Things That Make White People Uncomfortable

Bernie Sanders baseball hat both to press conferences and in the locker room. Hell, I wore that Bernie Sanders hat all around Seattle. I liked what he was talking about, so one day I snatched the hat from the head of a friend. I was like, “Man, give me that Bernie Sanders hat!” He said, “You want this hat, for real?” I said, “I’ll wear that hat every day!” I did, and in Seattle people went crazy for it. People love Bernie in Seattle like they love coffee. But outside the Seattle zone, people were talking like this was the weirdest thing they had ever seen: a football player supporting Bernie Sanders. It didn’t compute for them. The dude won twenty-three states in the Democratic primary and had the most support among people under thirty of anyone running, so, to me, it was a great fit. People would ask me, in surprise, “Are you some kind of a socialist?” And I would answer, “I just love the idea of everybody having opportunity.” I got the “Be careful who you associate with!” line, but I was associating less with the man than with the idea—for example—that the government, instead of spending my tax money on prisons, should invest in communities that have been starved for too long.

All the stuff Bernie was talking about was so real to me because those are the issues, the real issues that human beings are dealing with and talking about at home. He wasn’t talking about building a wall or saying America has always been great. He was putting forward big ideas about wiping out student debt and giving young people the opportunity to grow. He reminded me of my mom, asking big questions, like, “Why shouldn’t there be free higher education? It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars if you want to be a doctor. How many people want to be doctors but can’t?” That’s the kind of questioning I think is so vital to our future. But because I agreed with a lot of the stuff Bernie was saying, people were mad at me. I didn’t care. I’m free to like what he was about: how he approached the world, his ideals, and the fact that he was even raising these questions. A lot of people said his ideas were too far-fetched and could never happen, but shit, Donald Trump happened. I don’t want to hear about anything being “far-fetched” ever again.

Bernie Sanders actually called my parents’ house in Houston, looking to connect, and my dad forgot to tell me. My phone number is not listed, but Bernie’s people saw me on television wearing his hat and knew I was from Houston, so they tracked down my dad’s number and called to see if I could go to a rally in Texas. I was so mad at my dad. Weeks later, he said, “Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you. Bernie Sanders called.”

I was like, “Dad! Bernie Sanders called the house and wanted to talk to me?! I would’ve flown to Texas for that!” I cooled off, but man, for a second I was mad at my dad like I was a salty teenager.

But as much as I was into Bernie, I also believe that just electing someone and expecting them to make real change happen for us is a dead end. I believe in intersectionality because Bernie Sanders—or anyone else—isn’t going to end racism or bring resources into underserved communities. We are going to need to connect with each other to bring about these shifts. I hope we have more political candidates who express the values Bernie was talking about, but we still have to do the work.

My parents raised me to challenge the system and to question facts when they are presented to me. You have to question the way things are, because curiosity is what drives the future. Questions are the starting point for making any kind of change. This is how I approach the world, and this is how we are raising our daughters so their future can be whatever they want it to be.

OUR DAUGHTERS AND THE POWER OF WOMEN

My message is to never quit, never give up. When you have a little trouble here and there, just keep fighting. In the end, it will pay off.

—Gabby Douglas

When I decided not to stand for the anthem, I did one interview where I said, “I love hot dogs like any other American. I love football like any other American. But I don’t love segregation, I don’t love riots, I don’t love oppression. I don’t love gender slander.”

That statement made a lot of people do a double-take. Not the part about loving hot dogs. I do love hot dogs as long as they’re all beef and aren’t the kind with the rat feces. That’s nasty. It was the part about “gender slander.” That is very important to me, and I make sure that supporting women’s rights and speaking out against sexism are central to everything I do. Some of that comes from the strong women I’ve always had in my life: my mother, my grandmothers, my aunties, and on down the line. “Strong-minded” doesn’t begin to describe the women in the Bennett family. One of my grandmas, Rebecca, is where I get my attitude. She’s a spunky old woman with a bad attitude, but at the same time she’s the most loving person in the world. That’s what makes her so special and so crazy: she’ll cut you down and then be the first person crying when you leave.

But I can say that the push to link any work I do to the struggle for women’s rights starts with the woman I met when she was fifteen and I was sixteen, who has become more than a wife, more than a partner: an intertwined spirit. We’ve now been together more than half our lives, and it’s the deepest possible connection I can imagine having with another human being.