RISE PERSPECTIVES

Author: Ashlee Woods

“To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.” -bell hooks

Nestled in the busy streets of Detroit, Michigan, is The Corner Ballpark. Inside the stadium, the walls are lined with images of pioneers and barrier breakers from baseball, America's ultimate pastime. The park, once the home of the Detroit Tigers and now home to the Detroit Police Athletic League (PAL), celebrates how sports can bring people from all backgrounds together. That spirit is evident everywhere, from the walls and stairs to the grass on the field.

Soon enough, high school soccer players from four schools across Southeast Michigan entered the ballpark. Some of them knew each other, but most of them had never met before Sunday, July 20.

That day, the seventh RISE Together event, a gathering of high school boys' soccer teams in Southeast Michigan, was hosted by RISE. The event was designed to bring individuals from vastly different backgrounds onto one soccer field to celebrate both how much they had in common and how much they differed from each other.

For four hours, nearly 100 high school-aged boys bonded through lively discussions (and playful debate) about who the best soccer player was, team-building activities, and, of course, a scrimmage. Perhaps most striking were the conversations the boys had about building community—the strategies they could employ and the challenges that communities sometimes face.

As the boys sat around roundtables in a large ballroom with friends and new acquaintances, they walked through one of RISE's modules, “Community Building: Building a Trophy.” The task was to work together to build the tallest trophy. This brief, 15-minute activity and the ensuing discussion mirrored what it took to build a community: a space where all ideas and viewpoints could be shared. “This was an opportunity for them to bridge gaps and meet people from different backgrounds,” said Malcolm Carter, “but they were all doing the same thing—they were high school boys, playing sports and going to school. The event celebrated the diversity in the room while helping the boys realize they weren't that much different from someone else.”

In that moment, the group gathered in that room gained a deeper appreciation for the value of community building. Across the time they spent together, race, socioeconomic status, neighborhood of origin, and high school weren't deterrents to building new relationships. Perhaps the most valuable lesson of the afternoon was learning to embrace someone new even if they had little in common.

My love for sports began as a kid who spent her eyes glued to SportsCenter anytime it was on the television screen in my modest home in Delaware. Growing up, however, in a low-income household limited the opportunities I had to be consistently involved in sports. I spent many days wondering if I could ever build the community my friends were able to build through the sports they played. I also wondered what a world without barriers to playing sports as a kid would look like.

The doors to a fruitful youth sports experience could be blocked due to reasons out of young athletes' control. What I witnessed that Sunday afternoon at RISE Together was the power youth sports could have when differences were celebrated instead of cast aside for the sake of uniformity.

When opportunities to meet and fellowship with other people begin to dwindle, it could limit our perspective of the world around us. If I hadn't spent time cheering, running track, or even participating in marching band, I wouldn't be the woman I became. Kids today deserved the chance to kick a soccer ball across a field, hit a baseball out of the park, or even wave a pompom in the air. They deserved to find who they were and what they were, and they couldn't do that without the opportunity to see the world.

Sports have the unique ability to bring people with extreme differences together, focused on a common goal. Through sport, people who would probably would never have crossed paths otherwise built and created bonds that will last a lifetime. As such, sports provided an environment to promote unity and uniformity. Perhaps counterintuitively, it was also a great tool to celebrate the diversity life can bring.

That is what lies at the core of the RISE Perspectives series: a yearning to understand the world around us. Community building takes time. It takes an investment in the people around you. But most importantly, it takes an inner passion to learn more about the world and the people in it.

As we seek to build a stronger community in sports, we must open our minds to a new perspective. Maybe it means going to an event we wouldn't normally attend, having a tough conversation, or doing something as simple as lending a hand. Community building requires a bit of discomfort in the pursuit of crafting a safe space.

That space, like Rome, isn't built in a day. But the choice to construct that space starts inward every day. RISE Perspectives can be that choice we make, the choice to lend ourselves to the cause of fighting for social justice.