Juneteenth Personal Reflection
Today marks another Juneteenth, and while the White House has taken down their proclamation to recognize the day from 2024, DEI Director Christian Barnes offered to pen a message for the community. MLQ recognizes the importance of the day as it relates to our community on and off the pitch. If you are not familiar with the holiday, we encourage you to learn more about Juneteenth.
Juneteenth has multiple themes depending on where across the US you live, but the one that struck me this year was from the Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire: “A Reckoning: Reclaiming the Past, Remembering Black Voices, Reshaping the Future.”
I have written multiple Juneteenth posts and articles (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024), and this year I grapple with the ever-present reality of nationwide attempts to reverse diversity and inclusion all over the US with my own increasing exhaustion being at the forefront of conversations within the quadball community, my own job (New York City government dealing with education), and my own personal headspace under the deterioration since January 20, 2025.
Still, I already made the decision to refuse to post for Black History Month this year in grievance of the election, and I don’t want my silence to send a message that we intend to ignore the importance of these dates. My reflection this year is a message to the conflict regarding quadball I’ve felt growing in the past 2–3 years, once the excitement of the sport existing post-pandemic began to die down.
I find it hard to be honest at times within the community about my own thoughts because I am expected to be a positive person—and I hold space in power. In the next section, I’ll put my own thoughts because I do think I end up cutting out my own tongue too often to put the needs of “the many” over my own; but even in writing that, there’s a part of me that feels I’m making Juneteenth about myself.
I recognize that I’ve become one of the most famous voices in the quadball community NOT simply for being Black, but also not in service to it in a way. The work I attempt at increasing representation and highlighting other Black identities is almost always behind the scenes aside from these articles every year. I haven’t yet decided whether that is good or bad, so I’ll appease both here.
Juneteenth is about freedom, and acknowledging the privileges gained through legal policy/intervention AND when the guise of rules and responsibility don’t meet reality and action. Juneteenth is about action at the micro level, without simply hoping that the macro level will make things just. In quadball, for me, today is about my voice and acting upon my own freedoms: of voice, of responsibility, of action.
THE GOOD
If you don’t care about hearing my opinion, feel free to finish in this section. African Nations Quadball is competing at the IQA World Cup 2025, and an article was recently posted focusing on the efforts in Africa to increase quadball (please check it out).
I remain immensely excited that I was able to spearhead the creation of African Nations Quadball as a team in 2023, but would not have been able to have it succeed without the efforts of James Hicks (coach 2023) and Alexander-Paul “OB” Ogbeide (coach 2023, 2025). I personally will not be attending this year due to personal conflicts, but OB will be leading the team to Belgium with a host of other leadership for the team’s second competition.
Switching into an assisting role on behind-the-scenes admin tasks has allowed me to be reinvigorated from the backseat—that a proposal and meeting in 2020 could lead to the team happening not just once but in a continuous fashion.
While Kenya was unable to send their own team this year, we continue to hope that African Nations is a jumping-off point for the success of other African-based NGBs with their own teams in future competitions. OB has taken up a lot of the financial responsibility of getting the team to Belgium and leading the coaches and captains on preparations as we get into the weekend. The team fee alone is $1,870, not accounting for housing, meals, and other expenses on the weekend.
If anyone would like to donate to the team, you can Venmo OB (@obuckets21) or Paypal oban0016@gmail.com.
THE BAD
Moving forward from the pandemic, I feel like I entered into a new perspective with quadball. Between spring 2020 and fall 2021, I’d become a USQ Board Member and Gameplay Manager; MLQ Interim DEI Director; and was leading the DEI review of Richmond for IQA World Cup 2023. I was now in connection with the highest level of all quadball in the US, and the body that controlled the sport internationally.
I hadn’t sought out the positions I found myself in directly—I usually offered help with a discussion or project here or there, usually thinking I was unqualified for a full position. From there, I was many times recommended or asked to consider something more (shoutout to Amanda Dallas for challenging me by asking to instead consider what I thought I was missing to be a qualified individual).
Moving into the roles gave me access to much more of the sport. In an official manner, I was given access to records of what was happening in quadball more than just where I was, but also access to more people who were living quadball in different locales. I was exposed to different experiences and perspectives and outlooks on problems and solutions.
I began to travel to more quadball events (ESPN 2022, most regional qualifier events over the last two seasons, each USQ Cup and MLQ Championship, World Cup 2023, and, most recently, my first Canada Nationals 2025). Reflecting on my journey in quadball—from the beginning to now—and considering it through the lens of inclusivity, freedom, and Juneteenth, I can’t help but feel that the sport isn’t heading in a positive direction, especially for Black participants as volunteers, competitors, and leaders.
I hesitate inviting my own community to join the sport unless I can culture how they’ll interact with it. I may feel safe in some of my very specific local spaces, but with each level of larger experience (a tournament, a championship, a World Cup), my sense of unease grows as to whether I would want them to watch or experience it.
I think this community generally believes itself to be pro-Black, but it is incredibly lacking in reality. When you bring in intersectionality—for those who are Black and queer or fall into a gender-expansive category—it gets even harder. And that’s especially disheartening, because the world outside of quadball often feels even heavier.
