LIVING IN FEAR
Black American CFLers feel anger and pain amid systemic racism in the U.S. that forces them to swallow their pride and comply with police, knowing that whatever move they make next could well be their last
With protesters crowding into U.S. streets demanding equality for all, four black Americans in the Canadian Football League — three players and a coach — are again feeling the vicious sting of racism.
There’s anger, pain and fear. Especially fear.
For them, life is a winding, bump-filled road fraught with peril and disadvantage, a path black folks have been trying to navigate in the U.S. since the days of slavery. In a messed-up world where George Floyd, an unarmed black American man, died on May 25 while pleading for his life after being pinned to the ground by a policeman’s knee; where a country’s president fans flames of discontent and distrust with talk of “looting and shooting;” where U.S. law enforcement officers are being asked to use tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets and tasers to fight back, it’s never been more important to shine the light on societal wrongs and begin a conversation on change.
The battleground has become their streets, their neighbourhoods. Here’s a reality check.
“James Byrd was a man who lived in my neighbourhood, (in Jasper, Texas, population of less than 8,000),” said Edmonton Eskimos offensive lineman SirVincent Rogers. “(In 1998) while I was in middle school, (Byrd) was chained to the back of a truck and dragged by three white men. They dragged him until his limbs and his head detached from his body. I remember the fear in my household. I went to sleep every night in fear for my life, not knowing if that would happen to me. Things like that are reasons people like me have come through life with a notion that I have to fit into all these parameters that white America places on the black community.”
More than 150 years after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, systemic racism and inequality are in the conversation again — with blacks making up about 13% of the U.S. population.
“(When I was younger, we’re out driving. We hear the sirens going, the cops pull us over with their guns drawn,” said CFL Players Association president Solomon Elimimian, a linebacker with the Saskatchewan Roughriders who grew up in Los Angeles’ Crenshaw District and now lives in Vancouver.
“They handcuffed us, roughed us up. We sat on the curb watching the car being searched. When we asked why we were stopped, the answer was: ‘You fit the description.’ It’s something I’ve experienced many times. You just want to make it home safe.
“Another time, I was 16 or 17, I was four houses away from where we lived. I’m wearing a hoodie, just walking home. Cop cars cut me off. The policemen had their guns drawn, I was handcuffed and they went through my pockets. Once again, I fit the description of a robbery that had been committed. That stuff traumatizes you.
“This is what it is to be black in America. You think it’s normal. You accept it. That’s the biggest travesty of it all.
“We can’t let the deaths go in vain. This isn’t just a fad. We need to change the ills of our society. People want their voices to be heard. The narrative exists. Black men are being targeted.”
Toronto Argonauts defensive backs coach Ike Charlton (a second-round
NFL draft pick who also played in the CFL) said being closely scrutinized and regularly treated with suspicion goes with being a black male American. Different rules apply for different people.
“I used to get pulled over by the police all the time,” said Charlton, who is living in Cleveland, but grew up in Florida. “They question you, they hope they can find something. When they don’t, it’s like: ‘Do I give you a ticket for doing 65 in a 60?’ It can become frustrating.
“I’ve been handcuffed, I’ve been harassed and pulled out of cars. We’d get in a car and ride around and we’d realize there were five police cars around us, guns drawn. There are four of you in the car. You’re sweating bullets. You haven’t done anything. You’ve got no drugs, you haven’t been drinking. You’re hoping you don’t get a racist one. You work hard, you read, you study, you become someone. But you’re still black. If you’re black and the police are called on you, you know what could happen.
“As black boys, you get educated from the time you start going out. You’re taught to say, ‘Yes, sir ... no, sir.’ There’s fear, there’s always been fear. I turn 43 in October, I still feel fear every time I leave the house.”
A deli worker had called
911, accusing Floyd of using a counterfeit $20 bill to buy cigarettes. Seventeen minutes after the first cop car arrived, the 46-year-old Floyd was unconscious, then pronounced dead. One officer — Derek Chauvin, who has been charged with seconddegree murder, had his knee on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, according to the criminal complaint. Three other officers on the scene have been
I went to sleep every night in fear for my life. SirVincent Rogers
charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder. All four have been fired from the Minneapolis police force.
“This is not political, it’s not Democrat or Republican. This is police brutality,” said Charlton. “Why is there excessive force? That should be the last resort. If I’m another cop and I don’t step in and stop it, I’m just as guilty.”
“What happened happens all the time,” said Elimimian. “Now, it’s on camera, people can see. We’re in 2020 and this stuff is still happening.”
“It stirs up all these emotions we’ve suppressed over all these generations,” said Rogers. “This isn’t something that came out of the blue. This is years and decades of suppressing the oppression, where we’ve tried to find our way and fit into parameters.”
Floyd was moaning:
“Please, I can’t breathe,” before he died. It’s become a rallying point for protesters who say they’ve been pushed too far, too often. They haven’t been able to properly breathe for years.
