Scobel Wiggins Photography

July 15th, 2009: Recovering from Potlatch was an endeavor unto itself. My legs were tired from standing, running, and dancing in the DTB Soul Train for three days. My eyes were tired from the exposure to UV rays and the lack of sleep. And my mind was too preoccupied coping with the immediate post-tournament disconnect from my teammates, my brown family, to thoroughly digest the provocative discussion in our circles. Several hours of stretching, sleeping, and decompressing has led me to a point where I can pick apart my thoughts like a Jenga tower- slowly, but with the risk of creating a blunder. After the tournament, I eventually did topple over. The weekend was overwhelming and fantastic on so many levels! We ended up in the A-Bracket semis against Team USA (which made for a very long, exciting weekend), but even more of note, DTB had two discussion circles: one to share and get to know your DTB teammates and one to share and get to know the community around us and to engage in meaningful dialogue on race in Ultimate. Both were exceptional experiences.

Like I've mentioned in my previous article, when we gather together to discuss intimate details of our lives, cultural experiences, and deeper thoughts everyone grows...everyone learns...and we develop close bonds with one another. It is an experience that a simple blog post will insufficiently convey.

But what I can report is that our second circle, though rich in quality, was not highly attended. We had about 7-10 non DTB members come by to check us out and chit chat. But have no fear; we're not discouraged by the turnout. We had our open circle during the last round on Saturday which meant we were rivaling a final round of pool play, bus trips to the showers, dinner, and that awkward couple of hours to pre-party/rest before hitting up the tournament party at the brewery. Also, I can imagine it being difficult to break away from your own team to go explore the unknowns of the DTB circle. And we didn't clarify that if you only wanted to come observe, listen, and soak it all in without sharing much- that's cool too. It was all new to us. But there's always a next time. Hopefully next year, we'll find a time that's more conducive to higher attendance. With that said, I'd love to share the substance of some of our conversations. Instead of detailing our discussions, I'll brief on some of the topics that were brought as food for thought. As a forewarning, these are simply discussion topics that came about organically and were left to ponder, not set topics with set resolutions...

Sources of Discrimination
Mike Namkung wrote previously that "The reality of racial thinking is much more nuanced and complex."

When most of us think of racism, pictures of segregated schools and sounds of colored hate speech may come to mind. These are the common images of discrimination that many of us would feel comfortable casting as racist. These forms of overt bigotry are external- in other words, one person (or entity, community, government, etc.) discriminates against another individual. However, a member of DTB brought up something a little different: internal racist thinking. His comments were inspired by Kenji Yoshino's book Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights. "Covering" is an internal and at times subconscious level of oppression that one does to herself. Examples in the book include minorities who "talk white" or women who try to hide their pregnancies at work. They "cover" or in essence, self-censor in order to assimilate. In our circle, we discussed both types of discrimination (internal and external) and how they've made their way into our own lives. Whether or not discrimination happens from an outside source or from something buried deep within both have unfortunate ends. So what does any of this have to do with Ultimate? Well, therein lays the question. I've heard many people (mostly players) describe Ultimate as a "white-boy sport". What does this mean and how does it affect others who don't fall into that category? Why do we have this perception? And what can we do to change it?

Streets and Suburbs
I'm constantly in awe of the stories that are shared in the circle. Some members have lived in urban areas, others in dirt-path-villages in countries afar, and some in cookie-cutter suburbs. And with their respective settings come captivating stories of survival and strength. There are several members of the brown family, who have battled demons in the form of drugs, gangs, and bona fide knife-fights, but it does not cheapen the experience of the upper middle-class suburbanite; suburban households are not exempt from the terrors of domestic violence, sexual assault, and substance abuse. With our dialogue, we learned the multidimensional meaning of struggle. And do we have members who haven't had a taste of any of it? Members who have been lucky enough to dodge bullets (pun intended)? Of course. Yet we still discuss, examine, compare and relate... and that process is valuable. The learning and love fest still continued as we banded together in support of one another.

What are you?
On the sidelines, I heard this conversation several times:
"Hi!!!"
"Heyyy!!" (Hug or fist pound.)
"What team are you on?"
"DTB."
"You're brown?? Really? What are you?"
"....."

Nearly every person on our team has some recollection of being asked "What are you?" at one point in their lives. It is a strange question. Or should it be? The question could be appropriately answered a number a ways (I'm human, I'm a girl, I'm Vietnamese). But the reactions to the question ranged. Some welcomed it, others are unphased by it, some are uncomfortable with it, and some are defensive about it. Some members don't even know the real answer to the question. Obviously, there's no right or wrong response, but we did delve into the dynamics in answering the question- especially when it came from Frisbee friends. As with many of our discussion topics, the circle participants didn't come to a settled conclusion. But we did learn that even if we flinch at the question, we should recognize the question initiates the very type of dialogue that we encourage. Learning and sharing. And how were we going to learn and share even more? Ask the same question to the person who asked you.

The Future and Diversity of Our Sport
Some of our guests in the open circle were Seattle Youth players. They shared their experiences and their demeanor was hopeful....hopeful in a sense that they saw the sport as a positive outlet and hopeful to the older folks in another sense because with them, the future of our sport is bright. They listened and paid close attention to our discussion and disregarded the decades that separate them from our veteran players. They refreshed some of our jaded, old-as-dirt players who were around for the first DTB. Positive energy surrounded us. As youth Ultimate begins to grow in cities large and small across the country and beyond, we can expect to see more diversity in the sport. One young, black player (still in junior high, I think) was put on the spot. He was asked what if he felt the pressure to play other sports outside of Ultimate and if he felt different on the field with his peers. He quickly and optimistically responded no to both questions. He felt that Ultimate was "normal" and that he felt "normal" playing it—and that's a good sign. Though Ultimate may not be mainstream anytime soon, an increase of diversity definitely could be a possibility... especially with the kids sitting in our circle.

So those are just a few topics we discussed in our circles, and they were big issues for a couple dozen people to talk about. As I mentioned earlier, no issues were resolved, and they weren't expected to be. If you've read this far and still feel hungry for more food for thought—good! That's exactly how we left each circle; tired, emotional, and still wanting more (and hungry for the Potlatch salmon dinner). In the future, Downtown Brown still has hopes in engaging the community around us—to learn, to love, and to unite with. You'll see us at Potlatch next year, but if you run into us in the meantime and want to chat, we'll definitely share.

Venus plays, stars and rocks out with the University of Oregon Fugue and Portland's Schwa.