I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay. I didn't set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I'm happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn't the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, "I'm different." If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the courage it takes to embrace one's identity and break barriers in sports and society.
Jason Collins expresses his awareness of being a pioneer as the first openly gay athlete in a major American team sport. His statement highlights the difficulties of being different and the desire for a supportive environment where individuals do not have to feel isolated for their identities. By raising his hand, he symbolizes the act of initiating an important conversation about acceptance and representation in sports.
In practice
In a speech about diversity in sports, one could quote Jason Collins to highlight the importance of acceptance.
I would love to see an athlete live their life in an authentic way, not feel that they have to hide, not feel that they have to be afraid, or live with shame - all the other things that go with being a closeted athlete. No human being should have to walk that path. But there is that fear of stepping forward.
The worst insult you can give a professional athlete is to call them soft. And the stereotype out there is that gay is soft.
The first relative I came out to was my aunt Teri, a superior court judge in San Francisco. Her reaction surprised me. 'I've known you were gay for years,' she said. From that moment on I was comfortable in my own skin.
For many young people growing up in minority communities, there is a sense that their lives are disposable. As athletes, we have a platform to let those kids know that their lives are important. That their lives matter to us.
Some people insist they've never met a gay person. But Three Degrees of Jason Collins dictates that no NBA player can claim that anymore. Pro basketball is a family. And pretty much every family I know has a brother, sister or cousin who's gay. In the brotherhood of the NBA, I just happen to be the one who's out.
My dream was to play in the NBA and live my authentic life as a proud gay man at the same time. I was able to accomplish both of those goals because of the people who have supported me throughout my life.
Somebody has to stand when other people are sitting. Somebody has to speak when other people are quiet.
For each of us as women, there is a dark place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises, beautiful and tough as chestnut stanchions against our nightmare of weakness. Within these deep places, each one of us holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling
I have no help to send, therefore I must go myself.
I think our existence in professional sports is almost a protest in and of itself in sometimes the very sexist society that we live in. For us, it's just kind of right in line with what we always do.
There's a long history and a pattern of Black athletes - and Black people, period - being told to shut up and accept whatever it is they're given.
First it was the whites, and then their Negro message bearers. And the word was always the same: 'Tell your sons to take their names off the books. Don't show up at the courthouse voting day.'
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