Justin King

January 7, 2015

(ANTIMEDIA) Most of America is familiar with the story. A High School Basketball team in California wore shirts that included the final words of Eric Garner, “I Can’t Breathe,” during warm ups. A local Deputy Sheriff’s Association commented on the shirts and another school banned the teams from participating in a tournament unless they gave up the shirts. The girls’ team refused, calling the school’s bluff, and igniting a firestorm of controversy.

Protests took place, letters were written, and eventually the school caved, probably after realizing the ban was not just unpopular, but that it was also against the law.

Still people question the motives of the girls and whether or not they were just “troublemakers,” “anti-cop,” “criminals,” or if they had been put up to the protest by adults. Rather than simply speculate, The Anti-Media reached out to the team through one of the co-captains.

Kiera Poehlmann seems to be the poster child for the “all-American girl next door.” She maintains good grades, is active in the school, plays sports, and a scan of her social media accounts finds nothing controversial.

Today a little digging into someone’s social media account reveals a lot about who they are. Kiera’s account isn’t the profile of someone who is a troublemaker. Scrolling through events she’s attended in the past, it’s mostly school functions and charity events. Participating in charity events for cancer centers or to help raise money for a fire department doesn’t seem like something a criminal would do. There are no photos of drug use, underage drinking, or anything even remotely illegal, unless you count the photo of her sitting on a wall outside of the Louvre Museum in Paris. There’s a sign visible in the photo asking people not to sit on the wall. This is not profile of a troublemaker. She seems like the kind of girl that other parents would want their kids to be friends with. She’s also part of the team that took the stand against censorship.

When asked to describe herself, she said:

“Yes, we are indeed normal high school students. I have obtained a 3.6 non-weighted GPA throughout high school while playing three varsity sports every year. My freshman year I played volleyball, basketball, and ran track. Sophomore year I prioritized my true passion of basketball and substituted running track (which wasn’t my strong suit) for joining a club basketball team. In fact, I was on the Fort Bragg club team because our school didn’t have enough interested girls to field a team. Basketball is my main hobby, but I also love camping, hiking, and traveling.”

The story of how the T-shirts came into being shows clearly that no adult put the girls up to it.

“After players in the NBA like Kobe Bryant and Lebron James wore the shirts to warm-up for their games, high schools and colleges nationwide started joining in on their peaceful protest by also wearing the shirts. A member on our boys’ varsity team approached me with the idea in early December, and after sending a message to my team on group chat, and getting only positive responses, I told him we would love to show our support for the black lives matter campaign by wearing a shirt reading, ‘I Can’t Breathe’.”

She relayed that the girls had worn the shirts at games before and never received any backlash. In fact, the first time the girls wore the shirts was at the very school that decided to ban them later.

“Yes, we had been wearing the shirts for a few weeks before it caught the attention of the national media. Actually, the first time that we wore our shirts was to a scrimmage in Fort Bragg on December 16th. At that game there didn’t appear to be any upset parties, or at least nobody approached us about the shirts. The only comment I received involving it was during the captains meeting when the referee asked me what it meant. After starting my short recap of why we were wearing the shirts, and the Eric Garner case the ref waved me off as if to say ‘I know what it is, I just wasn’t sure if you did.’”

When the team found out they wouldn’t be allowed to play if they wore the shirts, the girls decided amongst themselves how they were going to proceed.

“After finding out that with the shirts on our backs, we would not be allowed to play, we were all upset. We love basketball, and we had been looking forward to this tournament. However, with only five players from the combined original JV and Varsity teams willing to put down their shirts and play, it wasn’t realistic.”

Kiera says that accepting that there is a problem with police brutality is the first step.

“If there is one thing that I learned from this whole ordeal, it’s that we have to accept that there is a problem before we can mend it. I was amazed with the vast amount of people in my community who were hesitant to say that they thought police brutality was a nationwide issue.”

Pressing on whether she was anti-cop or thought all cops were bad received a pretty simple and direct answer.

“Absolutely not, in fact in our county we are lucky to have some wonderful cops.”

If there was any law enforcement agency Kiera had a right to be mad at, it was the Deputy Sheriff’s Association that attacked her and her teammates. I questioned her as to how she felt about them in particular. To my dismay, she defended their right to express their opinion. To be clear, one of the “disrespectful” girls defended the Free Speech rights of the Association that tried to take hers away.

“I was disappointed that the Sheriffs’ Association took our stand as an attack toward their department, but know that they are entitled to their opinion just as much as we are.”

She’s right, of course. They are entitled to their opinion. Her statement embodies the true meaning behind the Freedom of Speech. Maybe the future isn’t looking so bad. High School students have a better understanding of liberty than our own law enforcement officials. If they can hold onto that, maybe we might have a future where unarmed people aren’t killed and rights aren’t suppressed daily.

“I think that as young adults, we can see that there are many wrongs in our world and want to vocalize it but often get written off because we’re ‘just kids.’ For us, the basketball court seemed to be the only place that I could think of where an audience would hear us, and have no choice but to listen.”

The team exploited a captive audience and made headlines around the world. These girls aren’t troublemakers for bringing more attention to the epidemic of murders by police in this country. They aren’t criminals or thugs. These are girls that understand and appreciate freedom, even when it’s being used to attack them. These are girls that understand that things have to change. These are girls that are willing to fight for what they believe. No, they aren’t bad girls. If we’re lucky, they’re tomorrow’s leaders.

Kiera Poehlmann, Jin Jackson, Emily Symonds, Naomi Baker, Michaela Hubbard, Isobel Hall, and anybody else I missed: You, having not graduated high school yet, are more fit to hold elected office than almost anybody this country has in Washington, DC. If things don’t work out on the basketball court, do the country a favor and consider running for office.

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