Beyond the Blackout, time to follow through.
On Tuesday, Major League Soccer replaced its news scroll and ad spaces with a black background. Bundesliga clubs such as Borussia Monchengladbach and Bayern Munich displayed a black block with the hashtag #BlackOutTuesday. Many a club and league have spoken out, both in support of the Black community and against racism and social injustice. It extended to the pitch when Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho wore a shirt underneath saying “Justice for George Floyd”.
George Floyd died at the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis while three other officers looked on. This was the latest of too many incidents where an unarmed black person died at the hands of the police. It has now sparked eight days of demonstrations, rioting, and looting across the United States.
Newcastle United’s DeAndre Yedlin tweeted a text he received from his grandfather two days after Floyd’s death.
Liverpool, Arsenal, and Wolves all took knees in support for Black Lives Matter. A fitting demonstration considering four years ago Colin Kapernick was condemned for taking a knee during the National Anthem for addressing the same issues we are facing now.
Racist incidents have certainly not been limited to North America as Ashley Young can attest to. Thierry Henry has made his thoughts known. Former Manchester City and now Real Salt Lake defender Nedum Onuoha says he does not feel “100% safe” in the USA.
These are just a handful of examples of people and organizations speaking out against what is being rightly perceived as social injustice, prejudice, and systemic racism.
We are a website covering a sport that is facetiously considered “a matter of life and death”. The incident in Minneapolis and the aftermath that has played out all over the world (as well as Donald Trump’s porous response) show that we need to be dealing with something much more important than that.
We at Prost Amerika are appalled at the treatment of black Americans like George Floyd at the hands of the police, and stand with the protestors and Black Lives Matter movement.
The hard part will be to do as what every good youth soccer coach tells their young charges after an initial attempt on goal–follow through. Everyone needs to follow through and push toward the goal of reforming an unjust system, one that allows racial injustices to flourish, in order to create a better free society that helps the many, including the poor and not just the rich.
One can only hope that George Floyd’s death, and that of many other black citizens in this county, and its continuing aftermath serves as a wake-up call for the entire world after years of hitting the snooze bar every time the alarm goes off.
The great Martin Luther King said that “riot is the language of the unheard”. It will our actions in the weeks and months to come that will determine if we have finally listened.
All lives do not matter unless Black lives matter as much as all others.