I find that many of the worst instances I face come from misdirected anger, and many times from my white counterparts (usually white cis men). The damning part is that I logically understand them getting upset from a certain standpoint, but notice that the recipients are those it is easier to direct it at—usually ones less represented or in a population minority.
One of the most striking examples of this for me was the treatment of the African Nations team at the IQA World Cup by others, especially non-US teams and players. The misdirected anger stemmed from them feeling like the team was founded to be a second US National Team, made even worse by the untrue allegation that players had to have a certain skin tone to be accepted.
Above the surface, I had to have conversations with IQA representatives about the application process (a simple Google form—we didn’t even originally make cuts, and anyone that was a woman or not American was automatically accepted if they applied up to a week before rosters were due). I found out people in other countries told eligible members not to try out for the team, and questioned whether it was worth it to go after all of the work to be legally allowed to go.
Onsite, we were consistently taunted; had to submit a level of complaints regarding personal attacks by other teams and officials; and I left without attending the afterparty Sunday evening.
Now, there were good parts of the World Cup. I was able to shield a number of my teammates from those experiences, and we were able to get fifth at the tournament, but what’s missed is that none of the bad parts needed to happen.
Before we entered that tournament, we were already deemed villains. Come-from-behind victories against crowd favorites Norway and then Australia only made those things worse—and, logically, I get that’s how sports works, but, in reality, the first opportunity for the team to exist will forever be stained by some of the worst treatment of the most condensed representation of Black players that have ever existed.
Looking back at the two years that followed, whenever I casually mention a certain incident or exchange, people are shocked—stunned into disbelief. They can’t believe those things were actually happening.
But, onsite, it was the officials who were actually treating us fine that never seemed to be able to call out their other officials that were also the problem. It was the inability of the referee coordinator to even legitimize the request to switch the crew after the third game in a row we had complained about. It was the teammates of those who personally taunted us in gestures and phrases that said and did nothing on the field that were also the problem.
It was the allowance of that experience by bystanders that spoke louder than the instances. It was the lack of support when I was finally in the situation that affected my view of the sport.
In the US, I’ve thankfully not yet been in this situation. I’ve come close to what I believe are instances of people hating me, specifically, or receiving misdirected anger for my gender identity and someone else’s misplaced opinion that it provides a competitive advantage. I’ve again found the silence by others deafening, and the conversations around it to be discriminatory—many times mirroring the same rhetoric in anti-trans bills across the US.
It leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, and a foreboding sense that if I was in a racially charged interaction in this community, that I’d find the same silence.
I hope I’m wrong.
THE UGLY
I recently hit the 13th anniversary of the first day I picked up a broom and tried this sport, and I can’t confidently say whether (as a community) this sport is in a better place than when I began. Another way to say this is, if the sport was what it is today when I joined, I don’t know if I would have dived so deeply into it as I did then.
Part of immersing myself in the community was about escaping challenges in my own life—challenges I no longer face today. But I don’t believe this community truly welcomes minorities to the extent it claims to. It’s a group that prides itself on being accepting, yet hesitates when real inclusion requires personal discomfort or sacrifice.
Equity and inclusion sound good in theory, but often feel unwanted in practice. The conversation quickly turns inward, centering the loudest voices and how they might be negatively impacted, with little regard for who could benefit. Even at high levels, I find that being at the table where decisions are made frequently forgets to ask who is not at the table—let alone how to get them there.
What was most striking to me in 2023 and again in 2025 regarding this are how many Black quadball players I spoke to—who currently play or retired—that gave separate instances of suffering in silence and feeling ostracized by larger groups of non-Black individuals.
Not just in the way of racial slurs or stereotyped jokes, but uncomfortable conversations that held racial undertones, subpar leaderships who didn’t support members, and inactive “allies” who do nothing because they “don’t know” what to do.
Black representation in this sport is some of the lowest of any racial group participating in this sport, and exists too widely where we are for that to just be an accepted reality—but it feels like no one cares. We continue to lose the ones we do get, and that pattern is not unstoppable.
In Closing
The frequency at which I consider quitting the sport has increased exponentially over the last two years, and I just question whether it's worth it. But then I go to a larger tournament and meet people on an individual level that I enjoy and I get to see certain people I’m genuinely grateful to have grown into friendship with.
I also love competing (and being good at it). But does that make up for the hours and weeks of work to push it forward in between? The issues that feel like trying to hold an ever-increasing pile of sand at the team, regional, and nationwide level? Does the community deserve it?
I won’t be spending time on Juneteenth figuring it out, because this year, I’m going to celebrate me. I will have my phone on do not disturb, watch anime, take part in early voting, and go to practice with the New York Titans. I will spend time with my twin sister and enjoy the community I have with my family.
And I will be Black and proud while I do it.
“In the face of those who would turn back the clock, we choose to move forward, fueled by the power of joy as resistance.”
– Cicely Gay, Black Lives Matter Board Chair
Image credit: https://freedomforallamericans.org/juneteenth-2025/