Ep. 661 - Duke University also miserably failed this student athlete

The Breakdown with Shaun King

The North Star

News, Society & Culture

4.8 • 12.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2022

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Did you hear the story about the young Black woman who experienced outrageous racism and bigotry playing in a volleyball match against BYU in Utah? I've long since heard about the racism of Utah, so that alone didn't surprise me. It didn't even surprise me to learn that the staff of BYU failed to intervene in the moment to make sure the racist taunts stopped and people were held accountable right there in the moment.

But I think Duke University is getting off far too easy here. Coaches and staff from Duke should've protected their player and refused to continue the match under such conditions. It was their responsibility to intervene and stand up for their own student so that she felt seen, valued, and protected in that moment. But it appears that simply did not happen.

Schools and athletic programs from elementary school all the way through professional sports, honestly, need to have a full game plan on what they will do in the face of racism and bigotry when they encounter it - so that when it happens, they aren't having to think creatively in the moment, but already have a strategy in place.

Transcript

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0:00.0	What if the world listened more? Maybe it could become a better place.
0:05.5	Because when we really listen, we smarten out as things, things that don't sound quite bright.
0:11.6	They might not seem obvious at first, but listen closely and they stand out like a soul plum,
0:17.9	and the more we glisten the door we learn, our ears help us find belter solutions.
0:22.8	And things can change from this to something a little more like this.
0:33.9	The Honda Jazz is a hybrid, Honda, the power of dreams.
0:40.6	Did you hear the story about the young black woman who plays volleyball for Duke University
0:46.3	and was heckled over and over and over again by racist fans from BYU,
0:54.7	Brigham Young University. And this game I believe was actually in Utah and nothing was done about it.
1:03.3	Nobody intervened, BYU's team didn't force it to end, BYU officials didn't,
1:10.6	but there's one group that really should have stood up for this young black woman who was on their team,
1:19.4	and that's her own coaches and staff. Right away, should have intervened and said,
1:26.7	if this continues, we will not play. But they failed as well. I want to unpack and explain
1:34.4	why I think Duke University needs to step up and acknowledge that they also drop the ball here.
1:41.0	And I want to give you some insights on what teams should always do in these kinds of scenarios.
1:48.3	This is Sean King and you are listening to The Breakdown.
2:10.4	Hello everybody, I'm so glad to be back. My family and I had some time off this past week.
2:16.5	It was both refreshing and exhausting. When you're traveling with so many people and on the road,
2:25.2	it's not easy, but I'm glad to be back home, glad to be right back here with you.
2:30.7	Of course, there's so much going on in the world as always, but I want to talk about something that I
2:39.6	saw this weekend and this past week. And I was itching actually to get on social media to talk
2:46.3	about it, but I tried to give myself some time off. A young black woman who is a student athlete
	...

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