Surfing’s Selema Masekela reveals ugly racism bubbling underneath extreme sport surface

"I wish more than anything that white people in this country actually gave a fuck."

Surf fans have been left stunned after the noted surfing broadcaster Selema Masekela delivered, in his unflinching straight-down-the-barrel-of-the-camera style, a searing account of real world interactions with white supremacists, revealing, as if it had to be revealed, the continuing struggle of the black man in the United States of America.

As Selema tells it, and it long but that sweet juice is worth all y’all squeeze:

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“Can y’all let me tell a story that you don’t want to hear? Okay, good. This is going to be disturbing and uncomfortable for many of you. But I hope that you’ll stick around because you need to hear it.

“I was at a Supercross race in Anaheim the January before last. I’ve always been a fan of Supercross — I think that they’re some of the best athletes on earth, truly. And in this case, I was very excited to go and cheer for young Malcolm Stewart, ironically the only Black rider who was racing in Supercross that evening. I cheered for him. He had a crash, it did not work out, but he put up a gallant effort, and I got in my car to drive home.

“As we were exiting Anaheim Stadium, all the cars were being funneled into a very, very, very long corral to get out — five or six wide, then narrowing. So you’re sitting in a line of cars for about, I don’t know, fifteen minutes or so to get out. I’m in my car, which is low — it’s a station wagon — surrounded by the common vehicle at a Supercross race: many trucks, many trucks lifted high in the air.

“A truck pulls up to me, a white one, with a bunch of kids in it. And when I say kids, I mean ranging in age from like eighteen to twenty-five. A young man in the back leans out of the window and looks at me. I have my window down, listening to some music, and he says, “I fucking hate George Floyd.” And everybody in the truck starts laughing really loud.

“I’m startled, kind of in shock, don’t know what to make of it. I don’t respond, I just kind of look in disbelief. And for the next ten minutes, every time this truck pulled up next to me, not only this young man but everyone in it looked at me, leering out of the truck, screaming and laughing. Screaming and laughing. “We fucking hate George Floyd.”

“I wanted to get out of my car so badly. But I knew that if I got out of my car, all the surrounding trucks were probably people who thought just like them, and who the fuck knows what would have happened to me. And what went from being puzzled and curious as to why this was happening turned into genuine fear and terror. I just sat there in silence, turned off my radio, waiting for it to end. The truck followed me as I was getting onto the freeway, and they continued to yell. Then they went off in their direction and I went home in mine. I drove home that hour or so back to Los Angeles in total silence.

“The next morning I woke up so angry. I can’t really describe what was moving around in my body and in my spirit. A friend of mine called me to tell me about how that morning he had been in Newport Beach going surfing and had a beautiful session, and as he was walking back to his car, a car drove by full of young people, and a water bottle was thrown at him. It hit him in the head, and the car of people yelled “nigger,” with a hard R, at him. He stood there dumbfounded, got in his car, and drove home.

“I told him my story after he told me his. And then we both talked about how we wanted to post something about it, but we didn’t want to deal with the white people who would be in our comments telling us that we were lying or full of shit — that it really wouldn’t be worth it.

“The pain from that night has stayed with me a year and a half later. And I know that the pain from that morning has stayed with him a year and a half later. And as we see these rashes of stories that continue to be collected — of Black people showing up, mysteriously hanging from trees and being ruled suicides, of Black people who’ve gone out places with their white friends and have not come home, but no one gets arrested — I just don’t think that many of you understand what it’s like. Nor are you remotely curious about what it might be like to simply navigate leaving your home and coming home safely in America, where you are Black or brown or queer or trans, or any number of marginalized people in this country.

“It is exhausting in a way that I don’t even really know how to express. Because sometimes the energy is so foreign in your body that you don’t realize it’s just a new version of an old thing you felt before, but it’s adapted and grown into something that causes you even more pain because you just don’t get used to it. And this country is wholly, wholly exhausted as a result.

“And I wish peace to all those families that are suffering without answers, without justice. And I wish more than anything that white people in this country actually gave a fuck, and didn’t just think that we were cool because of the cultural offerings that we have to give. I just wish that y’all gave a fuck.”

There was excellent engagement on the post, one of Selema’s best, nine thousand likes, thirteen hundred comments.