Uniting against hate: Bombers latest to embrace diversity game
The night Brandon Alexander wasn’t sure he’d make it home alive doesn’t seem like 12 years ago for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers safety.
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The memory of a cop jamming the barrel of his shotgun into his back while another shoved a handgun in his face after he was pulled over remains crystal clear for the 29-year-old.
“It still sticks with me like it was yesterday,” Alexander was saying, Tuesday. “I remember every moment, everything that happened… and it stays with you forever.”
Alexander was driving home with a buddy in his dad’s Cadillac when he found out what can happen because of the colour of his skin.
Eight years later, a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, and Alexander realized that could have been him.
So the slogan “Hate is Not Welcome Here” resonates with the sixth-year Bomber.
That’s the theme for Thursday’s home game against the B.C. Lions.
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The Bombers are the third Winnipeg professional sports team, following the Goldeyes and Sea Bears, to host an all-encompassing, anti-discrimination night like this.
Hundreds of tickets have been distributed through organizations like Anti-Racism in Sport, the Rainbow Resource Centre, the Rady Jewish Community Centre and Folklorama, creating what will probably be the most multicultural crowd of the season.
The idea is the brainchild of former Football Manitoba boss Rob Berkowits, now with the Rady Centre.
“It’s not a big secret there’s a lot of hate on the rise in the world, not just in North America,” Berkowits said. “You see it in anti-Semitic tropes, you see it in violent attacks against mosques, you see it in violent attacks against people that have different sexual identities than others.
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“It came from just being sad and disappointed with the direction the world had taken.”
So Berkowits raised some money and approached all six Winnipeg teams with his idea of one game to tackle what he calls the hate epidemic. After all, what unites us better than sports?
They all said yes. Special nights for the Jets, the Moose and Valour FC are still to come.
Bombers defensive end Jackson Jeffcoat is thrilled to see it.
“It’s not a good feeling, where you’ve only treated people well, and they look at you and your skin tone and call you names,” Jeffcoat said. “People are people. You judge a person by their character, how they treat you, how they act. Not by their preferences or their race or colour.
“I want to see better in the world. So I’m trying to be better in the world.”
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Jeffcoat’s message to fans from the Ethiopian, Portuguese, Romanian, Croatian, Metis and Indigenous communities, just some of the groups involved, comes across as a warm embrace.
“We love you,” Jeffcoat said. “Thank you for being here. It’s exciting. I love different cultures.”
Not far from Jeffcoat in the Bombers locker-room, linebacker Adam Bighill had a unique perspective.
Bighill was in the NFL in 2017, when the waters were still choppy from the Colin Kaepernick controversy.
Kneeling during the anthem to protest police brutality against African Americans got the quarterback blackballed.
“I have more black friends than white friends now, probably, just from the nature of the business I’m in,” Bighill said. “I know their stories. I know the things they go through.
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“And when they took a knee, I understood exactly why.”
The then-president of the U.S. only poured fuel on the fire when he suggested Kaepernick and all those who joined him should leave the country.
It seems discrimination has been on the rise ever since.
“You’ve had the resurgence of these far, extreme Republicans, radicals, and even KKK rallies and sh– going on,” Bighill said. “It really bubbled up some of the hate that was living quietly out there. You want people to love your fellow person and respect people and empathize. We’re not there, yet.”
Like Bighill, receiver Drew Wolitarsky hasn’t experienced the hate, first-hand. He’s a white, middle-class man from California.
He was also in Minneapolis during the Floyd killing and the street violence that followed.
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“I’m out guarding my friend’s business, because there’d been riots,” Wolitarsky, 28, recalled. “And seeing the streets on fire, the 18-wheeler almost killing people. It’s just a lot to see that, see a city fall apart.”
Hate’s always been there. It’s just so easy to see it, now.
“When you’re stuck in one place your whole life and you’re just conditioned to believe your way is right, then you really build up walls,” Wolitarsky said. “You really close yourself off to perspective. And everything threatens you. Because it makes you wrong.
“I don’t understand why we just can’t see each other as people.”
On Thursday, between 25,000 and 30,000 will sit shoulder-to-shoulder, people of different colours all living their own identities and cheering in their own languages.
For one night, at least, in this one place, nobody will hate anybody.
Well, except maybe the Lions.
Twitter: @friesensunmedia