



I attended the game in Portland on August 23rd. On the way down, there was a man on my ECS bus that was extremely upset, to the point of tears, that he had to participate in the protest. He said all the usual things: Sports are my escape, I don’t want to see politics at games, gays are treated fairly in America now, and so on. I thought about this person quite a bit in the hours that followed.





I was thinking about how I’d ended up here in full support of the protest, about the types of things I used to say and think. It occurred to me that if this game had taken place 10 years ago, I would have had similar thoughts to the upset man on the bus. So, on the bus home, I made a list of the key events in my life as they relate to my support of the protest. My goal was to figure out why I changed how I think.





I grew up in an area of Clark County that was, and probably still is, 99% white. This county is where many of the Portland Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer members live. Some examples of my idiocy growing up:





There was a person in my class at school who was not white, and we all called him black. We used to tease him constantly. I found out years later he was not black at all. I’ve very recently found out he hasn’t done so well over the years. I can’t help but think this was due to how he had been treated by me and others in school. School staff, parents, and classmates did nothing to stop it.





The neighborhood kids and I played basketball most days after school. I convinced myself I could relate to black people simply because of how much I play basketball. I used to watch most Blazers games, which further convinced me it was fine to use slurs and "talk black." There was not a single time I was told what I was saying might be an issue.





I used to play video games a bunch, but it wasn’t until Xbox Live launched that I started becoming more problematic. At the very hint of a black person talking in my ear, I took any opening I could find to go after them. Once, a friend and I used an Xbox Live Free Trial card to create a horribly offensive gamertag to specifically troll black people. I remember calling to cancel the trial a month later and Microsoft requiring a parent to do so. I handed the phone to one of my parents who found out the gamertag I had chosen. They said, "I can’t believe you did that." There are many more stories.





In 2007, I moved away from where I grew up and started working with a black person for the first time. I applied for a job in Olympia one night. I wasn’t thinking about moving. I hadn’t been looking for jobs. It was 2 hours north of where I’d grown up. It sounded interesting. I got the job after a horrible interview. It was my first real interview.





I was now sitting across from a black man named Mo. He was nice to me despite the dumb and racist things I’d say daily. He would interject and engage me when it made sense to. I thought he was talking nonsense. More than anything, I was excited that I had a black friend, a prop I could use in social situations. I see people using "the black friend" on Twitter today and it makes me laugh, not in a good way, knowing I used to be the person saying that. Now, I see Mo every so often when I pick up my mail. When I talk to him, it reminds me that meeting him was when I ever-so-slightly started changing my view of the world.





One of my friends asked if I wanted to go to a soccer game one weekend in 2009. He’d gotten free tickets from work. I wasn’t that interested, but I had nothing better to do. I played soccer from age 5 to 20, the last 2-3 years being indoor, but I rarely watched on TV. The game was against Chivas USA. I remember hearing songs and chants and thinking, wow, this is cool. I started reading about soccer and watching on TV. Longtime friends and family started criticizing me for liking it. "Soccer is for f*gs." "Soccer is for p*ssies." "Soccer isn’t a real sport." "Soccer is for people who weren’t good enough for other sports."





This feedback felt weird. I was enjoying the Sounders. Why were people attacking me for it? Late in the season, one friend grilled me harder than usual about liking soccer. Oddly, it made me think of some things Mo had said to me about how he’s been treated his whole life. Here I am, feeling judged about liking … soccer? Have I been a huge asshole my whole life? Maybe all those things he’s been telling me about the struggles people of color deal with daily aren’t nonsense? Thinking about it now, it’s ridiculous I equated being called out for liking soccer with the struggles of being a person of color here. But I did.





I met my wife, a Latina immigrant, in 2010. The first time I saw her in person was at a Sounders game against Toronto FC in October. She came to Seattle as an adult from Peru for college and work. We’d spoken on the phone for work for 2-3 years. When I’d hear her voice on the phone, I’d mock her accent on mute.





After that game, we started talking on the phone daily and going to Sounders games as much as possible. She slowly told me about how and where she’d grown up and the racism she deals with here. I started noticing how people act around her in public. How my friends treat her. How my family treats her. How people misinterpret her intents due to the culture she grew up in. How having even the slightest accent affects what people think of her. I noticed how I’ve never had to deal with any of this myself.





In 2015, I started a job where I helped people of color with their businesses. I’d sit down with people I’d never met, that I only knew through paperwork, and hear their stories and details about the businesses they wanted to grow. I was required to attend trainings: Cultural competency. Housing/mortgage bias. Segregation in ways that are and aren’t obvious. Uncomfortable exercises where the instructor would ask a seemingly innocent question, ask you to go to one of two corners in the room based on your answer, and seeing the black people end up in one corner alone. I started recognizing things I do subconsciously around people of color. It’s not something I will ever be able to entirely fix, but I try. The best I can do is be aware of it and do better.





I went to Peru for the first time in 2016. I had barely left the US in my life, having only been on a Caribbean cruise that I barely got off of. As the plane was descending, I could see this place was very different than anywhere I’d been in the US. I stepped outside, looked around, and said, "Holy shit, where am I?" I got into the back of a taxi with no seatbelts. For miles and miles, I saw what I thought were earthquake-damaged buildings that were never repaired. Driving lanes and signs mean nothing. Car horns constantly. No A/C. Can’t drink the tap water. Can’t put toilet paper in the toilet. No hot water. No ice. No English speakers. Food that caused … intestinal issues for nearly a month, although this is common when travelling internationally.





I was out of my comfort zone. This was one of the best experiences of my life. For a short period of time, I was in a different culture than the one I knew. I learned to appreciate what I didn’t have in Peru and what I don’t have in the US. I learned what it felt like to stand out because of my skin color in areas of Lima tourists do not go. People looking and talking about me amongst themselves as I walked by. This is hardly comparable to what people of color go through in the US, but it was uncomfortable for me nonetheless.





This brings me to the man on the bus and how I would have been on his side at one point in my life. He doesn’t understand what we are fighting for and isn’t willing to open up and discuss it. This was me. I had the world figured out and I wasn’t going to be told otherwise.





Mo doesn’t know it yet, but without him, I would not have stuck with the Sounders. I would not have been open to dating an immigrant. I would not have looked for a job where’d I’d help people of color. I would not have gone to Peru. I would not have gotten out of my bubble. I would not have been at the game supporting the protest.





I find myself not knowing what to do to change the minds of people that think the way I used to. Nothing I’ve tried works. I am one of the lucky ones. I didn’t seek change. I didn’t care. It just happened. I easily could be going to Patriot Prayer rallies today if I had not gotten out of that bubble.





I don’t know how to get family and friends who are in that bubble out of it. I don’t know what to do.