White Allyship in the Time of COVID-19
By Laurel Oldershaw (She/Her/Hers)

For the most part, sports are cancelled this year. The Olympics are postponed. Various sports leagues have either cancelled their seasons altogether or are trying to brainstorm how to balance safely hosting games without fans and television production crews that often include more than 10 people. Team sports will no doubt have a harder road back to normal than individual sports, although all sports are struggling to adjust. Further, there are significant economic repercussions projected for the sports industry, as small teams try not to go bankrupt with their revenue streams of ticket sales and media deals demolished. The fast-spreading ability of COVID-19 particularly during its asymptomatic phase makes it a dangerous virus that we don’t yet have a vaccine for.

And yet, racism is not cancelled. Our unconscious biases are not cancelled. Police brutality and murder are not cancelled. Unequal rates of infection and disease are not cancelled. It is a visual primer of intersectionality at play in the wake of COVID-19. 

It’s disgusting, and yet it is entirely believable. Think about everything a person needs to work from home: a job that can be done remote, a decent internet connection, a screen they don’t have to share, a home to stay in. Intergenerational wealth and access to wealth has been prioritized for white families, and frequently aggressively denied to families of color over the past 500 plus years of this country’s “formation”. Native Americans have been forced into reservations with limited access to quality schooling, health care, and infrastructure, which has exacerbated the damage of the virus. We’re staring at an economic crisis that is wiping out jobs and rainy day funds, and it is clear who has them and who does not. We are livestreaming historical racial inequities around wealth widen, while our government prioritizes big business bail outs. 

I’m a progressive white woman, or at least that’s what I tell myself. I read article after article, book after book, try to talk about intersectionality like I know something, sign petitions, call my government, and try to be active in society. And every time another image of a police officer murdering a person of color comes on my Facebook feed, I feel a reoccurring sense of shame, and disappointment, and it definitely is a downer, although it’s a small portion of the consistent trauma we reput folks of color through. Resource after resource are shared as ways white folks can get involved - although we saw those already. Back when Ahmaud Arbery was killed, back when Sandra Bland was killed. These are many of the same articles just going through its post-incident lap. What happens next? 

The Upwind Institute was founded on the concept that sports are political, because they are. Our bodies are political, and if we deny that thought, our bodies then reflect our privilege. Sports teach us city pride. How can we be proud of our city when our tax dollars go to paying for racist policies? If we are truly anti-racist, how do we talk about the racist history and imagery (and use of imagery) of Black and Brown bodies playing while majority white owners rake in the profits? 

Commit now the way you would with your own health care: with action and support. Disc/Diversity is hosting an event tomorrow looking at the question, “How is White supremacist feminism in ultimate silencing Black voices in the name of equity?” The Sports Wiki Visibility project is currently in full swing trying to rewrite history by claiming space on Wikipedia and writing new pages for folks who have historically been underrepresented in ultimate and in the sports world in general. If you are in the US and have received a Stimulus Check, share your check and donate it to groups, particularly undocumented immigrants and community members who do not have the same access to a safety net that you might have. Call a friend into this issue that you haven’t talked with before. Our immediate circles are small, although our virtual circles are endless. Join us in our affinity groups for white folks by emailing us at theupwindinstitute@gmail.com. Start somewhere. Don’t expect applause, and don’t forget to keep working. And for goodness sakes, wear a mask when asked to by public health experts. Sports will be back in some form or another. Our distractions to not talking about racism and unconscious biases will be back, and you will have the option (especially if you’re a white person like me) to choose to address systemic oppression in some form or another. You have a choice to write a new normal for how you engage in sports, so what will it be?

If you would like to participate in our affinity groups for white folks, please email us at theupwindinstitute@gmail.com.

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