the tennis racket

Three Dead and five injured after mass shooting at Michigan State University

Nadia hargett Staff Writer

The

Jaz Bryant nubian-editor@ncsu.edu

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cover photo BY JEREMY NOIR Staff Photographer

Brionna Johnson, the interim library coordinator for the African American Culture Center reads a poem during the gallery opening for Black Euphoria: Love Letters to a Black Life at the Witherspoon Student Center on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023. The event praised euphoria in black lives and accomplishments; it showcased scrapbooks that students and staff made to document and reflect views of Black euphoria.

Professionalism. It’s something that athletes are universally expected to have, no matter what their mood is and no matter how their opponent plays. That’s why when a player falters and has an outburst, they are scrutinized. However, it seems that that scrutiny is pointed at some more than others.

Take Alexander Bublik for instance.

In February of this year, Bublik lost to an unranked opponent named Grégoire Barrère at Open Sud de France. This caused Bublik to fail to defend his French tournament title, which made him understandable upset. However, because of his loss, he proceeded to break not one, not two, but three tennis rackets. Right in front of the crowd of people watching him. This isn’t the first time Bublik has done this. In fact, he was fined $14,000 in September 2022 for a similar outburst at the United States Open.

Williams’ had no choice but to forfeit her whole match because of the violations Ramos claimed she’d made, but Bublik’s tirade didn’t cause his chair umpire to make him forfeit a game. In fact, he finished it after destroying the tennis rackets, and while smashing them, the crowd reportedly cheered loudly for him.

It’s also important to acknowledge the racial difference between Bublik and Williams. Bublik is white, and white privilege in sports is very much a real thing. Non-white athletes have faced barriers and dealt with microaggressions for decades, particularly African American athletes.

Rebecca

HernÁndez

Correspondent 4 expanding the school’s network of cameras, requiring key card access into buildings after business hours, installing a new lock system in classrooms and requiring active violence training to all faculty, staff and students.

On Feb. 13, 2023, 43-year-old Anthony Dwayne McRae opened fire on Michigan State University’s campus killing three students and injuring five more. McRae, who had no connection with the school, first opened fire at MSU’s Berkey Hall before moving to the Michigan State Student Union, the central hub of MSU’s student life. McRae was later found dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds, just miles away from MSU’s campus. McRae’s motives for the shooting still remain unknown.

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Now take the time to ask yourself if you’d heard of this man’s outbursts. I know I hadn’t. In fact, I learned about it from one of my colleagues. It begs the question, why hasn’t this been visible in the news? After all, Serena Williams’ outburst was plastered all over the media. Even I, someone whose never followed sports, would see articles about her on social media. The answer is clear when you look at the distinct differences between Bublik and Williams; Bublik is a man, and Williams is a woman. Gender inequality has always been prevalent in the sports world, and this is a clear example. Alexander Bublik is able to break three rackets and still finish his game, and his tantrum isn’t nearly as infamous as Serena Williams’ back from 2018.

In society, it has long been a stereotype that Black people are more aggressive and volatile, despite showing the same amount of emotion as their white counterparts. This stereotype bleeds into sports as well: Williams being a Black woman and having an incident during a match like that was clear ammunition for the media to label her as an aggressive person. Even racist caricature art was made of her following that incident, and displayed her as a big, hulking baby throwing a massive tantrum and stomping on her tennis racquet.

Alexander Bublik and Serena Williams should both be expected to remain professionals when it comes to playing tennis, but it is clear to me they both falter and seem to garner differing levels of criticism rather than equal criticism, which isn’t new in sports or media. The expectations of male athletes and female athletes and white athletes and Black athletes are clearly different, even in 2023, and it's clear that a lot of progress still needs to be made.

Arielle Anderson, 19 and a junior, was in class when she was shot dead by the shooter. Alexandria Verner, 20, was a junior at MSU majoring in biology. Brian Fraser, 20, was a sophomore studying business and served as the president of the Michigan Beta Chapter of Phi Delta Theta. All three were the students of Michigan State University who tragically lost their lives last month, at the hands of McRae.

Guadalupe Huapilla-Pérez, a junior and one of the survivor’s of the shooting, “sustained two bullet wounds, one of which impacted five major organs.” Perez is still in the hospital recovering from her injuries.

Troy Forbush, another MSU student and survivor, has been released from the hospital after being shot in the chest.

Another student survivor has also been released from the hospital but has not been identified by the media. Additionally, there are two other students along with Perez who are still recovering from their injuries in the shooting.

In 2019, McRae had previously been charged with carrying a concealed weapon but later pleaded down to “possession of a loaded firearm in or upon a vehicle,” a misdemeanor instead. At first, his case was brought up on felony charges which had he been convicted for would have prevented him from being able to obtain a legal firearm. McRae was found by the police with two firearms that he had legally purchased. However, it is still unclear where he legally purchased the firearm he used in the shooting according to the police. Gun violence has been becoming a bigger and more pressing issue in the United States, since the end of the 20th century. The Gun Violence Archive estimated 647 mass shootings in 2022, 690 mass shootings in 2021 and 96 mass shootings in 2023 this far.

Gun violence is also the number one leading cause of death in children in the United States, surpassing automobile accidents and cancer. According to Insider, “Americans are 25 times more likely to die from gun violence than people in higher income nations.”

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Some may argue Williams incident was discussed more because her name is known more amongst people than Bublik’s, but her gender does play a clear role in this.

Williams herself that Carlos Ramos, the chair umpire who made the rulings for her violations at the time, was being sexist”because she has witnessed male players calling umpires "several things," but they were not penalized. Williams also said that “For me to say 'thief' and for him to take a game, it made me feel like it was a sexist remark," and added, “He's never taken a game from a man because they said 'thief.’ For me it blows my mind. But I'm going to continue to fight for women."

Michigan State University, much like North Carolina State University, is a public research university in the United States with over 38,000 undergraduate students. Both universities are the largest higher education institutions in their respective states.

Much like public universities across the country, both MSU and NC State are open campuses meaning, “invites general public visitors as well as the campus community to come and go as they please from the property.” This is how McRae was able to access MSU’s campus without being a student, staff or faculty member.

Although open campuses have been a thing for most institutions, MSU and other public universities may be moving to change or adapt this. Michigan State is taking action to change its security protocols in lieu of everything that has happened. Some of these protocols include

An entire generation of people in the US are now affected by gun violence. Jackie Matthews, a 21-year-old senior and survivor of the Michigan State shooting, also lived through the horror of the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut just ten years ago when she was 10. In the one minute and seventeen second video that Matthews posted on her TikTok account, she recounts the trauma she endured on Dec. 14, 2012 and again just a few weeks ago. Matthews represents a generation of students who have gone through school their entire lives filled with fear due to gun violence.

As mass shootings continue, people become fearful, sorrowful and angry, demanding change and reform. All we are met with from our officials is “thoughts and prayers.” Nothing has been done on the State or Federal level to prevent tragedies like Sandy Hook and Michigan State from happening, causing this cycle to repeat itself over and over again.