“O say does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave” played through the speakers, and every able-bodied person in the gym stood and faced the American flag flying from the rafters.
Not Manhattanville College student Toni Smith.
Since sports were televised, maybe even before, people have debated whether sports should be political. Should athletes make political stands?
Toni Smith, a senior basketball player for Division III Manhattanville College, has chosen to turn away from the American flag during the pregame rendition of our National Anthem.
By turning her back, many feel that she is shunning and disrespecting a country for which many have died on her behalf and the behalf of others that live here. They feel that she has committed the ultimate sin, one close to treason. Sportswriter Dan Patrick, a columnist for ESPN.com, said “Smith is doing more than making her point – she’s rejecting everything the flag and this country represent.”
Smith is against the war in Iraq. Her silent, personal protest has gained much national attention. Does she have the right as an athlete to make a political argument?
Aren’t we all, as Americans (athlete or not), granted the ability to have and voice our own opinions, especially those of a political nature? The writers of the constitution bestowed the freedom of speech upon us to ensure that political views would not be punished or ignored like they had been in England.
Toni Smith embraced that right, just as Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and John Carlos and Tommie Smith did before her.
I am reminded of black leather fists raised toward the sky.
Those fists were hoisted because of an injustice in the racist America of 1968. The back of Toni Smith’s head faces another injustice.
“…[P]eople have lost sight of the fact that Bush’s plan for ‘maintaining our safety’ will cause many innocent people, women and children, mothers and babies, to die overseas,” Smith said in a statement to the media.
This statement and her actions give her a voice.
As a nation, we should not make a pariah out of her because her voice may be “wrong” in our opinion. We should not let our personal biases discourage people from actively making stands for their beliefs.
Toni Smith is making a stand.