By Joshua Tenzer
Let me start off by pointing out the fact that I am a straight, white, male who has never faced racism of any kind - stupid middle school antisemitism, sure - racism, no.
Something horrible happened today.
On Friday, the third of April, the New York Rangers held a Q and A session with recently signed defenseman K’Andre Miller. Miller played for two seasons with the Wisconsin Badgers accumulating 40 points off 12 goals and 28 assists. 2 of those goals and 1 assist came against the Wolverines this year. He was listed by EliteProspects as the #1 Rangers prospect in the NCAA beating out senior Morgan Barron from Cornell for that award. After signing his entry-level contract with the Rangers who drafted him in the first round of the 2018 draft, the Rangers wanted to keep fan engagement going in the Coronavirus induced pause. They decided to let 500 people in a video conference on the platform Zoom with Miller to ask him questions. In hindsight, this was a horrible idea.
Something horrible happened today.
On Friday, the third of April, the New York Rangers held a Q and A session with recently signed defenseman K’Andre Miller. Miller played for two seasons with the Wisconsin Badgers accumulating 40 points off 12 goals and 28 assists. 2 of those goals and 1 assist came against the Wolverines this year. He was listed by EliteProspects as the #1 Rangers prospect in the NCAA beating out senior Morgan Barron from Cornell for that award. After signing his entry-level contract with the Rangers who drafted him in the first round of the 2018 draft, the Rangers wanted to keep fan engagement going in the Coronavirus induced pause. They decided to let 500 people in a video conference on the platform Zoom with Miller to ask him questions. In hindsight, this was a horrible idea.
K’Andre Miller at a pre-season NYR training camp
During the video conference, Miller, a racial minority, was answering questions about his quarantine situation when an account with the screen name ‘FBI’ started to spam the chat with a wall of text that was the N-word in all caps over and over and over and over again. Any real questions got lost in the wave of racial abuse. K’Andre did not respond to the happenings in the chat but was clearly visibly uncomfortable due to what was on his screen. The individual was eventually silenced and the session continued.
4 hours after the incident, the New York Rangers released this statement:
4 hours after the incident, the New York Rangers released this statement:
While it is nice that the Rangers said this and are condemning this behavior, 4 hours is an unacceptable time frame to take between the incident occurring and the releasing the statement. The NHL also took a similar amount of time. Racism clearly has no place in hockey, or any sport for that matter, yet it exists in almost every conceivable competition. Every month, a new story breaks about a soccer player facing racial abuse from fans, a WWE wrestler getting targeted by racist chants from the crowd, the use of slurs on the football field, and many more show that this isn’t a problem keen on leaving the public view. When incidents like this occur it is up to the team and the leagues to take action swiftly and denounce this as soon as they can. The faster they respond, the more unified the response is. I am ashamed and disappointed in my favorite sports team on this planet for taking FOUR ENTIRE HOURS to denounce racial abuse on the newest member of their NHL roster.
New York Rangers podcaster Joe Fortunato echoing the feeling of the Ranger’s fan base during the time it took for the Rangers to respond to the racism
Furthermore, fans are having different reactions to this. Some are calling it out, some are calling to ignore the abuse as the person with the ‘FBI’ account was clearly a troll trying to get a rise out of people, some are thanking K’Andre for his professionalism. While it is obvious that the fan base of the New York Rangers are behind Miller and in support of the young man, no matter what anyone calls for to respond to this, a whole subsection of people attacks in disagreement. If we call it out we are being stupid and giving the troll the attention they seek. If we ignore it we are letting the hatred bubble under the surface. If we thank K’Andre Miller for being professional we are being condescending. (I don’t really understand that last one but it’s happened. I’m willing to learn as well.) When something like this happens, there really isn’t one unified correct thing to do. No one has the answer to how to get rid of racism. We should not be attacking each other at a time like this. We should be together and supporting K’Andre Miller.
One response to this that I have seen that makes me happy is the masses of New York Ranger fans and players saying how they are excited for K’Andre to come to New York and sharing highlights of him, including his beautiful snipe on the power play from the blue line against the Michigan Wolverines in Yost.
One response to this that I have seen that makes me happy is the masses of New York Ranger fans and players saying how they are excited for K’Andre to come to New York and sharing highlights of him, including his beautiful snipe on the power play from the blue line against the Michigan Wolverines in Yost.
Fellow New York Rangers players Jacob Trouba, Tony D’Angelo, and Ryan Strome on the K’Andre Miller incident
We can share all the love and highlights we want but that does not excuse nor make up for the hatred that K’Andre Miller endured today. We need to see better from humanity, especially at a time like this, and we definitely need to see better from the NHl, the New York Rangers, and any league or team where a player endures racism from fans, teammates, or opponents.
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