Southern University: Hip-Hop & Politics

Only When They're Winning (Olivia James)

• Eugene B. Lee-Johnson • Season 2 • Episode 1

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Gendered racism profoundly impacts how Black male athletes are treated, especially in football-obsessed communities where they're celebrated for performance but dehumanized when they make mistakes or show vulnerability. This phenomenon reflects deeper societal issues about how Black men are valued conditionally rather than recognized as complete human beings.

• The tragic story of Kyron Lacey, a 22-year-old LSU wide receiver who took his life after facing criminal charges and public condemnation
• How fans quickly turned on Lacey following a fatal car accident, labeling him a "murderer" without waiting for due process
• Black male athletes experience a unique intersection of racism and sexism, creating intense pressure and expectations
• Sports culture celebrates Black men's bodies while ignoring their minds, mental health needs, and emotional pain
• Historical contexts including slavery, incarceration, and patriarchal expectations continue shaping how we view Black male athletes
• Media figures like Shannon Sharpe sometimes reinforce problematic narratives about Black athletes, particularly Black women
• The importance of solidarity as a two-way street - community support must be earned through consistent accountability
• We must humanize Black athletes beyond their performance, not just when they're winning or entertaining us


Speaker 1:

oh, I'm olivia, and today we're going to talk about something that kind of cuts deep in our community, especially here in louisiana. We're going to be talking about the lives of black athletes, specifically black men who play football, and today's segment is going to be called only when they're winning, because that's basically how black athletes are treated. They're idolized when they perform and they're not treated like humans when they don't and when they make mistakes, when they step outside the lines, both literally and when they figuratively do it. So I'm going to be talking about gendered racism. They don't just experience racism, they're experiencing a combination of racism and sexism. And we talk about football. It's really prevalent in what's really popular in Baton Rouge. Y'all know how loud Tiger Stadium can be and how black football players are worshipped on that field. But it seems like when they get off of the field, the love doesn't always follow them, and you know we start to think about. You know how we have such a deep history of racism in Louisiana and even how it persists today. But you think that Black athletes don't experience this just because so many fans love them, especially white fans. But they really experience a really unique form of discrimination, and I think gender racism is a really good point to talk about. When it comes to athletes and this isn't new Louisiana has a very violent history but what's really unique is, I said, how this state really loves football, and the contradiction is really the problem. We love what these men are doing for the school, what they're doing for the state with the money that they're bringing in, but do the fans really love them? The answer is really no. Not really as humans, not really as people.

Speaker 1:

I want to drive this point home with Kyron Lacey. He was a wide receiver for LSU. He was only 22 years old when he passed away recently. You know this is a young guy. He's talked about his dreams. You know he's talked about how he wanted he's always wanted to play for LSU. He's from here in Louisiana, he's you know he's not a perfect person None of us are but he's a really unique example in the sense of you know what's happened to him and December of last year he was involved in a very tragic car accident where a man lost his life and Kyron was accused of basically speeding and you know, reckless driving and leaving the scene and he faced very serious charges in La Force Parish. He was charged with negligent homicide, felony hit and run and reckless operation of a vehicle.

Speaker 1:

My problem with all of this was that, you know, we live in a generation where people read headlines and they don't really read articles, they don't really go further enough to find all the information, and social media was really quick to judge him. And it's not just social media, people in general, especially fans. When I was looking at the comments in LSU, football's comments and just ESPN, a lot of the same people like obviously I don't know every single commenter personally, but a lot of the same people who were saying rest in peace, kyron, and this is always going to be a tiger, forever tiger. These are the same people who, the day that this news came out, without researching it, without trying to figure out more details about the case, without even just giving him a little grace as a young black man who made a mistake, they quickly called him a murderer. These are people who were flooding his comments, calling him a murderer and you know the news. It was basically spreading like wildfire and the weight of that, the shame, and you know the public judging him, was a lot on him.

