Last week, my good friend Michael Bennett, former Seattle Seahawk and current Philadelphia Eagle, released his new book, Things That Make White People Uncomfortable — the memoir/manifesto that he wrote with my other dear friend Dave Zirin.
I am going to assume my position as a teacher here and officially assign you homework: read this book! Take notes. Report back on it to your community. Then take action. It is indispensable for anyone who wants to understand why so many players today are refusing to just shut up and play and are creating the new national pastime of protest and play. But this book is much more than just an expository essay about the new Black athlete.
This is one of those rare books you read that will change the way you understand yourself and your place in the world. Only a few books have had that kind of impact on me. Books like The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Angela Davis: An Autobiography. Uncomfortable has me feeling like a kid again, remembering how those amazing autobiographies turned me upside down and inside out.
These have been the rare books where the authors have fully exposed their souls to the world, and in that vulnerability allowed me to confront my own deepest fears. These have been the books that helped me to see that I’m not alone, that others have suffered from racism, oppression, isolation, feelings of inadequacy, and have turned that pain into a powerful force for good in the world. I too have felt the anxiety that Michael describes that comes from confronting power — and seeing that it’s okay to talk about it publicly was liberating. He writes, “It’s harder than they warned you: the anxiety will scratch at your insides like the creature in Alien, except it never bursts out of your chest, it just stays there, scratching.”
Uncomfortable, like the great autobiographies of Malcolm and Angela, has helped me understand the meaning of dedication. Michael writes, “The more success you have, the more you hear a voice suggesting…