When I was a college basketball player, some believed we were treated differently from other Black and Brown people. An event last weekend suggests otherwise
It was 1996, my first day stepping foot on Syracuse University’s campus. I saw a big student protest was taking place so, with my freshman’s inquisitive mind, I ventured over to see what was going on.
I listened to a passionate sista named Kathy Ade, the president of Syracuse’s student African-American Society. She stood there with her Bantu knots and a megaphone addressing the crowd, discussing the fact that campus security was now going to be able to carry pepper spray. In the 90s – which my daughter Baby Sierra calls “the 1900s,” just to keep me humble – campus security carrying pepper spray was a big deal. Now, they all carry guns.
The fear was that they’d use the spray on Black and Brown students without hesitation, at the slightest perceived sign of trouble.
Syracuse’s campus newspaper, the Daily Orange, printed a photo of myself and Roland Williams, who would go on to play in the NFL, standing at the rally alongside the sista with the megaphone. A few days after the protest, Kathy found me on the quad to thank me for lending my visibility and privilege as a basketball player to their cause. She said she seriously doubted the police would ever pepper spray one of us.
Etan Thomas played in the NBA from 2000 through 2011. He is a published poet, activist and motivational speaker
