Why the Sudden Death of Black Athletes is a Concern and How it Increases RBTS in the Black Community

Following the deaths of young athletes across the nation, Black communities are concerned if athletes are being targeted or if these are pure coincidences.

The thrill of Draft Day, the promise to buy Mama a house, and the opportunity to make your community proud come to fruition once you become a professional athlete. Then suddenly everything comes to a screeching halt once news of your death reaches the masses. An unexpected horror.

For the surviving family and their respective communities: the pain, the grief, and the shock that Death has snatched the life of someone in their twenties and thirties is unfathomable. Someone who was healthy. Someone who was athletic. Someone who was Black.

The reality is this: five young Black athletes have died within a three-month period in 2022 and the community is starting to ask questions.

The truth of the matter is that being a professional athlete means being a role model and having a platform. That platform automatically comes with family, close friends, and the community you were raised in.

Who is targeting our young Black men? Who is trying to silence our community?

Conspiracy theorists would get a hard-on just thinking about going down that rabbit hole but look at the eye-opening facts:

Caleb Swanigan, dead at 25, former NBA 1st round draft pick of 2017 died Monday, June 20th, of natural causes. At a very young age to dying of natural causes.

Jaylon Ferguson, dead at 26, Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker found Tuesday, June 21st, unresponsive and dead. Early reports are stating that there was no foul play involved. “Investigators are not ruling out the possibility of an overdose”, a police spokesperson said.

Marion Barber III, dead at 38, was the former running back for the Dallas Cowboys. In Frisco, TX, a neighbor called in a welfare check on Barber and he too was found unresponsive.

A medical examiner ruled out foul play, noting Barber was healthy but it was later disclosed he had suffered from mental issues. Toxicology reports have yet to determine the cause of death.

Both Jeff Gladney, 25, and Dwayne Haskin, 24, deaths were automobile-related (Gladney was in a car at the time and Haskin was a pedestrian hit by a car). Both professional football players with the NFL.

The almighty, “what the fuck?”, question pops in your head. Those are a lot of deaths in a short time span. Yes, I get it. People die.

Racial trauma, or race-based traumatic stress (RBTS), describes the mental and emotional trauma caused by occurrences or the threat of racial bias and ethnic discrimination, hates crimes, and racism.

Different experiences of discrimination can have damaging psychological effects on individuals and their communities.

In some individuals, prolonged incidents of racism or the threat of racism can lead to symptoms very common to those experienced with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In the Black community, the African proverb, “it takes a village to raise a child”, describes the many hands it takes in raising a Black child in a safe, nurturing environment.

When we see our high-profile Black sons dying at such a young age in such a short time span, our minds tend to wonder, what’s going on?

Automobile accidents happen every day. We get that. Pedestrians get hit by cars every day. We get that too.

Now we have three deaths of young Black men that are uncertain or unknown at this time. That, we don’t get.

This is where the fear and trauma start rearing their ugly heads in the back of the minds of the Black community. Are we being targeted yet again?

These thoughts and fears tend to snowball into the panic that causes PTSD and RBTS. We are taught that this country does not care about us, whether we are rich or poor.

The recent chain of events further supports that fear.