Over the past few weeks, our social media feeds have been flooded with powerful, shocking and motivational news from the Black Lives Matter movement. I had an uneasy feeling in my stomach, however, when I read about the Skidmore College Men’s Lacrosse team fundraiser for Harlem Lacrosse, on Instagram last week. When I saw the post, I felt uncomfortable. I went downstairs to the living room and brought the post up to my housemates, who also felt uneasy by it. I decided to write a statement to the Skidmore Men’s Lacrosse team through their Instagram direct messages and encouraged my friends to do the same thing. The caption from their original post read:
“With all that’s going on recently in the US and around the world, there is no better time to make a difference in our community. @skidmoremlax is teaming up with @harlem_lacrosse in a fundraiser to help create opportunity for these up and coming athletes. They are outstanding kids and the future of the sport, and they need our help. To participate just tag three people and @harlem_lacrosse , and use #gameready . Please use the link in our bio if you would like to support the cause by donating. Thank you and spread the word! #gotbreds🐎”
My response was as follows:
“To whom it may concern,
I’m reaching out in response to the Skidmore Men’s Lacrosse fundraiser that the team has been posting about on social media. In light of the bigger issues that are occurring in our country in regards to racism and black lives matter, this fundraiser, despite having good intentions, comes across as the team having a white superiority complex. There are far more effective ways to “bring the community together” in this time of crisis. The black community needs its white allies to stand with them by donating to bail funds, signing petitions and educating those around us. This fundraiser is highly inappropriate and is an embarrassment to the Skidmore community. It is necessary to read the room in situations like this and donating to a predominantly black lacrosse institution is not helping the black community fight against the racism and injustices that are occurring in our country.
Thank you,
Cecily Szady”
After a few hours of the fundraiser being posted, there was a buzz about it within the Skidmore community. Students began commenting on the Instagram post expressing their concerns. The first comment which received 96 likes read, “You forgot about #blacklivesmatter”. The comment addressed one of the main complaints about this fundraiser, that it failed to directly address the larger issues at hand. The phrase “with all that’s going on recently in the US and around the world” that starts off the Instagram post is a poor and vague attempt to do this. The only mention of Black Lives Matter was from a player defending the post in which he wrote “Black Lives Do Matter” in quotation marks. It is undermining to the Black Lives Matter movement that this statement is placed in quotation marks. This is a serious and legitimate movement that is fighting against police brutality and racial injustice in the United States, and its power was diminished when this player quoted the phrase instead of writing it plainly and proudly.
Following my direct message to the team’s Instagram account, I received an email from Joseph Martin, the head lacrosse coach, addressing the concerns I had listed. His email highlighted Skidmore’s long lasting relationship with the Harlem Lacrosse program and the positive effects of this fundraiser on these high school athletes. I then responded to his email, emphasizing once more that the concerns about the fundraiser were not about the Harlem Lacrosse organization itself, but about the poor timing at which the fundraiser was posted and promoted by the team--especially with minimal allusion to police brutality, the death of George Floyd, or the Black Lives Matter movement.
From a predominantly white team that holds great respect on Skidmore’s campus, this is disappointing. The fundraiser comes across as a tokenization of Black youth; it seems as though the team is making an attempt to prove that they are not racist by showing their proximity to young Black lacrosse players, rather than an attempting to do any real anti-racist work. This is emphasized by the fact that, for the majority of these men, this fundraiser post was the only one on their personal Instagram pages addressing police brutality and Black Lives Matter at all. As white people, it is our job to be allies and stand with those who are being oppressed, which the team failed to do.
I also expressed my thoughts to Dean Banks in which I received a similar email as the one from Joseph Martin, about the greatness of the Harlem Lacrosse fundraiser and how the money raised directly benefits aspiring Black athletes. I once again repeat that the issue with the fundraiser is not its intentions but rather, it is the timing and the specific wording of the post that is problematic. Yes, the work being done to better the lives of inner city Black youth is important and my intentions are not to undermine that work. However, their failure to address Black Lives Matter, even after being called out, is problematic.
All I am asking for is a change to the fundraising post’s caption, one that would directly highlight what is going on in the country and address Black Lives Matter. The team’s inability to learn from and recognize their mistakes is a red flag. Several of the team members have unfollowed peers that liked and/or posted comments about the problems pertaining to the fundraiser.
