Aggies join the fight against social injustice
COLLEGE STATION — Senior receiver Jhamon Ausbon, as he’s done since first stepping on to Kyle Field, adopted an upbeat approach to dealing with any anger from some Texas A&M football fans for his participation in protests on the A&M campus this summer.
“There are a lot of good people in the world,” Ausbon said, “so I won’t let the bad pollute the mentality I have.”
Ausbon and the A&M football team, in an attempt at adding to the good, on Friday evening set aside practice and marched on campus against social injustice, joining plenty of pro franchises in basketball, baseball and hockey and other college programs in pausing their play in the name of racial equality.
“We all want equality … where everybody is looked at equally and treated equally and fairly,” said A&M coach Jimbo Fisher, who attended Friday’s march on campus. “That’s what we all want for ourselves, our players, our children, for everybody in this world. That’s what the fight is for, and they’ve got to continue that fight, and we’ve got to continue that fight.”
The NBA’s three-day pause from the playoffs from Wednesday to Friday followed the shooting of a Black man, Jacob Blake, in Kenosha, Wis., on Sunday by a police officer. Blake was shot seven times and while recovering in a hospital in Milwaukee County is paralyzed from the waist down, his family has said.
Other leagues followed the NBA’s lead, and the Aggies joined fellow college programs such as Texas, Baylor, Texas Tech, Oklahoma and Mississippi in setting aside football practice for peaceful protests and discourse. Alabama running back Najee Harris posted to social media this weekend that the Crimson Tide will march Monday in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
“We want our voices to be heard as we strive to enact social change and rid our world of social injustices,” Harris wrote. “… We want all Alabama athletes to join us. This isn’t a fan day … this isn’t a football game … this is about lasting change!”
Ausbon and fellow A&M senior Kellen Mond, a rare four-year starter at quarterback, have pushed for one particular change on A&M’s campus this summer that has rubbed some current and former students wrong — the removal of the Sul Ross statue situated in the heart of A&M.
Ross was a Confederate general in the Civil War and, among other things, fought for preservation of the enslavement of African-Americans. Long after the war’s end, he’s also credited with keeping A&M from closing in the late 1800s as its beloved president, and also for helping create Prairie View A&M for higher education for Blacks, who were not allowed to attend Texas A&M in College Station until the 1960s under then university president Earl Rudder.
Friday, the A&M football players and athletes from other A&M sports walked from the Bright Football Complex to near the Sul Ross statue, and then took part in a discussion about racial injustices, according to an account in the Bryan-College Station Eagle.
Mond and Ausbon joined others in a protest of the Sul Ross statue in late June. Mond in particular has since been singled out among some angry Aggies who believe the statue should remain standing on campus, as it has for the past century. A&M chancellor John Sharp also has said, “Anyone who knows the true history of Lawrence Sullivan Ross would never ask for his statue to be removed — it will not be removed.”
The Aggies are in the middle of camp in preparation for their Sept. 26 opener against Vanderbilt at Kyle Field — the season has been delayed and reconfigured to 10 SEC-only games because of the COVID-19 pandemic — and Mond said this past week he “just tries to have a cool, calm mindset with everything.”
“No matter my stance on an (issue), I will always have an open mind about the other side, because I would want the same respect from someone else — to be open minded about my side,” Mond said. “With anything going in, I’m always trying to grow and learn, and give people the same respect I’d want for myself.”
Mond added he realizes criticism of him calling for the statue’s removal received plenty of attention this summer, but there was a quieter, reassuring side that overwhelmed the detractors.
“No matter your stance on something, there’s always going to be an opposite side,” Mond said. “Besides all the pushback I got, there was definitely a lot more support. I don’t think many people saw that. … (And) no matter the type of pushback that I get, I’m going to be open-minded, but I’m also going to stand firm in what I believe in.”