Speaker 1:

This is somebody who was famed like wide receivers at LSU are regarded as some of the best wide receivers in college football period and even just in the sport period he was. He became, he was a star and then, in one day, the same people who loved him and you know, held him to this such a. They've always held him to a high standard, but the same people who is on the field and his brute force on the field also turned on him when it came to, you know, him falling into, I don't want to say that same identity, but just even like, even if they did believe he was responsible for something so heinous. It's like y'all see this type of thing play out on the field and when it's a sport and when it's making LSU money, it seems like it's okay. So for me, that's what the problem is and that's the part that people don't really want to sit with. And a few days before his court date, kyron took his life. He committed suicide and obviously I don't know all the reasons why he did that.

Speaker 1:

Black men struggle with a lot. He had a pretty tumultuous life growing up and even just the pressure that he faced, even if he didn't go through this terrible accident him facing jail time, which is already another conversation in itself when it comes to Black men, but also the pressure of trying to go to the draft and everything else. We can only assume that the added weight of this accident everyone calling him murderer and telling him that he's responsible for this white war veterans death contributed to him feeling like he needed to take his own life. So, you know, young black men are on a level of pressure that a lot of people will never understand, including me, you know, as a black woman. He was not treated like a human being, he was basically a symbol. I don't want to call him a scapegoat per se, but he was kind of like a falling figure. That people, you know, they the fancy, and then they tweet about them and they forget, and it's like they're not treating him as a human. They tweet about them and they forget, and it's like they're not treating him as a human. And I think that's very evident in the way that they idolized him and then they talked about him when he had this mistake and when this tragedy happened.

Speaker 1:

But the thing is, it's not just about, like this, one mistake or one tragedy, it's about the system that lets us cheer for these black boys and I don't want to even say men, I want to say boys, when they're running touchdowns, and then we turn their back out of back. We're turning our backs on them when they're running out of breath. So when they're running touchdowns, we're cheering for them, and then we're turning our backs on them when they run out of breath and they're they're gone. So for me, gender racism it doesn't just happen in the courtroom, it doesn't just happen on social media, it's I guess it's in the roles that black people, well black men are forced to play, and these roles are shaped by history, slavery and the patriarchy. It doesn't just affect women, it affects black men as well.

Speaker 1:

So for me, I think about the traditional family, and especially a black family, where men are supposed to be breadwinners, and Kyron talked about that a lot. He talked about that it wasn't the idea of the. The nuclear family wasn't really created with black people in mind. You know, we were basically denied that nuclear family from the start. We were denied those roles from the start. So when we try to rush to attain those things, a lot of things can go wrong and there's a power imbalance and it comes from slavery and then incarceration, poverty and all these different things.

Speaker 1:

And in sports people, black men specifically, are celebrated for their bodies, but when we think about their minds and you know their mental health and their pain we ignore that. When black men cry, they people tend to turn away and I'm even one of the people who always say you know, I hate when black men say oh, black men suffer in silence, because to me I know so many black men who hide their pain, but I can't really blame them for that when we live in a world where they're not really given the opportunity or they just don't feel safe enough to come forward with those things because they're not treated as humans like us. They're treated as, you know, the breadwinner or the person who's supposed to do this, that we don't really think about them as people. We think about them as an athlete, we think about them as the provider and all these different roles that they're supposed to play. But they are humans at the end of the day. But you know and that's where the gender racism comes in it's not just because they're black and it's not just because they're male.

Speaker 1:

I think the intersection is really important. Um, and a lot of it it is. I don't want to say it falls on them, but a lot of it is because of the toxic masculinity that persists in our own community, but still it's more than that, you know. So where do we really go from there? Um, I think we have to stop pretending that when we love football, that means we love the players and that we love them as a as people. I think that we should demand schools like lsu and fans protect their athletes beyond them being on the field and beyond what they can do for the team. We need to start investing in real mental health resources and start speaking up before tragedy strikes for Black men. We need to start humanizing Black athletes, not just men, but just Black athletes in general, not just when they win, not just when they're entertaining you, not just when it's football season. We need to humanize them always, and I really strongly believe that.