A rogue account (without any posts or a profile picture) “@woodstick73688634,” responded to a comment with “Ok Karen,” which was then deleted due to backlash. The term “Karen” has been used in pop culture to reference white privileged women who appear as whiny and bothersome. Petty actions such as unfollowing people with differing opinions and needing to make a fake account to ridicule an extremely serious topic, is immature. Being able to acknowledge one’s mistakes and grow from them in a productive way is an essential skill that, from my experience, Skidmore expects of its students.
It is important now more than ever for this team to step up and stand in solidarity with the Black community. I challenge the Skidmore Men’s Lacrosse team to do better and address their wrongdoings. The original Instagram post blew up and has now garnered 52 comments, with some of the comments even gaining over 100 likes. Regardless of whether the team chooses to speak out on this issue, it is empowering to see Skidmore students coming together to voice their opinions on something that they disagree with. Skidmore students must keep using their voices and holding themselves, this institution and their peers accountable.
See below for resources to educate yourself, donate, petitions to sign and other ways to support the Black Lives Matter movement:
General Resources:
● Collective documents/websites of ways to donate, how to protest, petitions to sign, current events and places to donate
○ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WUJUAQs_vMDixJAWRMONwyvfdEcPvSFwX5_ExQhytDg/edit
○ https://blackliveswillalwaysmatter.carrd.co/#blm
○ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CjZMORRVuv-I-qo4B0YfmOTqIOa3GUS207t5iuLZmyA/edit
○ https://useyourvoice.carrd.co/
○ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oThW1dNm2DolY3vXJeS03T2emzjubHwB56qbCnGNnMM/edit
● Skidmore OSDP Instagram (@skid_osdp)
○ A collection of anti-racist books for continual learning has been posted
● Skidmore College Black Lives Matter Resources (Created by a Skidmore student) https://www.instagram.com/p/CBOtR9fH1Rc/?igshid=8pltmj9n1al4
Books:
● The Sellout by Paul Beatty
● So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
● Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? By Beverly Daniel Tatum
● The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
● Educational material (articles, books, excerpts, essays, etc.) about racial injustice, white privilege, Black Lives Matter and police brutality (Created by a Skidmore student) https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UbJUuzv3UVVdCHxmYKjGyQLQDYl-KblvOdzH-hq5xkE/edit
Petitions:
● https://pendingpetition.carrd.co/
● https://blacklivesmatter.com/petitions/
● https://blacklivesmatter.com/defundthepolice/
● https://blackliveswillalwaysmatter.carrd.co/#blmpetitions
Texts:
● Text “Floyd” “Enough” and “Justice” to 55156
● Text “JUSTICE” to 668366
● Text “SIGN SEUDKP” to 50409
● Text “SIGN RISTUS” to 50409
Films/TV Shows:
● Netflix
○ Explained: The Racial Wealth Gap
○ Time: The Kalief Browder Story
○ When they See Us
○ 13th
○ Who Killed Malcom X?
○ Dear White People
● Hulu
○ If Beale Street Could Talk
○ Blindspotting
○ The Hate U Give
Places to donate:
● How to donate without spending money (the money collected from the advertisements on the videos goes to NAACP) https://www.allure.com/story/how-to-support-black-lives-matter-without-money
○ Videos that can be streamed
■ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKo8OrBdLz8
■ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1qXHvAJIbA
● Bail funds
○ All https://bailfunds.github.io/
○ New York Emergency Release Fund https://emergencyreleasefund.com/
● American Civil Liberties Union
○ https://action.aclu.org/give/now
● General Donations
○ https://nymag.com/strategist/article/where-to-donate-for-black-lives-matter.html
○ https://time.com/5849721/how-to-help-black-lives-matter-protests/
○ https://www.instagram.com/p/CBG0JYnDP5N/?igshid=1v5qjwbyqnawk
Black owned businesses in Saratoga Springs:
● Current Black owned businesses https://saratogaliving.com/facebook-518-foodies-black-minority-owned-restaurants/
● Historical information about Black owned businesses http://ssmp.skidmore.edu/exhibits/show/burleigh_in_saratoga/african_american_saratoga_spri