Wade forced to ponder life’s ugly side
Lamont Wade has never been bashful about expressing his opinions on social issues in America, but he struggled Tuesday to find words about recent troubling developments.
Over the weekend, Aeneas Hawkins, one of Wade’s teammates on the Penn State football team, said he was confronted by a verbally abusive white man as he pumped gasoline into his car somewhere on his drive from State College to his home in Cincinnati.
On Monday in Central Park in New York, a white woman called police and told them she was being threatened by an AfricanAmerican man who had asked her to leash her dog in a bird-watching area.
Then Monday night in Minneapolis, a white police officer, for several minutes, kept his knee on the neck of a handcuffed African-American man, who was pleading that he couldn’t breathe. A short time later, he was pronounced dead.
“Everything happened so fast,” said Wade, a Penn State senior safety. “To be completely honest, I haven’t really wrapped my head around everything to even make a remark yet.”
Three years ago, Wade made a video on what he views as the true meaning of the American flag during the height of on-field protests at NFL games. He also participated in the protests in Pittsburgh in 2018 after a black teen had died in a police-related shooting.
He sounded more philosophical than frustrated Tuesday and more sad than angry about race relations in America these days. His words were more measured than pointed.
“l feel like a lot of people really don’t see things from a certain perspective all the time,” Wade said. “I feel like it’s really good to have perspective on any situation through different lenses, specifically in these situations that happen a lot and occur over and over again.
“I just feel like it’s important for people to understand how some people feel whenever they feel like they’re supposed to be protected, but it kind of seems like the opposite is happening.”
As a 60-year-old white man who’s lived a fairly sheltered life, I don’t know what it’s like being an African-American today in the United States. I can’t possibly imagine the ridicule and scorn black men and women face every day. I’m trying, but too few of us aren’t even willing to do that.
Put yourself in someone else’s shoes for a moment, as Wade said. Bill Curry has. A 77-year-old Southern white man, he played 10 seasons in the NFL, most notably with the Green Bay Packers and Baltimore Colts, coached college football for 20 years and worked for ESPN.
“I was a passenger in a car with two African-American teammates when we were pulled over,” Curry tweeted Tuesday. “We were ordered out of the car. (It was the) only time I ever had a gun pointed at me, (for) no apparent reason.
“I saw the stark difference in the treatment I received when stopped while I was at the wheel.”
The 6-2, 272-pound Hawkins, a reserve defensive tackle, knows the feeling. The white man at the convenience store stared at him for no apparent reason and screamed at him, calling him a black SOB.
“Although my inclination was to jump through his face when he stood close to me, I know that I’ll always be guilty before proven innocent,” Hawkins tweeted. “Although I had done nothing out of the ordinary to invite conflict, it found me just for LWB (living while black).”
Wade, 21, hopes race relations improve for his 2-yearold son, who he’s been able to see frequently during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Whenever the next generation comes up, (I hope) they don’t have to deal with as much evil,” Wade said, “or the way people look at people sometimes just because of their appearance and not knowing people.
“I just wish he could grow up in some type of environment where everybody does things through love and peace. That’s really crazy to think about, but it’s me being a parent for my son. I wouldn’t want anything less.”
Me, too.