I Believe Marcus Smart! by David J. Leonard

I Believe Marcus Smart! by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Irrespective of denials and excuses, the existence of supposed video evidence, press conferences, or explanatory apologies from Jeff Orr, I believe Marcus Smart. I believe him because according Oklahoma State announcers, “OSU radio said immediately after the incident that Smart told the OSU coaches that the fan said THE word.”
I believe Smart because that word is hurled at African Americans daily. According to Howard J. Ehrlich, director of The Prejudice Institute, between 850,000 and one million students (roughly 25 percent of students of color and five percent of white students-experience racially and ethnically-based violence (name calling, verbal aggression, harassing phone calls and “other forms of psychological intimidation”) each year. And this only reflects what is reported and what is seen. 
As Leslie Picca and Joe Feagin have discovered with Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage, white students use the n-word and tell racist jokes with great frequency, a reality that impacts the culture and environment of America’s colleges and universities.   To deny his truth is to ignore the daily violence experienced by all African American students.
Ibelieve Marcus Smart because of the history of American sports, a history marred by white fans subjecting black athletes to virulent racism.  The history of integration is a history of racist slurs and violence.  The history of American sports from boxing to golf, from collegiate to professional, is one of racial violence.
Despite a yearning to imagine fan racism as a European soccer problem, fan racism is a reality of contemporary sports. Last year, fans at a University of Minnesota at Duluth mocked the visiting University of North Dakota hockey team, jeering “Small Pox Blankets” – a chant that belittles the school and Native Americans through a reference to its mascot, which converts the reality of genocide into a sporting smack down.  In 2012, members of the pep band from the University of Southern Mississippi yelled, “Where’s your green card?” at Kansas State University freshman Angel Rodriguez (who was born in Puerto Rico) as he took foul shots.
In Pittsburgh (PA), fans and players from Brentwood High hurled racial epithets at Monessen High basketball players.  During this game, three fans also dressed in banana costumes surrounding the primarily black Monessen team, as they left for the locker at halftime, yelling epithets while making monkey noises.  Some parents reported that members of the Brentwood squad joined in, calling its opponent, “monkeys and cotton pickers.”  These are not isolated incidences. As Dave Zirin noted,
I have over the years spoken to a ton of former college basketball players who have stories about having racial slurs tossed at them by fans. They are conditioned before games to never go into the stands, and just keep their anger in check, no matter the cost to their mental and physical health. They are also pressured not speak about it to the media after games, to keep up the illusion of college athletics as some kind of innocent, wholesome endeavor. This dynamic, as much as anything, speaks to the utter powerlessness of so-called student-athletes.
Shortly after Saturday’s night game, Desmond Mason tweeted “I was called the N word EVERY game I played in Lubbock!” He noted a similar level of racial hostility when playing in College Station.  Racism and harassment is as part of college (and professional) sports as tailgating, cheerleaders, and corporate dollars.   Just yesterday, Arizona State fans spit on players from University of Oregon as the left the floor.  
Smart’s truth resonates with so many other truths, so many other testimonies, so many other voices.  
In the face of widespread criticism, denials, and illegibility of black anger, I stand with Marcus Smart because he had every right to be furious.  Who knows how often he has to deal with racism, taunting, and workplace violence?  I cannot imagine. 
It is unacceptable how many pundits have concluded, “Whatever that fan said, Marcus Smart was wrong to react.”  Such logic erases anti-black racism and Smart’s own humanity.  It makes clear that no matter what was said, Marcus Smart has no right to react, no right to be angry, and no right to show the world his emotions.  I stand with Marcus because I refuse to stand with those who taunted him and those who aid and abet a culture that normalizes this violence. 
Whether we believe reports that the “N Word” was hurled at Smart or the claims that he just called him “piece of crap” his muted rage is understandable.  His restraint should be noted; the restraint of countless other athletes should be celebrated.
I stand with Marcus because neither the “N word” nor calling a person a "piece of crap" is acceptable.  Each of these terms is dehumanizing and disrespectful; each is violent and part of a larger history of racism.  Clearly, given the history of white supremacy, the “N word” and “piece of crap” are not the same, yet “piece of crap” in this context is encoded with racism.
And what does it say about sports and its racial contours that yelling "piece of crap" has somehow become normalized and part of the “fan experience.”  It’s about time we said no to this sort of behavior; it’s about time we said no to the hostility, violence, and racism which has no place in collegiate sports (or elsewhere). 
I stand with Marcus because the hostility undermines both his educational experience and his work environment. Just as we must oppose all forms of workplace harassment, we must oppose a culture of hostility that traffics in racism, sexism, homophobia, and dehumanizing rhetoric.
I am disgusted by the seeming acceptance of Mr. Orr’s story from Oklahoma State, from the media, and from all too many within the public discourse.  The failure to hear Marcus is yet another instance where black life, and the truths uttered by African Americans is denied. 
I stand with Marcus Smart because despite being 19 he isn’t afforded the innocence and youthfulness that is deployed daily in explanation of actual bad behavior from countless white youth. That innocence has been reserved for a man who has a history of bad behavior; for a booster, who “represents” his university by harassing and berating college students. 
I stand with Marcus Smart because no matter what Mr. Orr said, he was going to be treated the same way: with demonization, discipline and punishment. Had a fan held up a sign with the "N Word,” eliciting a reaction from an African American player, do we really think the media, the coach, the university and others would be like "We support you; we you’re your anger; we understand why you pushed him.” Clearly not. 
I am sick of the endless efforts to protect whiteness all while criminalizing black bodies.  Marcus Smart has been subjected to an array of instruments of disciplinarity and As noted by Albert Camus, “In such a world of conflict, a world of victims and executioners, it is the job of thinking people, not to be on the side of the executioners.” Marcus Smart refused to be a victim; and I refuse to stand with anyone but Marcus Smart.
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David J. Leonard is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman.  Leonard’s latest books include  After Artest: Race and the Assault on Blackness   (SUNY Press) and African Americans on Television: Race-ing for Ratings (Praeger Press) co-edited with Lisa Guerrero. He is currently working on a book Presumed Innocence: White Mass Shooters in the Era of Trayvon about gun violence in America.