Speaker 1:

Everybody felt Kyron Lacey. You know it's not. I grew up in a family of lawyers. I believe in, you know, due process and everyone is innocent until proven guilty. It goes beyond that. You know he. He was failed by his fans and, like I said earlier, so many of the people who idolized him were the same people the next day said hey, he's a murderer, and I think a lot of it. This is kind of going off topic, but a lot of it was also just because of the victim. He was an older white um war veteran and you know the white community really holds a higher regard for people like that, and especially just the parish where it happened.

Speaker 1:

I think there's so many different layered conversations that we could have about this specific case and especially as it just pertains to identity in general. So we've been talking about Kyron Lacey, his identity as a young black man and as an athlete. You know I mentioned the veteran. He's a white man who was kind of regarded as a community as you know, a good neighbor, a good friend, people that's how people described him and then also just him being a veteran. You know those different identities are highly regarded amongst white people and then we think about other identities and just how we use them to, you know, make certain points and show up in our community.

Speaker 1:

So I think about people like Shannon Sharp. He's an athlete, he's a former NFL player and then he's also known for just being one of the only Black voices in sports media on certain different shows that he's appeared on and what I've gathered from him based on the things I've heard him say over the years. I mean, I'm not nearly as old as Shannon Sharp, but I've kind of combed through some of the notable things that he said, some of the shows that he's appeared on, and it seems like he was kind of brought on to be the Black man who could say racially charged things about Black athletes that his co-anchors couldn't really say he was. I don't want to call him a token if he didn't really subscribe to that, but to me it seems like he was kind of the token black guy who could say certain things about black athletes without, um, you know, being canceled, quote, unquote for it. I'm not gonna go all the way back, um, you know years into his career, but I will talk about some of the things that he said recently.

Speaker 1:

He has, you know, I think that you know, especially when we're talking about LSU, we have seen how Angel Reese was kind of villainized in the media because of I will say because of her race and her gender, gendered racism. We're talking about that. So I think it's important to talk about Angel Reese and just how people kind of saw her as the angry black woman. You know, everyone else in sports can be confident and cocky, but when a black woman does it, it's a problem, and I think just the juxtaposition with people like her and then Caitlin Clark really just created a huge conversation around women who were athletes, and Shannon Sharp had a huge opportunity to stand up for people, specifically Black women like Angel Reese, who are being villainized in the media. And instead of defending Angel Reese, he chose to stand with Caitlin Clark and other white athletes and kind of put them on a pedestal. This is something y'all can look up.

Speaker 1:

He specifically spoke up for Kaitlyn Clark when people asked him about Angel Reese. He basically refused to talk about her and refused to say anything positive about her. When he had um Amanda Seals on his podcast Club Shay Shay, he essentially gaslighted her about a few of the points she was making about her being a black woman in certain spaces and you know I'm not even the biggest fan of Amanda Seals but I could see um objectively that he was gaslighting her. You know we have him in tweets saying that black women still horse his hair to put in their own head. It's just so many different racially charged things that he said specifically about black women.

Speaker 1:

And of course, shannon Sharp has experienced gendered racism, you know, especially even just as a dark-skinned man with his particular build. I hate to even bring it there, but he's a bigger Black guy and you know, we know how people talk about athletes like him. So this is something that he understands probably more than I do or most people do. But instead of using that to advocate for Black people, especially Black athletes, he instead used it to mock um people like him and just engage in colorist commentary to make jokes about stereotypes. And you know he's experiencing um this huge scandal right now. It's one of many scandals that he's experienced, but this one particular, in particular, really, um, it's interesting to me because it involves a really younger white woman who's about 30 years younger than him, and we've seen the text messages that he put out and he's engaging in, basically, race play with her.

