RACISM AND CHOICE
Cindy Maddera
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There it was, wedged between posts about making cookies and silly dad jokes. A friend left an angry vague post about Mike Gundy not getting to have a choice. I took the bait and did a quick news search. Mike Gundy, the head football coach of Oklahoma State was photographed at the lake wearing an OAN shirt. OAN stands for One America News. I had to look them up. It’s a news organization that specializes in conspiracy theories and it is Trump’s favorite ‘news’ affiliation to cite. They are a tabloid that incites bigotry and hate. The picture of Mike Gundy wearing a shirt for a company that supports racist rhetoric did not, understandably, sit well with his players. One of those players is Chuba Hubbard, a player that OSU can not afford to lose if they want to win games. ESPN has nice accounting of the events. The important take away is that Mike Gundy sat down with his players and they had an important conversation about racism.
The thing is, everything is a choice and every choice has a consequence. In this case, Mike Gundy chose to wear a t-shirt supporting a tabloid that promotes bigotry. The consequences of this choice made an impression on his African American players and that impression is their coach, the man they are supposed to respect and listen to, does not respect or listen to them. How can they continue to be part of a so called team when there is mistrust and a lack of respect for their leader? Mike Gundy had and has many choices. He had a choice to not wear a shirt that supports racism. He had a choice to not even own that shirt. He has a choice to get his news from accurate news sources or at the very least more than one news source. He also had a choice to not talk to his players or have the uncomfortable conversation that so many of us white people avoid.
The article from ESPN does not go into details of the discussion between Gundy and his players. The outcome from the talks sounded positive, like he and the players came to an understanding and want to work together to make good changes. I really hope it does. I really hope they were able to have an honest discussion on racism. I really hope that Mike Gundy made a choice to truly listen to his players. The kind of listening you do to hear, not just to respond. Every thing in life is about choice. We can make a choice to allow hatefulness to cloud our judgement. We can choose to ignore the marginalized. We can chose to support companies who do all of those things. Or…we can choose the opposite. We can make a choice to listen.
We can make the choice to have the uncomfortable conversations about racism in this country.