Calling Audibles Part XIX: The Sound of Silence
I’ll admit it, during the last several weeks I lost my stinger about speaking out about the problems of big-time football. I felt like “what’s the point.” I felt silenced by the situation—by our discernment of what we should do next, by the way UNC took John and me and the other coaches’ families out of the conversation, by the fact that I am female and there are those who feel that because of that I should be quiet about football. Truth is, I was enforcing my own silence on these topics.
On Wednesday I participated in the panel discussion at NCCU Law School on Student-Athlete Human Rights moderated by Dr. Emmett Gill, a leader in the movement to secure due process for college student-athletes.
At the panel we talked a lot about silence.
We talked about the disturbing silence from UNC officials about these injustices. As Justice Bob Orr said, “no one in leadership from UNC has stood up and said what happened was wrong.”
We talked about the imposed silence on the players and coaches during the investigation that allowed injustice and untruths to flourish. Former player Deunta Williams talked about how he was told not to talk to anyone and that he was told that he didn’t need a lawyer if he’d done nothing wrong. He talked about how he was never told about the seriousness of what was actually happening.
We talked about the silence imposed on the coaches and the outward threats to his job John received if he spoke out about what was happening. We talked about the secrecy and how no one really knew what was happening. By the time it was clear that power was being abused and rights were being violated, it was too late.
Attorney Noah Huffstetler, who represents Michael McAdoo, talked about the legally capricious procedures of the NCAA. He pointed out that the hyped up language we hear on commercials for the NCAA about how they are there to promote and support student-athletes is the absolute opposite of their practices. When investigations are underway support and advocacy for players is non-existent. Where there was feel good hyperbole about student-athletes, there is only silence.
We talked about the silence of the media on the true stories about so many of these players who did nothing wrong. Radio personality Bomani Jones shared his frustration about the easy caricatures that are portrayed in the news about NCAA investigations all around the country. Media outlets of all stripes remain silent on what really happened here at UNC.
We talked about the silence of white mentalities around the complexities and ambiguities of race in the UNC case. With nothing to go on, it was an easy step for many white people in power to take to believe that a football team of largely young black men was full of cheaters and criminals. Believing someone is guilty until proven innocent allows silence to take the truth captive. And some white people continue to look for ways to deny that race had anything to do with what happened at UNC. So far there is largely silence around the issue of race in this situation.
And we heard about the silence of the NCAA on the rights of players. In the 400+ page NCAA manual there is NOT ONE page that talks about players’ rights.
The sound of silence can be deafening.
The panel was a blessed breaking of so many layers of silence. As Deunta pointed out during the panel, “it feels good to hear others talk about this and get to tell my story.” Hearing that from him gave me a renewed sense of the gift of testimony—even when it is risky to say what you need to say, what you should say out loud. The sound of truth is powerful, liberating, healing.
At the same time, this call to testify is a challenge because being a truth teller doesn’t often win you lots of friends. Jesus showed us that pretty clearly time and time again.
At the end of the panel Dr. Gill asked us “so what can we do?” All of us talked about systemic change, about multi-layered approaches to reform that included the legal system, universities, media, and cultural awareness. And we all agreed to keep talking, to keep telling our stories, to keep telling the truth.
The audible here for me is that the sound of silence that I feel imposed from the outside cannot be what I allow to prevail inside myself. I will continue to speak out about student-athlete human rights even with the risks that doing so involves.
I am thankful that my voice is not the only one speaking out—but I am a part of a growing chorus of people who aren’t afraid to make the sound of silence loud enough to be heard.
Calling Audibles Part XVIII: Bright Lights, Small Shadows
…truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these,
you did not do it to me…
~Matthew 25: 45
My seven year old daughter woke up this morning and said, “It’s Super Bowl Eve!” Indeed it is. And as a football family we are, of course, looking forward to the biggest game of the year, the pinnacle of football’s yearly NFL season. And we are especially excited for players like Hakeem Nicks, who we know from John’s years coaching at UNC. And we’re pulling for friends coaching in the Big Game like Coach Pat Flaherty, who John worked with at the Chicago Bears.