Speaker 1:

I'm not sure if y'all are familiar with the term race play. It's essentially when you you're engaging in sexual acts and you're using um your race. Usually this is we're talking about white people and black people. It's not just white men or black men. It's usually interchangeable, but you can go look it up. But regardless, um, I think that's what the most interesting thing about it is you know the identity of this woman who is accusing him of these really heinous acts, and then the messages that we've seen.

Speaker 1:

I think that Shannon has a lot of insecurity about who he is. As a black man, I don't want to kink shame him. You know, kink shame is a huge thing, but I think it becomes a little bit of a tricky conversation in this specific instance when we have a black man who is known for specifically coming for black women, black women, athletes on the basis of their race and gender, but he's also behind closed doors. So in public he's ridiculing black. He's ridiculing black athletes. He's ridiculing black male athletes, but specifically black women, talking about their hair, talking about their skin, talking about how they act, how aggressive they are, but behind closed doors. He's engaging in race play with a 20-year-old white girl and allowing her to say demeaning things about him and all of a sudden he wants us to also he. He comes out and says oh, they're targeting me this. This lawyer is targeting me because I'm a black man and it's like Shannon, we understand that you have experienced racism. You have experienced, um, a lot of discrimination just based on the fact that you're a black man, but you can't also expect the black community to rally behind you for this specific thing, because you don't really rally behind us. You know, I think it works on both sides.

Speaker 1:

With Shannon Sharp specifically, I think that you can't just step in and out of the community. He's always going to be black, he's always been black. But I think it even relates to like people out. I guess I'll just compare it to like Kanye and how he said oh my gosh, kim, she's trying to control my black children. Kim's family hates me because I'm black. And it's like Kanye you were. You chose to have four children with this, this white woman and her family. You were also black when you said slavery was a choice. You can't just choose.

Speaker 1:

My thing is that I'm seeing a pattern with men of the likes of, you know, shannon Sharp and Kanye West and other people like him. You know they want us to ignore the fact that they essentially align themselves with the same things that they complain about. They want the black community, the same community that they essentially trash talk, to be the community that picks up the pieces when the people that they propped up say, basically, f them and leave them behind, and it's like we're not going to be right there with you. I think that people like Shannon Sharp, people like Kanye West they're very beloved and I'm not going to take their talents away. I'm not going to take the things that they've done away and I totally understand that Black men are criminalized. Black men are villainized Black men. They experience discrimination from so many different angles.

Speaker 1:

But I think that when we talk about solidarity and support, it's not, it's just like respect. It's not owed, it's earned. You have to earn our respect and I don't think he's earned it. Just because you're black, just just because you're a man, just because you're both, does not mean that the community has to rally behind you when you're going through these certain things, especially when it comes to just the the entire thing. I mean, we're talking about Shannon Sharp. He's being accused by a white woman and I think the problem with that is, you know, know, when black women like me speak up about this, it becomes oh, she's bitter. Just because Shannon didn't choose a black woman and Kanye didn't marry a black woman. Shannon Sharp has multiple fully black children. Kanye has dated black women before.

Speaker 1:

I don't think it's about, you know, his preference. We have that huge conversation about preferences. It's not about his preference, it's about how they have shown up in our community, how they've talked about not just black women but just black people in general, and you can't expect us to be rallying behind you when you're basically enforcing the same stereotypes that are working against you right now. You know, um Shannon Sharp is definitely experiencing gender racism right now A hundred percent.

Speaker 1:

I'm not going to say I don't believe his accuser. I think there's a lot of truth to it and that's a totally different conversation. But you know he's definitely experiencing discrimination. But that does not exempt him from critique, especially from the black community. It does not, you know, automatically make him a hero of this story. I think he's always going to be your hero in a sense, but it doesn't mean that we can't hold him accountable. We can hold space for the fact that people like him and Kanye are always going to be looked at a certain way. They're always going to be dehumanized. But solidarity is not a one-way street. You know I'm going to be praying for Kyra Lacey's family. You know I'm praying for all Black men. But I think that when we talk about gender racism, there's two different sides to the spectrum and it's important that we have these conversations and we try to fully understand what it all means.