Calling Audibles Part XXIII: The Anatomy of the Asterisk

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“White people are accountable for the ways in which we fail to hear and understand the needs and claims that other communities make upon us… white learning [often] comes at the expense of those already multiply harmed by white interpersonal and structural failures in perception, sensitivity, and justice.” –Aana Marie Vigen, “To Hear and to Be Accountable” in disrupting White Supremacy From Within:  White People on What We Need to Do” UNC just can’t seem to help itself. They keep worsting themselves with the football fiasco.  Now Hakeem Nicks, the all time best receiver ever to put on the Carolina blue… Read the full post

Calling Audibles Part XXII: Moral High Ground and Shifting Sands

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“If the LORD does not build the house, the work of the builders is useless.” –Psalm 127: 1 The NCAA has taken a stand against the culture of football at Penn State.   Their attempt to take the moral high ground against a culture they helped to create raises some big questions for me.  I heard the Chair of the Executive Committee of the NCAA (which, by the way, is not the Rainbow Coalition–check out the roster.  By my count 20 of the 23 members are white and 19 of the 23 members are male) say that Chancellors and Presidents… Read the full post

Calling Audibles Part XXI: Thank God for the NCAA

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“Here may encouragement be found and relationships strengthened.” ~ from Celtic Daily Prayer: Prayers and Readings from the Northumbria Community At the beginning of the 2010 football season UNC played LSU in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl in Atlanta.  Looking back on that game I realize the remarkable ways that it set the stage for this tumultuous path we’ve been traveling since then. In fact, I had a strange experience that night in 2010 riding back to the hotel from the game.  I actually wrote about it on my blog way before I had even imagined doing this “Calling Audibles” series.  The… Read the full post

Calling Audibles Part XX: White Out

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“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” ~1 John 1:8 Living a lie is a well-worn habit for human kind.   We human beings tend to avoid hard truths especially when they might mean we have to change.  The tenacity of our denial tends to increase the more there is to lose. I will confess my own shortcoming in the face of all of this football mess here at UNC—anger. There have been several angry moments during this situation for me.  Many have told me that my anger is justified. … Read the full post

Calling Audibles Part XIX: The Sound of Silence

I Can't Speak

I’ll admit it, during the last several weeks I lost my stinger about speaking out about the problems of big-time football.  I felt like “what’s the point.”  I felt silenced by the situation—by our discernment of what we should do next, by the way UNC took John and me and the other coaches’ families out of the conversation, by the fact that I am female and there are those who feel that because of that I should be quiet about football.  Truth is, I was enforcing my own silence on these topics. On Wednesday I participated in the panel discussion… Read the full post