While there has been an outcry against police brutality, there’s no doubt an overwhelming number of cops are men and women who serve and protect with integrity and honour. Within the ranks, though, there are some who abuse their power.
“I don’t want this to be an indictment of police officers,” said Rogers. “I know there are many, many, many good policemen. In Houston, we’ve got one of the best police chiefs (Art Acevedo) in the U.S., a guy who protested with the people over the George Floyd incident. I have friends who are police officers. We have great men and women who serve our country and our communities, risking their lives every day. I love those people. I ask those good policemen and policewomen to challenge others.
“Don’t let people to continue to die in the streets at the hands of law enforcement without reason and proper cause. Some officers are becoming judge, jury and executioner, without giving people their day in court.”
The issues run much deeper than good cop, bad cop.
“Systemic oppression and systemic racism is in society. It’s not just the police or the court system,” said Elimimian. “It’s not us against police, there are a lot of good police officers. It’s about the society ills we are all facing. People are disheartened. There’s sadness because you hate to not have hope. But things aren’t getting better. This is what Rodney King (who was violently beaten by the LAPD in 1991) dealt with, it’s what it was like in the 1960s when people were marching and had dogs unleashed on them. You had years of slavery. You have to talk about the racism and expose it.
“We’ve always said: ‘This stuff happens.’ Before there were cameras, it was our word against their word. Some (black) people never see the other side, the good side, of police officers. They never see the good side of white people.”
Until we can wrap our heads around three words — Black Lives Matter — and another two words — white privilege — we don’t have much chance of affecting change and wiping out the us-vs.-them mentality.
“It’s a systemic mental battle that’s been going on for centuries,” said former Ottawa Redblacks quarterback Henry Burris, who is also part Cherokee. “It’s a history of people that are tired of being treated inferior. We’re talking about people who helped build the country and were never given an opportunity to get a step ahead for all the work we did.”
Burris encourages education of the issues, providing links to relevant perspective — the Cornerstone Speech, the Jim Crow laws and the bombings of Black Wall Street — on his Twitter account (@ HenryBurris).
Gone are times when black Americans couldn’t use the same public restrooms, which had signs such as ‘Whites Only’ or ‘No Coloreds.’ But it’s not as if there aren’t many more obstacles in their way.
“We moved beyond the segregated bathrooms, but we haven’t moved past the segregated mindset,” said Charlton. “Please take the shackles off what you’ve been taught, take the shackles off what you learned when you were growing up. People say: ‘I don’t see colour.’ Excuse my language, but BS, yes you do. You do see colour.”
Listen to the cries for help. Just listen. For a second, imagine yourself in somebody else’s shoes, in a different socio-economic situation, in a world that sometimes seems hopeless with its roadblocks that suppress hope and suffocate dreams.
“It’s a country that promises equality for everyone,” said Burris. “But is there really equality? When you feel threatened that someone with a different colour skin is in your neighbourhood. As long as people think that way, this pessimism and darkness we have won’t go away.”
In late February, 25-yearold Ahmaud Arbery was jogging through a Georgia neighbourhood. According to the police report, father and son Gregory and Travis McMichael say they mistook Arbery for a burglary suspect, hopped in a pickup truck and chased him down. After a confrontation, Arbery was shot and later died.
The McMichaels were charged two months later. Another man, William Bryan, who took a video of the incident, was also charged.
In mid-March, 26-year-old
Breonna Taylor, an emergency medical technician, was shot by police while she was in her home.
Charlton remembers Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old high school student who was shot and killed in 2012 — just 15 miles up the road from his Orlando home. George Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch captain, had called 911 about a “suspicious person.” He admitted he shot Martin, claiming it was self-defence. He was charged with seconddegree murder, but was found not guilty. A week and a half ago, Zimmerman sold the gun that killed Martin for $250,000.
“Somebody like George Zimmerman, there are thousands of them in the deep south,” said Charlton. “It would have been easy for me to grow up and have rage and hate white people. But that’s stupid, I wasn’t raised that way. It’s what you surround yourself with.”
“We see these videos of unarmed black men getting killed, those are things you have to explain to kids,” said Elimimian. “Even though you’re doing nothing wrong, you have to swallow your pride and comply because whatever move you make could be your last move.
“That’s really traumatic.
How do you explain to the child when he says: ‘Why did that guy deserve getting killed by a police officer?’ You have to say: ‘Because he was black.’ Kids in tough areas are just trying to make it. You know it’s not right to tell them: ‘Because you’re black, you have to sort of acquiesce even when you’re not doing anything wrong.’ We see it time and time again — innocent black people are dying. I’ve looked through a lens, not everybody has looked through that same lens.”
Through suspicion and the hatred, many people want peaceful resolutions, they want harmony.
On Friday, at 3 p.m., there will be a No Peace Until Justice march outside the U.S. Embassy on Sussex Dr., in Ottawa.
While we occupy social media space arguing over who is right and wrong, while politicians shamelessly look for opportunities to score points, black Americans just want a chance to breathe.
