Initially, Pamela Jenkins, head coach of women’s lacrosse at Delaware State University, was not worried when Georgia’s sheriff’s deputies stopped her team’s bus.
Her team, about 70 percent black and representing a historic black college with roots dating back to the 1890s, enjoyed the trip home after playing in a tournament in Florida. They didn’t do anything wrong. The team’s hired bus was not traveling at high speed, as it was traveling north on Interstate 95. It made sense when she heard a deputy tell the driver that he had the bus in the left lane and should be in the right lane.
But it wasn’t long before the mood shifted in a way that seemed very familiar to me – a mood I can agree with as an African-American who once played college and competed in the same interstate of Georgia while competing in the lower levels. of professional tennis.
Suddenly, Jenkins’ team was accused of having drugs on board. More deputies arrived. A drug-smelling dog roamed. Jenkins, who is Black, shared the feelings of her athletes: shock, fear, anger and disappointment.
Pamela Jenkins, Lacrosse Women’s Head Coach in Delaware. Credit … via YouTube
Videos that contradict the Liberty County Sheriff’s account of the halt show a group of white lawmakers searching luggage. One of them took a package and asked whose it was. When the player replied that it was hers and did not know what was inside because it was a gift from the family, the deputy greeted her with suspicion. Jenkins said the deputy found nothing more than a jewelry box inside.
“I’m sitting there trying to stay calm, but at the moment I’m so upset, scared and frustrated with what’s happening to us,” Jenkins said in a telephone interview on April 20. week.
“Unfortunately,” she said, “these situations can escalate.” And then the worst can happen. So she set an example and kept her stress a secret. Her athletes followed suit.
Deputies did not find drugs. The driver – who, not surprisingly, just turned out to be Black – did not receive a traffic quote. An officer boarded and said the team could go.
Think about what they went through.
Think of all the black athletes who cross America for competitions, from youth basketball and soccer teams to college players. Some travel alone. Some with teams. Some in small groups. If you think the fear of meeting like this is not part of the mix, think again.
I have my own stories. If you’ve been reading my columns for a while, you may know that I was once a serious tennis player, one of the few black nationally ranked juniors in the 1980s to win a top-class team at the University of California, Berkeley. After college, I played for a few years in the small leagues of professional tennis, traveling to every corner of America and good parts of the globe.
I was profiled by the police after playing in one of these tournaments in the early 1990s, when another black player and I reached the doubles final at an all-white country club in Birmingham, Alabama. To say that we were an amazing sight for the members of the club – and the all-black team that applauded us at every game – will be the mother of all underestimations. We lost, but we rejoiced. We made a statement there.
But as we rented our car until the next event in Augusta, Georgia, we were stopped by a highway patrol in rural Birmingham and Atlanta. I remember his wide-brimmed hat and his intrusive interrogation. What were we doing in this car? where were we going The next thing I knew, he was inspecting our bags.
Why did they stop us and search us? My partner was moving well in the flow of traffic. We were just two young black boys on a sleek lease. It didn’t help when the patrolman asked for our identities and saw that we were from California.
Three decades have passed, so I don’t remember all the details of what happened next, but somehow the deputy pulled my partner to the local police station in the small town. About an hour later, my partner came out. As far as I remember, he didn’t even get a ticket. He was unharmed but shaken. I drove the rest of the way.
This was not the only time I was profiled in my short time at the basic level of professional tennis. The worst case occurred in Europe in 1992, when I traveled from Paris to London after playing in France. At London Heathrow Airport, customs officers pulled me out of line and asked sharp questions.
They asked me sternly and accusingly why I was in Europe to play tennis. Prove it, they said.
I stood helplessly beside them as they rummaged through my tennis bags. They found clothes, rockets, and my diary, which they read with seemingly voyeuristic interest. Then they took me to a windowless room and left me there without saying when they would return. I was not alone in this room. I had about a dozen black travelers from African countries.
I sat for an hour, then two, then three. After eight hours of detention, security guards entered and released me. He never apologized.
Black people carry an unprecedented burden long after such meetings. This is a shroud. You ask yourself. “What just happened? Did I do something wrong?” You struggle to make sense of what happened. “Did this employee, the mall security guard, this customs agent really do his job?” Or was I treated this way because of the color of my skin? ”
Uncertainty is her own horror.
We are left with doubt, anger and tears. We become well acquainted with the fact that deep inside we fill the emotions and move forward. Or at least we try. .
And now, through no fault of their own, young lacrosse players from Delaware have to deal with that kind of pain.
After the stop, Jenkins said, the drive home was unusually quiet and even gloomy. Shock does that.
The full force of the incident did not hit for days, until a player wrote a story about it in a campus newspaper and rumors of what happened began to spread.
“It was traumatic again, reliving the whole thing,” Jenkins said. And then we realized, “Wow, that was really bad.”
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