Joshua Pinckney is a senior men’s tennis student-athlete at Carnegie Mellon University. An active member of the Plaidvocates, a peer health and wellness advocacy program for student-athletes, he founded the Diversity and Inclusion committee in the organization and is a student-leader involved in numerous other areas of campus life. Pinckney is double majoring in international relations and politics & Hispanic studies with a minor in sociology and is beginning to pursue a career in diplomacy.
The UAA “Conversations About Race and Racism” series seeks to lift the voices of people of color and recognize the challenges faced in both athletics and academics at the collegiate level. By sharing personal stories, we hope to elevate the conversation about race to raise awareness and bring about change.
Tennis and Predominantly White Institutions
“In my recruiting process, I only looked at PWIs (Primarily White Institutions) so I never expected to have Black teammates. Since coming to CMU, I think I’ve only seen one team (Wesleyan University) with more than one Black player on the roster at any given time. Most don’t have even one. I understood when I chose Carnegie Mellon that having teammates who could relate to my experiences and understand me wasn’t going to be my reality,” he explained. “I was the first Black varsity tennis player in my high school’s history and at CMU (as far as I know) so my expectations were met in that sense. I wasn’t ready for quite how isolating it would be, though. I am one of maybe two dozen Black student-athletes out of more than 400 total.”
Seeing another UAA player helped Pinckney feel confident in his decision to play at Carnegie Mellon. “My older brother and I occasionally trained with Jonathan Jemison (who led Emory University to two NCAA Division III titles and also captured the NCAA Division III men’s singles title as a senior). Being that there were so few black players around the elite junior tennis circuit in the south, our families got to know each other a bit. Knowing he was at Emory and was a very accomplished player helped make me feel like going D3 made sense for me as I knew he valued athletics and academics. He was like a brother but also a trailblazer for me personally. I knew he was destined for something great. I saw myself following in his footsteps as another Black tennis player from the south who would contribute to their program.”
Multiple Misconceptions
Pinckney has consistently faced misconceptions on and off the court, related both to his Blackness and his stretched physique (he stands 6’3”). “When I travel with my team in the airport, people mistake me for a basketball player despite the fact that I am carrying a tennis racquet with me,” he said. “Particularly because I go to Carnegie Mellon, people assume that getting into such a strong academic school had something to do with my race or my athletic abilities. My SAT and grade point average were very high. I got into CMU on my own merits, not because of tennis.”
“Because of my size and race, people think I am an aggressive person and I have had teammates flinch from a high-five. Within tennis, it is assumed that I am a very aggressive player. The way I play is very different from that, focusing on finesse, counterpunching, and variety. My physical stature and fitness level are the foundation of my game, but not what I use first. I use my mind and intangibles. I think even coaches have had a hard time reconciling the reality of my playing style with their preconceived notions.”
“I have never been the most ‘athletic’ person on any team I’ve been a part of, even at Carnegie Mellon. Teammates and coaches have assumed and even stated that I am finishing first or second in sprints, distance runs or endurance tests because of my natural athleticism. When someone says I make it look easy or that I am naturally athletic, it diminishes the effort and hard work I put in, which is really damaging. Work ethic is completely within your control and is more important than being acknowledged for talent that you had nothing to do with.”
When he was being recruited by Andy Girard, who was coaching the men’s and women’s teams at the time, he weighed 155 pounds. “He asked me what type of commit I would be. I told him I would be the kind who would show up to school on day one as a far better athlete than I was at the time. I got a personal trainer and filled out my frame, putting on 15 pounds to align with the increased physicality of the sport at the collegiate level. Now, I tend to go to the gym one more day a week in the offseason than the majority of my teammates, even though I have several extracurricular commitments and am very focused on my schoolwork, (I have the highest cumulative GPA on my team). I am a Community Advisor in charge of multiple Resident Advisors and more than a hundred students in a residential community on campus, I’m a TA (teaching assistant), I’ve been a Plaidvocate heading two committees, and I’ve served on various councils and committees within the university’s division of student affairs. I made that investment in the gym. There is not an hour of my time that is not committed.”
