“Racism is not a historical footnote.”
This statement of fact is both as true as the day is long, and how Boston Celtics legendary big man Bill Russell titled an essay he penned for The Players’ Tribune.
The lifelong civil rights activist who just happened to be the winningest basketball player — and possibly athlete — of all time felt it was time to put some words to paper on an issue that is, as Russell emphasizes, no footnote in the past or the present.
Instead, Russell goes to great lengths to illustrate the immanence and danger contemporary racism creates in Black lives, as well as the ways racism hasn’t gone away to the extent some think — instead, it has simply rebranded.
If we are going to eradicate #racism, we have to begin with education that teaches about ALL American history and how our country is shaped by that history. @PlayersTribune @NBA @BostonGlobe #BLM @SLAMonline @espn @BleacherReport @celtics https://t.co/ujs3y29N4G
— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) September 14, 2020
Drawing connections between lynching and the disappearances of young Black men in his youth with their disproportionately fatal encounters with police today, the 11-time Celtics champion is not without hope, however.
“The effects of racial terror perpetrated over hundreds of years don’t disappear simply because America wills them to,” advises Russell.
“Yet all is not hopeless. There are ways to make them disappear. They disappear with national reckoning, with an examination of our cultural norms and our power structures, with the dismantling and rebuilding of our institutions, and by ending voter suppression so that everyone can vote for change from the bottom to the top of the ballot. In 1969, Black and Brown folks were fighting against social injustices that are no less pervasive today, the mode of delivery has just changed.”
“They are easy to see if you only look, particularly in politics,” he explains, drawing on the words of a segregationist from the 1960s contrasted with the President of the United States’ words today.
Boston’s Jaylen Brown supports George Floyd bill for police reform https://t.co/chpT5nMUy8
— The Celtics Wire (@TheCelticsWire) September 15, 2020
He notes how monuments commemorating the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy were erected in Boston, Massachusetts in that era — not as a means of celebrating heritage, clearly given the geography involved — but “in response to desegregation.”
Russell’s essay is both a gut shot in the shortcomings of society since the days of his youth as a civil rights activist alongside John Lewis and Martin Luther King, as well as an homage to those today who have picked up the thrown gauntlet of this struggle, like Boston’s Jaylen Brown.
If you haven’t, take a moment to read it with an open mind, and perhaps an allied spirit, because, as the Celtics icon points out, without justice for all, none of us are free.
PHOTOS: Boston Celtics player salaries for 2019-20, future seasons
