NEWS

White high school soccer player kneels during anthem

Mark Curnutte
mcurnutte@enquirer.com
Clark Montessori goal keeper Tom Gallagher takes a knee during national anthem before his games.

Clark Montessori High School will play a varsity soccer game Thursday evening at Cincinnati Christian in Fairfield. During the national anthem, Clark goalkeeper Tom Gallagher will do what he has done at each game since Sept. 6.

Tom, who is white, blond and blue-eyed, will drop to his right knee in silent protest against racial inequality.

Other white high school athletes nationally and white U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe have joined the national anthem protest started in August by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Dozens of black NFL and women's professional basketball players are kneeling or raising their right fist in the black power salute, though no white pro football player has yet to join in.

Tom, 17, is a senior at the racially and economically integrated Cincinnati Public school in Hyde Park. He joins the long line of whites who've protested or otherwise participated in the black freedom and civil rights movements.

White Union troops and abolitionists pre-dated white intellectuals who helped to form the NAACP and the National Urban League in the early 20th century. White people fought against Jim Crow, filling vital roles in the modern civil rights movement, and continue to work today alongside blacks for voting rights and equity and against police brutality.

Sports has long been an arena for civil rights activity – personified by Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, U.S. Olympians John Carlos and Tommie Smith and now Kaepernick, with and his focus on police-involved shooting deaths of African-Americans.

Tom Gallagher took notice. He has knelt during the anthem four times before games and plans to continue his peaceful protest. Clark has a 6-3 record. His save percentage is 86.

"Kaepernick is just protesting the overall inequality between races in our country," Tom said. "Black people, as a whole, on the socioeconomic scale, are lower than white people, and nothing is really being done about it. It can't just be people of color. It has to be people of power and privilege who help to make change. I have a responsibility."

He has five African-American teammates on the Clark soccer team, none of whom have protested. He was in the pre-game anthem line next to two black teammates when he first knelt. They've said nothing either critical or supportive to him, Tom said.

"I'm not going to pressure them to do this. It's their choice to do what they think is right," said Tom, who plans to study sports management and play Division III college soccer. "I love playing soccer with my black teammates. There is no tension. We get along great. Everybody has to do what they think is right."

That message is the one Tom and his older sister and brother have received from their parents, William Gallagher and Beth Conkin, both lawyers. Tom's father was there when Tom knelt for the first time at Clark's Sept. 6 home game at Withrow High School's stadium.

"I wondering what led him to do it. Why the knee?" William Gallagher said. "I am proud of him. I would expect him to act on what he perceives to be a wrong. The knee is what he chose. He could do a lot of things."

Four black Withrow High School football players protested by raising their right fist during the anthem before their Sept. 16 game at Loveland. Almost every player on the all-black Withrow roster raised their fist or knelt before their game this past Friday at Anderson. Withrow plays at home at 7 p.m. Friday against Glen Este. Black Lives Matter: Cincinnati issued a call Tuesday on its Facebook page for people to attend the game and join Withrow players' anthem protest.

Black Americans are 2.5 times as likely as white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers, according to the Washington Post's real-time database.

Withrow football team's national anthem protest grows

Cincinnati Public Schools circulated its national anthem policy this past week to principals, athletic directors and coaches. The policy encourages students to stand during the anthem out of respect for the flag and military veterans and service members. Yet, ultimately, the district respects students' right of freedom of speech.

"My protest has nothing to do with the military," Tom said. "I am not trying to disrespect them. I respect the people who serve and have served and died in all of our wars.

"But it's not the way it should be in this country. We pride ourselves on having freedom for everybody. If we're really fighting for equality in all of these other countries, why are we not fighting for it here? Racial issues have been a constant problem in our country. Something is always happening."