The other day, a friend and I were talking about how the presumption is always guilt where people of color are concerned. We weren’t talking about Brandon Roy, but we could have been. We weren’t talking about me, either, but we could have been.
We also weren’t talking about an accusation cycled through the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA), but maybe we should have been.
On July 25, Roy returned to his alma mater, Garfield High School, which had dumped him, and his three-state-championship and NBA-star resume, as its boys basketball head coach some nine months earlier. He reclaimed the job with the utmost grace. And that’s where any similarities between him and me end.
Like Roy, I was part of an anonymous accusation submitted to the WIAA. The presumption, I was told, was that a violation was committed. There was no supporting evidence.
The accusation was facilitating a Name, Image, or Likeness (NIL) violation for Tyran Stokes. He was then the star of State 3A champion Rainier Beach High School. He’s now preparing for what is expected to be a one-year stint at the University of Kansas. Early looks at the 2027 NBA Draft are projecting Stokes as the No. 1 overall pick.
I found myself in this nutty entanglement due to the limited wisdom of the overlords of local high-school basketball. The episode was most probably touched off by the petty jealousy of those gunning for Stokes and Rainier Beach High School, in a misguided cultural appropriation of Malcolm X — by any means necessary.
In other words, it was not much different than Roy’s odyssey through anonymous, unfounded accusations, met by premature and egregious overreaction by his school and school district.