Dealing with Loneliness
“One of the biggest challenges of being at a PWI is not explicitly racial, but not having people around who are like me. Even beyond that, people who come from a similar background. Race is not just the color of your skin, but your familial background, certain values and traditions, and ways of upbringing. As much as college is about being exposed to new ideas and forming relationships with people from different backgrounds — which is something I always have and always will embrace — it is important to have affinity groups who you can relate to.
“Being a first-generation college student is an identity group, for example, that I support but do not belong to. Very few people here share — even on a macro level — the experiences, current and past, that explain who I am. That can be very lonely and has meant struggling in silence.”
A major change in Carnegie Mellon athletics was a welcome one for Pinckney. “When Carnegie Mellon began playing softball my sophomore year, the coach (Monica Harrison) understood the experience I have had and continue to have both at CMU and in the world. The more you get connected to people, the more resources you find and more people advocate on your behalf. Most importantly, the more connected you get, the more you develop relationships and find deeper and more numerous ties. That makes you a little less lonely.”
Words Matter
“There is a level of entitlement to being in the majority, whether that is being white or being from an affluent background. When most of the team comes from affluence, the team culture is likely to be a certain way.”
“We were in Chicago for the NCAA regionals driving in the city through neighborhoods that one might assume were mostly Latinx or Black and lower income. My teammates used derogatory words to describe those neighborhoods and the people who live there, people who look like me, who have things in common with some of my extended family members. My mom grew up in Chicago. For all they knew, I could have had an uncle living in that very neighborhood there. It doesn’t register with people that they could be saying something super detrimental about someone on their team.”
“Humor is another part of language that interacts with race in certain ways. Jokes can be funny playing on a stereotype and there can be humor when there isn’t bad intent, and people can laugh at themselves. At the same time, there are certain ways race should never interact with humor, including racial slurs and outdated terms (i.e. the time one of my teammates made a joke using the word negro). When humor is light-hearted, it helps people form bonds. When the humor goes to a sensitive place or area, such as a joke made with poor judgment or in poor taste, it makes it very hard to form those ties in the same way or in a meaningful way.”
In his sophomore year, Pinckney started wearing different hairstyles. “I started taking the liberty to experiment with different hairstyles, growing it out, twisting it, wearing it in cornrows once, dyeing it lighter. Our hair has a deep and meaningful history, some of which not even a lot of Black people understand the depth of. It goes back to survival and maintaining cultural traditions during slavery,” he explained. “It is out of my control that natural Black hairstyles are considered unprofessional and that I have to compromise expressions of my identity to be considered for a job in a white-collar world.”
Expressing himself through one particular hairstyle did not last long. “I was very happy and comfortable wearing cornrows at the start of the spring semester that year… until I got back to Carnegie Mellon and was around my teammates and other athletes, the majority of whom were white,” Pinckney pointed out. “Going to practice, everyone was pointing it out, making microaggressive comments or looking at me longer or differently. After a couple days of that, I spent hours taking them out. I didn’t want the attention and ceased enjoying wearing my hair that way.”
Intersectionality
“There is so much craziness in the world in addition to COVID-19 and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. It is amazing how intersectional so many issues are. They don’t happen in a vacuum,” he said.
Pinckney does more than speak about intersectionality, he lives in it. For example, he made a speech before the entire class of 2023+ at Carnegie Mellon in which he identified himself as bisexual. “I inhabit a large number and wide variety of spaces on campus and various friend groups were very accepting,” he noted. “One space that I have found to be not quite as accepting — not in my case, but for others — is the athletics community. The culture of most men’s teams in particular makes it not a super accepting space.”
“All groups on your campus could be allies around important issues. When someone shares part of their identity with you, it gives you an opportunity to build trust with that person and understand them on a deeper, more authentic level,” he continued. “If your campus is not intentional about being anti-racist, anti-sexual violence, anti-homophobic or transphobic, it erodes people’s experiences.”
That is one of the reasons he is excited to be working on Title IX issues with Associate Director of Athletics Kim Kelly. “We realize we are undertaking high stakes conversations around sexual misconduct, dating violence, and awareness and prevention,” he explained. “We want to do these issues justice. These are important discussions that need to be happening.”
