words of
another chant he led:
“No more hashtags.”
JACOB COHEN
Daily Sports Writer
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Eastern Michigan linebacker Tariq Speights helped organize a Black Lives Matter protest in Ann Arbor Sunday.
T
ariq Speights has
been a Black man
in America for 20
years. That’s 20
years of living the pain inflicted by
prejudice — the pain of living in a
country where
he never feels
fully welcome,
where he’s
constantly
judged by the
color of his
skin.
The pain, he
says, has been
a constant in
his life. But on
Sunday after-
noon in Ann Arbor, Speights did
something he never thought he’d
have the chance to do.
He stood in the shadow of the
Hatcher Graduate Library with a
white megaphone in his left hand
and began speaking.
“It doesn’t matter what we look
like, what we do, where we come
from,” Speights said. “Everyone
can use their platform today.”
It’s a message aimed at everyone
who, someday, may be in his shoes.
On Sunday, hundreds gathered
in the Diag in solidarity, hoisting
signs and donning t-shirts with
messages of support. Speights had
been in groups like that before,
protesting in his hometown of
Santa Clarita, Calif. But he’d never
been the one to take the mega-
phone and demand change.
Now, Speights, a linebacker at
Eastern Michigan, sees his role
changing in real time. And he sees
that change because he’s a college
athlete in a time when college ath-
letes have an unprecedented voice,
whether that’s fighting racial
inequality or fighting for their
rights as athletes.
“Any protest, any people stand-
ing up and speaking on what they
care about is important, but for
me, it hit a little different, it being
student-athlete led and I’m a
student-athlete,” Speights said of
Sunday’s protest. “So yeah, that
was huge and to see how many of
my teammates, how many Michi-
gan student-athletes came out,
it’s big. Us student-athletes have a
unique ability to be able to touch
people. So being able to get people
to come out for who we are and not
as much of what we do is big.”
Over the summer, college ath-
letes’ voices dominated the land-
scape of American social media
in a way they never had been
before. When George Floyd was
murdered by a Minneapolis police
officer, college athletes spoke out,
demanding change. When the Big
Ten canceled fall sports, college
athletes spoke out, demanding
transparency from the conference.
When other conferences threat-
ened to follow suit, college athletes
spoke out, demanding comprehen-
sive safety protocol.
Six miles away from Speights’s
Eastern Michigan, Hunter Reyn-
olds was one of those athletes dis-
covering his voice.
Reynolds, a senior cornerback at
Michigan, understands the voice
playing for the Wolverines gives
him. Even as someone with lim-
ited playing time in his three years
in Ann Arbor, he has the ingrained
influence that comes with wearing
the winged helmet.
“Due to social media, you’re
just seeing it more because there’s
been numerous incidents over
the course of the summer where
something’s happened and a
player’s just tweeted something
out and the tweet ends up with
50,000 likes and 10,000 retweets,”
Reynolds told The Daily on Sat-
urday night. “In 2005, if a college
athlete spoke about something,
they were really just limited to the
local press.”
For Reynolds, that’s meant
sharing the struggles he faces as
a Black man in America in a way
he never has before. This sum-
mer, he founded College Athlete
Unity, a group of Michigan play-
ers demanding an end to racial
injustice.
So when Speights reached out
to him earlier this month with the
idea of an athlete-led protest fol-
lowing the police shooting of Jacob
Blake, an unarmed Black man in
Kenosha, Wis., Reynolds knew
there was a unique opportunity at
hand.
“(Speights) felt it was important
to host something where we keep
the conversation going and let peo-
ple know that Black men and Black
women being killed by police isn’t
normal,” Reynolds said. “Things
shouldn’t just go on as normal. And
he reached out to me and once he
described what he wanted to do, I
was all in for it.”
For other student-athletes at
both Michigan and Eastern Michi-
gan, the message resonated. Alexis
Alston, a freshman on the Eagles’
soccer team, was one of them.
All summer, she had protested
in her hometown of Amherst,
Ohio. But as soon as she heard
rumblings of Sunday’s protest,
she knew it had the potential to be
special.
“A lot of people are inspired and
look up to college athletes and it’s
important for them to also know
they have a voice,” Alston said,
walking down Liberty Street amid
chants of “No justice, No peace.”
“And people will listen to it. Com-
ing from a college athlete, more
people are bound to listen and take
note of what they say.”
On Sunday, that was the mes-
sage of the day. Really, for these
athletes, it’s been the message of
the summer. And watch out, Reyn-
olds says, because the next time
Michigan Stadium is packed with
110,000 people, it’s still going to
be the message — even if he hasn’t
decided what form that’s going to
take.
“Anything that’s done, it’s seen
by millions of people,” Reynolds
said. “So due to that, any messag-
ing that we have has an opportu-
nity to fall upon many eyes.”
Four years ago, when Colin
Kaepernick was blackballed by
the NFL for kneeling during the
national anthem, doing the same
would have been unthinkable for
most college athletes.
But on Sunday, Reynolds wore
an image of Kaepernick kneeling,
his afro replaced by the outline of a
Black Lives Matter fist. And as he
and so many other athletes made
their voices heard, the unthinkable
felt within reach.
Mackie can be reached at
tmackie@umich.edu or on
Twitter @theo_mackie.
Student-athletes are finding their voice
THEO
MACKIE
ALLISON ENGKVIST/Daily
Michigan defensive back Hunter Reynolds leads a student athlete Black Lives Matter protest throughout Ann Arbor Sunday afternoon.