Philadelphia 76ers star Ben Simmons recently called out a casino in Australia for alleged racial profiling. Boomers head coach Andrej Lemanis' support for the Melbourne-born point forward's right to speak out did not waver despite Simmons' withdrawal from playing for Team Australia in this year's FIBA World Cup:
“Ben's made his statement on that, and from my perspective, I support Ben and his right to express how sees fit,” Lemanis said, per ESPN.
“I wasn't there, so I'll just support Ben in his ability to express how he feels.”
Despite sitting out the tournament, which begins on Aug. 31 and runs through Sept. 15, Simmons is still in Australia to support his teammates for training camp. While in Australia, Simmons and his pals decided to turn up at Crown Casino.
According to Simmons — in a now-deleted video post on Instagram — he and his friends of color were checked upon entry, while the lone white guy in the group was easily allowed inside. Simmons could not believe what happened, and ended his capture by saying, “Wow, we got a long way to go.”
The 6-foot-10 star then took to Twitter to explain his post and reiterated that he will always speak out on these issues about equality.
The casino denied any of Simmons' allegations of racial discrimination, and said in a statement they were simply just following their policy, per ESPN. They added that they require their officers to ask for identification of people they believe to be under the age of 25.
There isn't any certainty whether the incident was a case of racial profiling on the part of the casino security. Nevertheless, this issue is still very prevalent in our society today.
As Simmons said, we've got a long way to go.
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