Tierra Ruffin-Pratt speaks on police brutality and racial injustice
The LA Sparks guard met with media this week to discuss racially motivated violence, injustice, and her hopes for the future
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The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, among many other unarmed and innocent black people who have been killed, are felt personally by Tierra Ruffin-Pratt and her family.
Ruffin-Pratt’s cousin, Julian Dawkins, was killed in his home in 2013 by an off-duty cop, just two houses down from the house where she grew up in Alexandria, Virginia. He was 22 years old. The officer, who is black, served a six-year sentence. He served his time and currently walks free.
The Los Angeles Sparks guard spoke with reporters on Wednesday to discuss police brutality and racial injustice. The subject is emotional for Ruffin-Pratt – as a black woman who knows about systematic racism all too well, but also as someone who has been affected by police brutality in her personal life.
Seeing the recent support for Black Lives Matter across the country is encouraging, but doesn’t mean much to Ruffin-Pratt unless the work and the conversation continues.
“The main thing is just keep it relevant. Don’t let it die off in a couple days, a week, a month because it’s something that’s been happening for a long time,” Ruffin-Pratt told reporters. “This is a talk that we have to constantly have with ourselves, with people around us, with our kids. This is a constant conversation that needs to be had.”
In 2016, Ruffin-Pratt helped lead the charge for the Washington Mystics to show support for Black Lives Matter and arrange a media blackout after a Minneapolis-area police officer shot and killed Philando Castile. The league fined all players who protested by wearing Black Lives Matter shirts during pre-game, although the fines were later rescinded after public backlash.
“That’s always in the back of our minds. This is the league we’re playing for – 80 percent black – but how can you fine us for standing up for something that’s a part of us? Cathy (Engelbert) has done some good things standing with us and standing for us, so maybe it will be different, but I don’t think we’ve forgotten that they fined us back then for standing for the exact same thing.” she said.
It’s hard to determine how the league would actually respond since the season has been postponed because of coronavirus, but the sentiment remains the same that support needs to be a constant and continual conversation.
“The conversation has to continue to be had. Maybe a game dedicated to (fighting) police brutality and social injustice like we have games for vets, Girl Scouts, and Pride,” Ruffin-Pratt said. “So every year it comes up where we’re talking about it. I’m not really sure what more the league can do other than follow the lead of the players who are stepping up and speaking out.”
Below are some other highlights from Ruffin-Pratt’s conversation with media:
On professional athletes speaking out:
You should speak out in whatever fashion you want to speak out. Athletes are people, too. Yeah, we have a greater platform, but some people just aren’t comfortable speaking out like that. Is it right or wrong? No, but we do need people to speak out because we have the platform. … When we use it, we use it in the right way. I think a lot of my teammates and counterparts around the WNBA have spoken up and said what they feel and believe. We all want change in this country; we all want things to be different; we all want justice for black people in America. So we’re going to speak out and we’re going to say what we feel.
If people agree with us or don’t agree with us, it doesn’t really matter because, like I said, we’re standing for something far greater than ourselves, something far greater than this league, something far greater than anything that any businessperson can say. We’re standing for black people in this country that haven’t gotten justice; black people who’ve lost their lives and black people that came before us. We stand for generations before us, our generation, and generations to come … We’re going to do everything in our power to try to make that happen as best we can, but it doesn’t just land on us. There’s a lot of other people in this world that can speak up, but we’re going to lead it. We’re going to lead the charge, we’re going to step up and speak out, we’re going to be the people who lead and maybe other people will follow. But if not, our voices are going to be heard.
On getting through tragedy from police brutality
The most important thing is we stayed together as a family. Our community supported us back in Alexandria. They’re still with us, and that’s what helped the most because it wasn’t just us fighting. Everybody’s fighting. Everybody across the country’s fighting. So I think that’s what’s most important. Just not letting it end. Still to this day, we get messages and different things about my cousin and people still support the movement.
Never (let) one person’s name die when they die. Let their legacy continue to live on. All you can do is keep supporting the family in any way that you possibly can and keep trying to change what’s going on in the world. I think this last week or so has been some of the craziest things that we’ve seen in our lifetime, but we’re being heard and that’s what’s most important. If this continues and people continue to voice their opinion and continue to stand in solidarity with African Americans and the black community, anything can happen. But it can’t just be the black community that’s standing by themselves. It has to be the white community as well. They got to stand with us because if they don’t change, nothing’s going to change.
On waiting for justice for Julian
I think the first part was just the whole waiting process. You got to wait for (the officer) to be arrested, then you got to wait for the trial. You got to wait for a conviction and then it’s kind of like ‘What now?’ Like for most people, this will blow over at some point, but for the families, they’re still waiting. So I think that it’s the waiting part that was probably the most difficult.
On systematic changes needed within police departments
I think (psychological tests) are important. I think knowing people outside of just a couple of exercise tests and making sure they’re fit (is important). Deeper background checks and maybe family history. I don’t know. All of this stuff is a learned behavior … I think just digging a little deeper into people’s lives before they just jump into the force because anybody can become a cop if they pass a couple fitness tests and know the laws in the book. What if you dig deeper into their history? What do they stand on; what do they really believe in?
We need more black police officers to police black communities because of other things that's happening in this world and black people being killed or being killed in our own communities by mainly white cops. So, at some point, you got to see where the divide is. You have a bunch of white cops policing black neighborhoods that don't understand the neighborhoods that they're in. And they don't understand the people in the neighborhood. They don’t understand how people communicate and what they do in those types of neighborhoods. So, what they see as wrong in one sense, can be perfectly normal in a black community. But because they don't know anything about the black community, they see it as wrong.
So, I don't know what more we can do as a country, but looking deeper into these cops and just changing maybe how the hiring process (works) or whatever the case may be. But it's deeper than just coming into the course and protecting a certain kind of people. So, I'm not really sure what more and how much more they can do before hiring people. But I know there's more that has to be done because this is a constant, constant cycle that's been happening in this country.
On how to change racial division
I think if we had to answer that, it’d already be changed. I think just talking about it and having the awareness. Like I said, I think black people have done a lot, pretty much to the point where what more can we do? A lot of white people ask what can we do to change, but you’re asking us when what the hell do we know what y’all supposed to do to change because we’re not in your shoes. We can't tell y’all what y’all need to do to change as white people. We talked amongst ourselves as blacks and said okay, maybe we need to step up and become police officers, become elected officials so we have a voice. We can say all white people need to step up, but all we can ask is that you change yourself. You change the generations that are coming behind you. You talk to your kids because it's a learned behavior. Racism is learned. You're not born that way. So, all we can ask is you for white people to change themselves, change their family, change the generations coming after them. Because what’s being taught and what was learned long before now is just trickled down. Something that's been, like I said, around for a really long time and it's just generations teaching younger generations, teaching younger generations.
So, how do (black people) stop that? We can't. We're not teaching our kids to say black people are evil, black people are threatening, black people are scary. We're not going out telling our kids, ‘oh go out there and be a threat.’ We’re not taught that. We're taught to go out there just like everybody else and try to live our lives just like everybody else. But how can white people change? That's a question you’ve got to ask yourself ... All we can do is say look yourself in the mirror. If you feel like you're standing on the right side of justice, on the right side of racism, then you're doing your part. But if you can't look yourself in the mirror and say that, if you're not teaching your kids the right way, that’s not helping.
Yesterday, Erica McCall and Coach Greg McCall of Cal State Bakersfield joined us on twitter for a livestream of the Her Hoop Stats podcast on their experiences. You can watch the replay or listen to the conversation as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check out our YouTube channel for archives from past live episodes, and for highlights from this episode soon.
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