NBA players will soon have the opportunity to have phrases rather than names on the backs of their jerseys. An attorney whose basketball career was ended by a car crash would like to add a few choices to the list.
And what Braeden Anderson is trying to do with his suggestions is change the level of discourse surrounding race relations in the United States.
“Thoughtful dialogue,” “Tact,” “Empathy,” “Bridge The Gap,” “Be Proactive,” and “Lead With Kindness,” are some of the suggestions from Anderson, an attorney specializing in banking regulations and securities enforcement at Sidley Austin LLP.
Anderson, who played for the Canadian National Team and is due to become a dual citizen of the United States and Canada later this summer, is troubled by the level of discourse in America relating to racial inequality.
And though he has no problem with any of the approved phrases for NBA jerseys — a list that reportedly includes “Black Lives Matter;” “Say Their Names;” “Vote;” “I Can’t Breathe;” “Justice;” “Peace;” “Equality;” “Freedom;” “Enough;” “Power to the People;” “Justice Now;” “Say Her Name;” “Sí Se Puede (Yes We Can);” “Liberation;” “See Us;” “Hear Us;” “Respect Us;” “Love Us;” “Listen;” “Listen to Us;” “Stand Up;” “Ally;” “Anti-Racist;” “I Am A Man;” “Speak Up;” “How Many More;” “Group Economics;” “Education Reform;” and “Mentor” — Anderson feels the time has come to get people thinking outside of the box while asking them to consider being somewhat colorblind as the national debate over matters of race moves forward.
“If you label a people as racist, which is happening now, you push people away,” Anderson said. “(President Donald) Trump is doing that, and white supremacy is becoming normalized. COVID-19 masks are political? Black people being profiled is political?
“I want to stop that trend.”
In making his case for a new, smarter level of discourse on race relations, Anderson points to a YouTube video featuring several prominent, wealthy black Americans who cringe at the current catchphrases and watchwords which have become so common. Have a look:
The views expressed in that video are black viewpoints, but they are not mainstream points of emphasis in a news culture that is not always filled with moderate voices. Too often, the people who scream loudest are the ones who get air time; people who argue for reason and moderation often find themselves drowned out.
And Anderson wants to change that, giving young Black men and women a different perspective from what they are often seeing and hearing on TV.
Racism is never going away; how people respond to it can change if some of the emotion is removed from the equation.
“In the United States, racism is blunt,” said Anderson, who was raised in a small town in Alberta. “In Canada, unconscious bias happens all the time, and they deal with it in a very passive way.”
Anderson recalls being called the n-word by a teacher when he was growing up and having no one to turn to, no recourse for how to deal with it. The son of a Nigerian father and an Irish mother, his family was the only mixed race family in their community, and he grew up more exposed than many Canadians (or Americans) to what it is like to be a tiny minority in a very homogeneous culture.
Anderson moved to North Carolina when he was in high school, then attended Fresno State, Kansas and Seton Hall on a basketball scholarship, earning his law degree after his neck was broken in a car accident (ending his playing career) when he was attending school in California. He joined Sidley Austin LLP shortly after graduating from Seton Hall, and he is now an adjunct professor at Monroe College as well as the Secretary of the Corporate Law division of the Black Bar Association in New York.
His goal is to get people thinking about matters of national interest from an enlightened perspective — an argument that is especially tough to make at a time when racial disharmony is at the top of the national agenda in the United States following a series of deaths of black Americans at the hands of police.
In an election year when President Trump is often accused of playing the race card to appeal to a certain segment of white voters, it creates an especially onerous task for a young man who has seen the same argument lead nowhere when it comes to finding a long-term solution to the systemic race relations that Black and brown Americans have been dealing with — with decidedly mixed results — for decades.
There is a segment of the American population that does not want to hear athletes preaching to them about how to behave and how to speak; yet there is a segment of the athlete population that believes their enhanced stature gives them a platform through which they can influence the national dialogue and seek change.
Navigating that minefield is not for the faint of heart, and Anderson knows that his message will not necessarily be welcome among some segments of the population.
But that is not stopping him.
He often thinks back to one of the first papers he submitted as a college student at Fresno State. He received an “F” from a professor that could not believe that Anderson was the actual author of the work — perhaps because of that professor’s past involvement with student-athletes; perhaps because the teacher was a closet racist.
From that experience, Anderson learned to approach each of his teachers privately and diplomatically and tell them that he was eager to learn what they had to teach.
Other students may have reacted differently, but Anderson had to decide which course of action would serve him best moving forward: Confrontation, or a non-confrontational approach. He chose the latter.
Anderson is also trying to choose the latter now in counseling how Black Americans should proceed going forward, and he is aware his message will not be well-received in some segments of that community.
Be that as it may, he feels strongly that his message is one that needs to be heard to raise the course of discourse at a time when the loudest voices too often get too much of the attention.
“The black community is tired of racism,” Anderson said.. They are tired of fighting, tired of being overlooked, not being seen. Just tired.
“For some, my advice will not be acceptable, and I want them to know that is totally OK. But there has to be a way that we are not pre-judged, and we need to focus on what we can personally control, and then execute with regard to changing.”
