Three Testimonies of Racism in Sports
What do a professional tennis player and two soccer players have in common?
As society debates the extent and the existence of racism, professional athletes are openly dealing with brutal facts.
Professional tennis player Sloane Stephens maintains that over the course of her career, racism has gotten worse.
"Yes, it's obviously been a problem my entire career. It has never stopped. If anything, it's only gotten worse."
"I mean, obviously when there is FBI investigations going on with what people are saying to you online, it's very serious."
Being a famous Person of Color who has social media accounts presents an additional challenge. Even though software has been developed to limit racist comment that comes through social media, Stephens explained that the software, which she doesn’t use, will not edited out all offending language:
"I have a lot of obviously key words banned on Instagram and all of these things, but that doesn't stop someone from just typing in an asterisk or typing it in a different way, which obviously software most of the time doesn't catch."
Stephens has accepted that dealing with racism will be part of her career:
“People online have the free reign to say and do whatever they want behind fake pages, which is obviously very troublesome. It’s something I have had to deal with my whole career and something I will continue to deal with, I’m sure. That’s that.”
Meanwhile, European soccer continues to deal with racism, and dealing with it poorly. Prejudice has long affected its Players of Color.
Spanish soccer league LaLiga is one of the premier soccer leagues in the world, and Real Madrid player Vinicius Jr. is considered one of the sport’s best players.
But racism doesn’t care about greatness.
Vinicius has learned that lesson many times over.
An effigy of him hung from a bridge.
Racist slurs hurled at him recorded on camera.
Chants of “You are a monkey, Vinícius, you are a monkey.”
After recently enduring the tenth reported incident since 2021, some progress was made. Arrests were made and other actions were taken.
But it may be too late for Real Madrid and LaLiga to keep Vinicius.
The Brazilian is seriously considering leaving the Spanish league, which does not have the punitive measures found in other European soccer leagues. In Spain, law enforcement is the only recourse for abused players.
Vinicius says,
“‘As long as skin color is more important than the brightness of the eyes, there will be war.’ I have this sentence tattooed on my body.”
“I (am a) victim of xenophobia and racism... But none of this started yesterday.”
At the opposite level of the sport, Teutonia Ottensen was playing Bremen SV when Teutonia’s Black captain Marcus Coffie was the target of racist taunts from a Bremen player.
The Teutonia team responded by leaving the field. The game was cancelled, but rather than not counting the game or continuing it later, the North German Soccer Federation awarded the game to Bremen at the score of 5-0.
Even though Teutonia was leading 2-1 when the incident occurred.
Bremen said that its player denied making racist statements, and they believed him. The incident was not witnessed by match officials.
Teutonia protested the decision, saying:
“This judgement and the way it was written demonstrate a tolerant attitude towards the problem of racism underlying this incident.”
“It signals to all players who are confronted with racist insults on the soccer field that their options for dealing with the problem are limited to what the refereeing team can see. The questioning of whether an incident of this type is enough for a game to be abandoned not only borders on ignorance, but it also makes all the steps taken against racism so far look like measures that are only welcomed if they fit the prevailing circumstances of the club or association.”
“The decision is not just an example of what is wrong in the sport, what is still wrong in our society, but it’s the latest example of looking the other way, the latest example of a decision to tolerate racism in the sport and therefore in society.”
Racism is real and Athletes of Color come face to face with it on a regular basis.
Anti-racism campaigns have helped.
But Sloane Stephens, Vinicius Jr., and Marcus Coffie will tell you that there is a long way to go.