Argo DL Fabion Foote Describes Systemic Racism He Faced at McMaster University

[jerrym]

Argo DL Fabion Foote has described the systemic racism he faced at McMaster University triggering the university to review anti-Black racism in the school's athletic programs.



McMaster University has announced a review of Black student-athlete experiences following "concerning accounts of anti-Black racism." It comes after Fabion Foote, a defensive lineman with the Toronto Argonauts and a former football player at the university, tweeted Sunday that he'd "experienced a lot of systemic racism during my time at McMaster." ...

He went on to describe a coach who said he must have sold drugs to afford tuition saying, "Keep in mind I never smoked in my life." Foote said "McMaster is a trash place with a system in place for us to fail. Whenever we spoke up they tried to silence us by ignoring the issues we faced."

The review will be carried out by an external advisor, according to a statement from Sean Van Koughnett, McMaster associate vice president and dean of students. It will "explore to what extent racist beliefs, comments, and behaviours have been present within Marauder Athletics and document the impact that this has had on current and former student-athletes," the statement reads, noting the process has the "full support" of Shawn Burt, the school's director of athletics and recreation. "The goal of the review is to better understand what Black student-athletes have experienced so that we can take concrete action to strengthen a culture of equity and inclusivity."....

Foote's shared his experience at the university after the McMaster Marauders twitter account posted a video about the death of George Floyd and anti-Black racism. ...

Foote also said that his attempts to bring up his experiences to Mark Alfano, the department's associate director, and Glen Grunwald, a past-director of McMaster athletics and now CEO of Canada Basketball, were "brushed off."

Grunwald replied to Foote on Twitter saying that he "should have done more to deal with the racism issues" that were raised. He mentioned one incident, where a player used a "horribly offensive phrase" in the team's private chat and admitted that something more should have been done to "begin to deal with system racism." Grunwald said that while the player was disciplined, and though around this time, he met with Black players and talked to the coach about discrimination in the football program, it wasn't enough.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/mcmaster-athlete-racism-review-1.5632430

[jerrym]

Foote was backed up in his accusations by teammates WR Ezy Mboko, DL Chris Adeneye and RB Wayne Moore.



“Years and years of racial slurs being reported to the higher-ups, no one’s doing anything. So it would have to take violence for them to understand OK, oh, this was bothering them,” Mboko said (https://www.chch.com/mcmaster-marauderss-head-coach-responds-to-allegations-of-racism-on-the-team/).
Current head coach Stefan Ptaszek recruited Mboko to join the Marauders in 2014 and he graduated after last season. Ptaszek rose to prominence as a bench boss from 2006 through the 2015 season at Mac and returned to lead the football program to a Yates Cup championship in 2019 (https://3downnation.com/2019/11/09/mac-attack-no-1-western-melts-down-as-mcmaster-pulls-upset-for-yates-cup/).

“I’m so glad that these student-athletes are comfortable enough to come out, even though some of the stuff they’re going to say is going to obviously be unflattering,” Ptaszek said. ...

“There are a lot of kids on the team who are known for saying racist things. Every black football player you can ask that went to Mac, will tell you that’s how it’s always been,” Mboko said.
Former offensive and defensive lineman Chris Adeneye experienced racism first-hand by group text following a team banquet which the black team members did not attend in 2017. At the time, Ptaszek was coaching in the CFL with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and Greg Knox was head coach (https://3downnation.com/2018/10/22/mcmaster-fires-head-football-coach-greg-knox/). Knox held that position from 2016 until 2018 when he was fired in October of that year (https://3downnation.com/2018/11/09/fired-mcmaster-head-football-coach-greg-knox-ends-silence/).
https://3downnation.com/2020/07/01/ezy-mbokos-experience-at-mcmaster-years-and-years-of-racial-slurs-it-hurts-so-much/



“There would be times I just couldn’t wait to get back to my room, I’d breakdown. These are things that we spoke about while even being in school. And when I read [Foote’s tweets], I felt it. It’s trauma, you don’t know you’re going through trauma until after,” Moore said.

Meanwhile, Foote was at McMaster from 2013 to 2016. He played 25 regular season games for the Marauders, recording 43 tackles, 13 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks. The North York native was a key contributor to the 2014 Yates Cup-winning team. He states racial jokes were made at his expense.

“I was called a monkey by one of my coaches. He said King Kong, gorilla, monkey — one of the three and everybody thought it was so funny, but it really wasn’t funny because it was a real life experience that I faced,” Foote said.
https://3downnation.com/2020/06/30/toronto-argos-dl-fabion-foote-i-was-called-a-monkey-by-one-of-my-mcmaster-coaches/



(https://3downnation.com/2020/06/30/toronto-argos-dl-fabion-foote-i-was-called-a-monkey-by-one-of-my-mcmaster-coaches/)

[AngeloV]

This is pretty sad. We like to think that Canada is above what we see happening in the U.S. as far are racism goes, but many have their head in the sand regarding it.

[jerrym]

Former CFL RB John Williams, who played for the Argos from 2004 to 2007 as well as with BC and Hamilton, has written a long open letter backing up Fabion Foote's allegations of systemic racism at McMaster. Below is a short excerpt of the letter, which can be read at the url below, detailing the measures McMaster took to "deflect and side track" him regarding race issues at the university.



First and foremost I want to say that I stand with my brother Fabion Foote and commend him for his brave and strong voice (https://3downnation.com/2020/06/30/toronto-argos-dl-fabion-foote-i-was-called-a-monkey-by-one-of-my-mcmaster-coaches/). This young man has taken a stand and has chosen to speak out about his experience as a young black athlete on a predominantly white campus by highlighting the dismissiveness he and other black athletes were shown by McMaster Athletics. As a former black student athlete, a former Grey Cup Champion, and an ex-employee of McMaster University, I can no longer stand by and listen to McMaster athletics go to enormous lengths to ensure that plausible deniability is firmly in place in the form of “thoughts on racism” and “external reviews.” The following passage details the measures McMaster Athletics took to deflect and side track myself from the real issues happening around race within the department. ...

At the end of our meeting, Ameil and Vilma communicated to me that many of the black student athletes on the McMaster football team were very upset with how they were being treated and that a program like this was precisely what athletics needed. Former athletic director Glen Grunwald, current Associate Director of Athletics Mark Alfano and current Associate Vice-President and Dean of Students Sean Van Koughnett were all aware of this issue on the football team and had not taken any sustainable action toward helping the situation.
https://3downnation.com/2020/07/02/former-cfl-rb-john-williams-supports-fabion-foote-regarding-systemic-racism-claims-at-mcmaster/

[Rich]

Well now we know Fabian Foote is a man with a lot of courage and it wouldn’t surprise me if he played football that way too. I’ll be rooting for him for sure.

The CFL has way more black Canadians than any other pro sport, and I think the league should be working with all of them right now to help build a uniquely Canadian take on the anti-racism movement.

Surely the feds would give an initiative like that some extra consideration when it came time to giving the league some financial support.