In My Own Words: Addressing Racial Injustice will be a blog series featuring NAU student-athletes providing their stories, experiences and opinions in their own words. NAU Athletics is proud to provide Lumberjack student-athletes with a platform for their voices to be heard in the continued fight for racial equality in the United States. This week: NAU volleyball senior Heaven Harris.
As a black woman in this country, I am scared. I am scared to get pulled over, scared for my father, my family members and all my friends to even have the smallest encounter with the police. Not only am I scared, but I am angry. Angry that Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Trayvon Martin and many more have never gotten justice. I'm angry that their families have to sleep at night knowing that the justice system has failed them. It makes me even more sad that systematic racism is alive and still kicking in our country, and it seems like people still don't believe that it's real. Black Lives Matter and basic human rights have nothing to do with politics and shouldn't be a debate anymore.
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As a black student-athlete, I have a big platform and an even bigger voice. I will not be silenced by the people who tell athletes to "shut up and play." This is my world too, and I want to see a change and I want to be a part of the change. I will not sit around while my brothers and sisters are silenced. I will raise them up and encourage them to have a voice too. I will be the voice for people who don't feel like they have one.