Yes, it’s Super Bowl Eve! So get your chips and dips, your kegs and deviled eggs ready. Get your flat screens warmed up. The big day is almost here!
The energy of such a cultural spectacle is contagious. And it is great to enjoy the game and all the hype that comes with it. But before we get taken in by the bright lights, this year I am taking some time to remember the small shadows that can be forgotten when the bright lights come to town.
There is growing awareness that the Super Bowl generates revenues not just through the normal sources of sales we think of in the hosting city (ticket sales, restaurant and hotel revenues, parking, etc.). The Super Bowl is also prime time for the most sorted business in our world–sex trafficking of children as young as 10 and 11 years old.
The State of Indiana has stepped out in front of this deeply disturbing fact and passed a fast-track law this past Monday to strengthen penalties for human trafficking. And a woman named Theresa Flores, a victim of sex trafficking when she was 15, and her group Save Our Adolescents from Prostitution (S.O.A.P.) are distributing over 30,000 bars of soap to area hotels that have national trafficking hotlines printed on them. Flores uses soap to reach out to victims and witnesses because of her own personal experience. She remembers going into a hotel bathroom as a teenager and trying to get cleaned up with a bar of soap after being auctioned off to the highest bidder and being sexually abused 20 times in one night.
Child sex trafficking is a very lucrative activity in America these days. Awareness about its prevalence (one study estimates 300,000 kids in America are victims of child sex trafficking) is growing, but that growing awareness is not keeping up with increasing demand and increasing profits.
Shared Hope International, a group started by former Congresswoman Linda Smith, has helped to educate the public and advocate for smarter policies and more effective laws to combat this horrible evil in our midst. Even so, finding a way to pay for sex with a child is not hard in this country apparently. One trafficker said to an undercover Shared Hope International investigator, ”If you pay the price you can get what you want, and I can get it for you. Now if you want something really young, that $200, it’s just going to cost you a little bit more than that.”
The sex is cheap and the profits are staggering. Siddharth Kara, a former investment banker who left his lucrative career to become an informed abolitionist of modern day sex slavery sheds light on just how lucrative this business is in today’s world. In his recent interview with Forbes magazine, Kara explains that “Slavery today functions for the same purpose it has throughout history: to maximize profit my minimizing or eliminating the cost of labor.”
Kara says, “Whereas the average slave two centuries ago could generate a 15% to 20% annual return on investment for his or her exploiters, that same ‘ROI’ [Return On Investment] today is several hundred percent per year and over 900% per year for sex trafficking.”
What can we do? Kara asserts in another interview with Columbia magazine that, “Only after understanding how sex trafficking functions, as a profit-driven business, can a more effective abolitionist movement be deployed that will attack the business by dismantling its fundamental premise: the exploitation of a vast supply of potential slaves to meet the demand for ever-greater profits in the worldwide commercial sex industry.”
Football is big business. And it props up a lot of other businesses, too. The bright lights of the Super Bowl spectacle cast these small shadows of children ensnared in a sinister cycle of violence and exploitation. The sex trade wouldn’t be as lucrative if there wasn’t the demand that there is. And the person who wants it could be sitting next to you at the big game or have the hotel room down the hall.
Keep your eyes open, football fans, you are on the front lines tomorrow. The audible to call is yours. Enjoying the game doesn’t mean leaving behind your human decency. Adopt a no harm policy in the fun you have–fun is ok if it does no one harm. And don’t avert your eyes when you see something that doesn’t look right– a young child with an adult who does not appear to be their parent, perhaps inappropriately dressed, and maybe avoiding eye contact. Do not be blinded by the bright lights of the Super Bowl so much so that you miss the small shadows around you.
And when Monday comes, maybe we’ll all have learned something. Maybe our eyes will be better able to see the least of these in our midst in the normal light of everyday.
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