Racism and the game of life
Siakam knows what discrimination looks like, and how much it hurts. Step one for society, he says, is admitting there’s a problem
It hit Pascal Siakam one day recently, as parts of the world were exploding in rage against ingrained racism and the subtle ways it’s practised all around us, and how inured too many are to it.
The Raptors all-star forward was having a simple conversation with his brother in the wake of the murder of George Floyd when a moment in personal history came up.
“He worked at Enterprise, and some lady came in and was like, ‘Oh, I want to talk to an American,’ ” Siakam recounted during a Wednesday conference call with reporters. “I don’t know what that means. Maybe because he was African, or maybe his accent or maybe because he was Black? Like, what was it? It just shows you the true colours and how deep this runs. I think everyone is tired of it, and everyone feels like it’s time that it stops.”
Siakam does have a unique perspective: born and raised in Cameroon before finding his way to Texas as a teenager to pursue his basketball dreams in high school before moving to New Mexico as a collegian. He was in the majority growing up. He wasn’t when he moved to America, and little instances — tiny examples that far too many people consider business as usual — opened his eyes.
It is certainly not something he alone has experienced, but it was still personal, and it hurt.
“Maybe going to a store and people are looking at you a little different, and wondering if you’re going to buy something, or they’re watching you a little bit,” he said. “I think that was different, because that definitely wouldn’t happen where I’m from.
“The sad part for me is (that it felt like), ‘OK, that’s just what happens when you’re that colour and you go into something that seems to be fancy: ‘Oh, I have to just accept the fact that people are going to look at me a little weird, and they’re going to watch me a little bit’ ... that’s just the country we live in.”
There are few things that resonate with Siakam more than family, and watching Floyd cry out for his mother with his dying breaths left him speechless.
“Seeing someone take someone else’s life just like that, that’s heartbreaking,” he said. “I think about the families … he was crying out for his mom. I know how big I am on family. I can just connect to that and I’m a Black man. It hurts, like it hurts.”
Maybe Floyd’s death and the extraordinary protests that have followed around the world will mark a tipping point. Siakam hopes it will lead to greater understanding between people of different races, different colours, different ethnicities — lasting change. He was asked what he would want white people to understand, to learn, to be better at.
“As a white person, you seeing that, you have to be able to call that out because it’s there,” he said of pervasive racism. “We have to be able to do that.
“Moving forward we have to learn about each other, communicate, learn about different races and different places and things that you are not used to learning about. Talk. Talk about it. If you see it, say it and don’t be scared to say it and find ways to do that.”
It sounds so simple, but silence, acceptance and ignorance are ingrained in too many people, too many segments of society. Like so many things, the first step to correcting a serious problem is admitting it exists.
“The first thing is obviously acknowledging (racism is) there,” he said. “I think a lot of people don’t do that and we tend to act like it’s not happening, or ‘I’m not seeing it where I’m from or where I live,’ but I feel like the way the world is now, it’s impossible not to see it. This is something that exists, and I’m sorry to say it, but if you don’t see it then you must be blind or something.”
That is the first of many steps forward, Siakam said.
“Just seeing the people hurting, like I’m hurting, man, it can happen to anyone. I’m not from the U.S., but anywhere in the world when you see injustice it needs to be called out … I think you have to be able to see that and be able to just say: This is wrong, and this needs to change.”
“Anywhere in the world when you see injustice it needs to be called out.”
PASCAL SIAKAM RAPTORS FORWARD