You work hard, you read, you study, you become someone. But you’re still black. If you’re black and the police are called on you, you know what could happen. Ike Charlton
Drew Brees did some quick back-pedalling early Thursday morning.
Then he passed around the apologies.
“It breaks my heart,” the New Orleans Saints quarterback said of comments he had made hours earlier, “to know the pain I caused.”
The particular series started late Wednesday afternoon, when Brees responded to a reporter’s question about players kneeling to protest racial inequality and police brutality by saying he “will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country.”
He went on to explain that both of his grandfathers fought in the war, and when he stands with hand over heart to sing along with the anthem before games, he is sometimes brought to tears thinking about them and all the others who made similar sacrifices.
Immediately after the interview hit social media, Brees was bombarded with responses from those angry that he missed the point being raised by San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick and other protesters.
Among those objecting loudest were his teammates, Malcolm Jenkins, Cam Jordan and Michael Thomas. The list extended around the league and continued to grow, even after Brees begged for forgiveness on Instagram before most people had their breakfast the next day.
Here’s what he wrote: “I would like to apologize to my friends, teammates, the City of New Orleans, the black community, NFL community and anyone I hurt with my comments yesterday. In speaking with some of you, it breaks my heart to know the pain I’ve caused.
“In an attempt to talk about respect, unity and solidarity centred around the American flag and the national anthem, I made comments that were insensitive and completely missed the mark on the issues we are facing right now as a country. They lacked awareness and any type of compassion or empathy. Instead, those words have become divisive and hurtful and have misled people into believing that somehow I am an enemy. This could not be further from the truth, and is not an accurate reflection of my heart or my character.
“This is where I stand: I stand with the black community in the fight against systemic racial injustice and police brutality and support the creation of real policy change that will make a difference. I condemn the years of oppression that have taken place throughout our black communities and still exists today.
“I acknowledge that we as Americans, including myself, have not done enough to fight for that equality or to truly understand the struggles and plight of the black community. I recognize that I am part of the solution and can be a leader for the black community in this movement. I will never know what it’s like to be a black man or raise black children in America but I will work every day to put myself in those shoes and fight for what it is right.
“I have always been an ally, never an enemy. I am sick about the way my comments were perceived yesterday, but I take full responsibility and accountability. I recognize that I should do less talking and more listening ... and when the black community is talking about their pain, we all need to listen.
“For that, I am very sorry and ask your forgiveness.”
It’s a surprise Twitter didn’t blow up with the number of replies.
SECOND AND LONG
Commissioner Roger Goodell has given NFL coaches the green light to return to their team facilities starting Friday. Only players receiving treatments are there now ... With 98 days until the regular-season opener, the NFL’s chief medical officer remains positive everything is on the right track. “I think that I personally remain very optimistic that we’re going to be able to have a 2020 season and have it along the schedule that we’ve planned,” Dr. Allen Sills told the Washington Post ... Professional and college teams in the state of Texas can now operate at 50% capacity when they open, says a report in the Dallas Morning News. A week earlier, that number was capped at 25%.
BETWEEN THE LINES
It appears the Tennessee Titans are going to take a good, long look at Darrynton Evans as the possible successor to Derrick Henry. According to the NFL Network’s Michael Giardi, Titans offensive coordinator Arthur
Smith expects better results
“if more guys are touching the ball” and that he’s very excited about Evans, a third-round pick out of Appalachian State. Last year, Henry led the league with 303 carries and 1,540 yards, but was not rewarded with the long-term extension he sought. Instead, he will play 2020 on a one-year franchise tender worth $10.278 million, and if Evans looks like he’s ready to take over the starter’s job, Henry could be a free agent going into 2021 as a 28-year old ... Bears top target Allen Robinson is hedging his bets as to who will be the team’s starting QB. Robinson has been working out with Mitchell Trubisky four times a week during the off-season, building on chemistry the two have had the past couple of years. But he’s also ready to develop a relationship with Nick Foles should he displace Trubisky in a training camp battle for the No. 1 job. “To be quite honest, I think that I feel confident regardless,” Robinson told reporters Wednesday. “I think it’s on the staff, on what they want to see, because it doesn’t really come down to me, as Allen Robinson. I’m just a piece of the puzzle. For me, it’s going to be a fun camp.”
EXTRA POINTS
Running back Alexander Mattison and tight end Kyle Rudolph organized a group of about a dozen Minnesota Vikings who attended a memorial for George Floyd on Thursday afternoon, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I felt like it was important,” Rudolph told the paper. “This is our community. This is our home. I stand for what’s right and I’m against what’s wrong.” ... Bucs coach Bruce Arians told reporters on a conference call Wednesday that his team was interested in free agent running back Devonta Freeman, but his asking price is too high. Tampa has just over $6.4 million in cap space, according the NFLPA’s daily report ... Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has donated $3 million to the Colin Kaepernick Know Your Rights Camp.