Bullying is not a newly discovered problem. But there is no denying it has been exacerbated by the President of the United States, Donald Trump. His singling out of sports figures Steph Curry, Jemele Hill and Colin Kaepernick for their stands against bigotry is more evidence that Trump takes a literal interpretation of the bully pulpit idea. How these Black sportsmen and women form a team against racism offers tormented youth a playbook on how to deal with bullies.
One in four children are bullied. That’s the main finding of a new study conducted by YouthTruth, a national nonprofit that conducts student surveys on educational issues. The results, which will be released tomorrow, repeated last year’s findings.
When I shared the one-in-four stat with a father of two, he told me, “Power plays happen in all kinds of social settings. Schools aren’t different.” He went on to say, “Part of an education is learning how to deal with mean people.”
He could have been referring to President Trump, who this past weekend “dis-invited” the basketball star and two-time Most Valuable Player of the NBA Steph Curry from a not-yet scheduled visit to the White House with a tweet — after the Golden State Warriors’ point guard had already said he wouldn’t go to the White House if his team asked.
Dating back to the 1960’s, it has been tradition for champions of major sports teams to take part in a White House ceremony. Another former MVP, LeBron James, chimed in with his own tweet: “U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain’t going! So therefore ain’t no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!” Curry and James play on rival teams and have played against each other in multiple championships, but they are on the same team against hate.
A week earlier, the White House broke presidential etiquette by calling for the ouster of a private citizen, ESPN broadcaster Jemele Hill, who called Trump a white supremacist—partially based on his racist remarks about immigrants, his likening of Nazis with their counter-protestors, as well as his past discriminatory housing practices and race-baiting campaign against the Central Park Five. As James did for Curry, Hill’s colleagues created a unified front against harassment. The progressive news site ThinkProgress broke the exclusive that ESPN executives tried to remove Hill from her show three hours after the White House said she should be fired, but her black colleagues refused to replace her, forcing the network brass to keep Hill on the air.
Last Friday, in a political rally in Alabama, Trump attempted to bully NFL players who follow Kaepernick’s lead in taking a knee during the national anthem in protest of police brutality since 2016. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b—- off the field right now. Out. He’s fired! He’s fired,’” howled Trump.
