It has been almost a year since Colin Kaepernick started his protest of the treatment and injustices black people face in America. It was last August during the San Francisco 49ers’ preseason games that Kaepernick began his silent protest during the ‘Star Spangled Banner’.
It is an issue just as hotly debated today, as it was when it began. And of course, Kaepernick has paid a price, at least professionally. There have been 24 quarterbacks signed by NFL teams since the end of last season, and not one of them are as good as Kaepernick. Yet, he remains without a team. Clearly, Kaepernick is feeling the blowback for his actions.
However, in the eyes of millions Kaepernick is a hero. He joins icons like Muhammad Ali, Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Russell, and others, for taking a stand.
The name of Ariyana Smith belongs on that list, too. Smith does not have the fame that the above mention have. However, it is important that you remember her name, and know her story.
In 2014, Smith was a member of the Knox College basketball team, located in Galesburg, Illinois.
In August of 2014 Mike Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was shot and killed by officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo. The incident sparked civil unrest in Ferguson, and created numerous nationwide protests of police brutality towards black people.
Smith was compelled to act. A junior on the Knox women’s basketball team, Smith felt she had to make her voice heard.
“…I was watching my Twitter feed and seeing pictures from Ferguson. People being tear-gassed. People being arrested,” Smith said, in a Dec. 2014 interview with the Register-Mail newspaper in Galesburg, Illinois.
“I saw people putting themselves out on that line. Standing up to call attention to the fact black lives matter,” she explained in the interview. “I decided it was time to put myself on that line, too. It was time for me to stand up and be counted.”
So, when Knox College was scheduled to play a game at Fontebonne University in Clayton, Mo. _ only a 20 minute drive to Ferguson, Mo., where Brown was killed _ Smith knew what she had to do.
“Our next game was scheduled to be played in Clayton, Missouri,” Smith said. “Our athletic director had come to us and said he didn’t know whether the game would be played there (Clayton), or at a neutral site, or at Knox.
“So the recognition of Ferguson was already there,” she added. “He said there were some concerns about our safety [in Clayton]. Ferguson was on everyone’s mind so it made sense. Once I found out we were going to Missouri [I decided] to make my demonstration there.”
After initially standing in line on the sidelines with her teammates during the playing of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’, Smith raised a clenched fist. Then she raised her hands over her head, and walked over to the American flag, and got on both knees. She then laid on the court, symbolizing the death of Brown.
Her coach, as well as other staff from Knox tried to get her off the floor, but Smith stayed there. When she finally got up, she headed to the locker room. Smith’s protest lasted a four minutes, or so.
“How could we, as informed college students and just people in general, be expected to go to Missouri and have everybody act like everything is OK and there was nothing else going on in the greater world?,” Smith said during the interview. “As an athletic department we hold ourselves to a higher commitment, we are representatives of excellence. But I have to be honest. The way we collectively conduct ourselves is anything but excellent.”
Smith was suspended from the team indefinitely by the school’s athletic director. It was changed to a one game suspension, and eventually the school rescinded its suspension.
As you might expect, some on campus were not happy with Smith. One student called her a ‘jigaboo’, and public opinion was mixed. Smith said she could not stand and do nothing.
The act essentially ended Smith’s playing career at Knox. She is not listed on the 2014-15 roster, which would have been her senior year.
Smith explained that one of the most disappointing things she dealt with wasn’t the racist fallout, but those who chose to be silent.
“It’s not the racists. It’s the people who say they know better,” she said. “The people who say they want to do better. And when they are confronted with an opportunity to show they care, they look away. The response is silence. The response is pacification.”
“I laid my body on the ground and held up that game. That was a last resort. That’s what I had, a last resort. The point of Ferguson, of talking about what happened to Mike Brown, all of it, is that you can’t separate what happened to Mike Brown, and the systematic racial injustice, or the systematic injustice in general.”
The courage Ariyana Smith showed at the age of 19, is the template of the courage and conviction all who feel the need to battle injustice, should show.