Advice for Other Student-Athletes of Color
Pinckney sees a dual role in encouraging yourself and being an encouragement to others as a Black student-athlete at a PWI. “You have to do you and take care of yourself. Find someone who can encourage you. For me, recently, that has been friends in Princeton Carter (a recent graduate from Wesleyan, now in law school) and Abbey Forbes (an All-American at UCLA and Wimbledon champion) among other Black collegiate tennis players across the country, many of whom have been successful on international stages,” he revealed. “We have all come together to form the BTSAA (Black Tennis Student-Athlete Alliance). We recognize that we are in a unique position to inspire others and build an agency for people who look like us and may never have seen someone like them in this position before.”
He believes that therapy is not talked about enough as a viable option, particularly for people of color. “You really have to prioritize your peace of mind. It is important to raise an issue of the way a coach or a teammate spoke to you with a trusted adult,” he recommended. “Resources are available to you. Use them. Your peace of mind must come first.”
Pinckney encourages student-athletes of color to stay at their schools and in their programs. “Whether you are an ethnic minority, a woman, not cisgender, not straight, or any combination of those, you are no stranger to adversity. Don’t give up so easily. As long as you can handle it and it is not unbearably unhealthy, it will be worth it at the end of the day,” he expressed. “Representation really matters, especially when you are the only person representing an identity. There are people watching you, looking at your team’s roster and website headlines, seeing you in the airport. You don’t have to be a torch bearer, but there is an opportunity to be that.”
What Allies Can Do
“There is so much, if you are in the majority, that you can do. You have the opportunity to contribute to culture and agendas without any resistance. When you are part of the norm, there is no resistance to your existence,” Pinckney communicated. “You can say, ‘This issue matters to me as an ally and I want to change things.’ The way you can be impactful for change is to not by changing the whole world, but by changing the world of each person you come in contact with.”
“Every single person has a view of the world and we all perceive the world differently. You can challenge the biases of people around you,” he added. “Changing every person’s world view a little bit has ripple effects.”
Team Culture
Much of what allies can contribute can also be practiced by teammates to improve a team’s culture. “Challenge the things that you guys share. Why is it that one of our inside jokes uses a word that is derogatory? It is so easy for language or behavior to be perpetuated on a team, beliefs that are circulated on a team and become the norm. We need to do better,” Pinckney stated.
He believes teams can be a powerful tool for change. “Your team is your world, a big chunk of your experience. There is a whole science behind team dynamics and culture,” he remarked. “Teams have an opportunity and responsibility to police themselves on their norms and culture.”
It takes teammates who recognize the need to change and taking steps to accomplish that. “I don’t have much hope that a lot of teams’ cultures will change based on how they are comprised,” Pinckney described. “There is no incentive to change, especially if the team is — or is perceived to be — homogenous across different identity fault lines. The incentive can, however, come from coaches and athletic directors.”
The Role of Coaches
It is common in Pinckney’s sport of tennis for coaches (and officials) to punish bad behavior such as the use of profanity or smashing a racquet. “Coaches need to assess the same punishment for racial or homophobic slurs. That introduces incentive. Coaches determine who is playing and who is not. They have a lot of power,” he noted.
“When athletic directors are allies and champions for change, players should go the AD if the coach does nothing to change a culture or set of behaviors,” Pinckney suggested. “When the AD has consequences for that coach, the coach now has incentive to change the culture.”
Coaches can have important conversations with their Black players by being sensitive when opportunities arise. “We played a match against Duquesne and during the national anthem, my form of protest was to be on my phone,” he described. “My coach, in that moment, chose to approach me and asked me to put it down. That really could have served as an opportunity for my coach (or any coach who notices similar behavior in one of their players) to have a conversation with me later about it.’”
There are various other things coaches can do for Black student-athletes on campus, whether they are on their team or not. “Coach Harrison encouraged coaches to reach out to their Black student-athletes and check in on us with everything that has gone on this summer,” he announced. “When coaches acknowledge your identity more regularly in a tactful, humble, and supportive way, it makes for a more genuine and authentic rapport when they reach out during difficult times.”