LISTEN TO NA-KEL SHARE HIS EXPERIENCES AS A BLACK PRO SKATER

June 1, 2020/ / VIDEOS/ Comments: 46

The world is grieving the loss of yet another innocent black man killed by the cops, as protestors take to the streets across the country in memory of George Floyd, who was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Floyd, like so many others we can’t even name, did nothing to deserve his extrajudicial treatment by Chauvin and his gang of officers, who all initially faced no consequences for their clear breach of protocol. That’s American racism in action, brutal and fatal.

But racism shows up in more insidious ways as well. Take, for instance, a ridiculous display of racial privilege and profiling that happened in New York a few days before Floyd’s murder, when a white woman, Amy Cooper, called the cops on a black man, Christian Cooper, for innocently bird watching in Central Park. In the video that Christian filmed, it appears that Amy knows she’s weaponizing the same forces that killed Eric Garner in 2014, in the same place that five innocent black boys were wrongly arrested back in 1989 no less–she emphasizes “African-American” as if it were a crime.

The United States has a police problem, and the United States has a race problem, and those are an especially potent poison if you’re skin is dark. Skateboarding, as a product of America, also has a race problem, even if it’s something a lot of us would rather not hear or talk about.

Na-kel Smith doesn’t care whether you want to hear it or not. He’s black, and has to face daily discrimination of all types, even from within our beloved skate industry. He recently shared an off-the-cuff conversation he had with friends that touches on some of the shit they’ve gone through being black skaters: from being called slurs by teammates to being asked to perform racially insensitive requests from sponsors.

Throughout the 35-minute video, you can tell it’s a tough thing for these guys to talk about, which is why it’s so important for us to listen. The least we could do was amplify their voices (with permission, of course), and we urge you to hear out Nak and company in the video above.

If you’re one of those people that don’t care, well, don’t be. These are life-or-death problems to confront, and now, more than ever, we should be listening to our black friends, peers, and loved ones (only when they want to share!) as we all process and grieve the shared injustices they face.

Take action

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Black Lives Matter
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Campaign Zero
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Black Visions Collective
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Comments

  1. brown trans and proud

    June 3, 2020 5:17 pm

    this is the right track. skateboarding needs to continue having conversations about how our community welcomes/fails to welcome skaters with intersecting identities on the lower end of the privilege spectrum–black, POC, women, queer, and trans folk. black skaters, trans skaters, brown skaters, lesbian skaters, We Out Here And Been Out Here, We Aren’t Going Anywhere. Time to talk about this, get uncomfortable about this, make changes, open the community to all of us.

  2. Mayor Grimble

    June 3, 2020 5:21 pm

    Interesting to me that nobody has mentioned that skaters have skin in the game when it comes to one of the central focuses of this movement, which is the legitimate accountability and independent oversight of police. Skateboarders should want that too.

    The Utah chapter of Black Lives Matter drafted a Police Accountability & Oversight bill that seeks to: 1. Increase implicit bias training for police; 2. Limit instances where lethal force can be authorized; 3. Create independent oversight committee to investigate ALL officer-involved shootings; 4. Increased de-escalation training; 5. Regulate mandatory use of dashboard cams & body cams in all civilian interactions; 6. Prevent police tampering of body cam / dash cam footage (make tampering same repercussion as tampering with evidence); 7. Make it so officers who have been fired from PD cannot get a job at another PD; and 8. Mandate that police cannot fire their weapons at unarmed citizens or suspects.

    Check out the bill at this link. Share it with everyone you know: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6934696-Police-Accountability-and-Transparency-Act-2020.html#document/p1

  3. brown trans and relentless

    June 3, 2020 5:37 pm

    esp in these coming months, it should not be the burden of black skaters to educate the rest of the skateboarding community. it is unduly exhausting to share trauma in the name of educating others. true anti-racist allyship is taking the initiative to educate oneself about the issues black skaters face. don’t ask your black skater friend about the racism she endures; read, listen, get involved, learn for yourself.

  4. クレウ秋

    June 4, 2020 3:54 pm

    I’m glad this is being talked about. It really needs to be brought up.

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