Racism is Not a Footnote

An excerpt from The Players Tribune -

Racism Is Not a Historical Footnote 

By Bill Russell, NBA Hall of Famer

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I once interviewed Lester Maddox on my television show. It was 1969 and he was well known at the time as a Southern segregationist and former chicken restaurateur turned politician. Maddox and I had diametrically opposing perspectives. He got out of the restaurant business after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed so that he wouldn’t have to serve Black people, while I once refused to play an exhibition game after a restaurant refused to serve me or my Black teammates.

Maddox made a show out of his refusal to integrate his restaurant. He waved axe handles and guns at peaceful protesters and argued, loudly, that being forced to serve Black people encroached on his freedom. He closed his restaurant in Atlanta, ran for governor of Georgia, and won.

So why would I give a platform to an individual who held such racist beliefs? First, part of freedom is allowing everyone — even the most hateful people — to speak. And second, doing so also exposes how a person comes to hold such beliefs. Now, Lester Maddox wasn’t exactly an intellectual giant, so I doubt he would’ve been able to question the culture he had been born into if he tried, but having him on my show exposed him for the fool he was and might have also given other people some things to think about regarding the plausibility of  “separate but equal.”

Even though that moment has long since passed, I’m struck by how similar it felt to the moment I’m living through now. In 2020, Black and Brown people are still fighting for justice, racists still hold the highest offices in the land, and kids today still grow up with cultural norms that aren’t different enough from the ones that Lester Maddox grew up with.

In 2020, Black and Brown people are still fighting for justice.

Now, when I say Black and Brown people are still fighting for justice 50 years after I interviewed a prominent segregationist — “an old country boy” who ran for political office on a platform of hate and won[1]— I don’t mean to sound surprised. I’m not. White people are surprised by that. In fact, I find that white people are often surprised that racial injustice still exists outside of a few “bad apples.” This surprise is particularly dangerous because racial injustice is rampant throughout every sector of American society, from education to health care to sports, and the fact that this remains surprising to many reveals exactly how different Black and white people’s experiences of life in America are.

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/articles/bill-russell-nba-racial-injustice?utm_source=RSS