Dearica Hamby got a racist text message. She posted it publicly. The sender’s employer, Acclaro Medical in Rhode Island, saw it, investigated, and fired the man responsible. That is how this should always work, and this week it did.
The Los Angeles Sparks forward has spent the last several seasons dealing with more nonsense than any player should have to shoulder, from her legal fight with the Aces over pregnancy discrimination to the constant online abuse that has followed her every step of the way. When the latest message came in, she made a decision that a lot of athletes are afraid to make.
She posted the unredacted phone number of the sender.
Internet detectives reverse-searched the number in minutes. Users identified the man and tagged his employer directly. Acclaro Medical did the right thing and did it fast, terminating him within about a week of receiving the complaints.
Some people are going to argue Hamby went too far by publishing the number. Those people are wrong. When someone sends a racist message from a personal device attached to their real identity, they forfeit the right to hide behind anonymity. If you would say it, you can own it in public.
The bigger issue is that this happens all the time to WNBA players, and it does not usually end in a firing. It usually ends in nothing. Athletes get harassed, they mute the message, and the sender goes about his day thinking he got away with it.
Hamby refused to let that be the ending. Good.
Acclaro Medical deserves credit here for not hiding behind a boilerplate “we are investigating” statement that ultimately went nowhere. Too many corporations treat these moments as PR problems to manage rather than actual violations of workplace standards. Acclaro looked at the evidence, decided it was incompatible with employment, and cut the person loose.
That is the model. Every company should have a policy that racist behavior on personal accounts is grounds for termination. If that seems harsh, remember that this employee’s actions were published publicly, tied to his employer, and became a national story. The reputational damage alone was already done. Firing him was the only reasonable response.
What I hope happens next is more of the same. Not more racist messages, obviously. More athletes publicly identifying senders and more employers taking action. The only way to shrink this behavior is to make the consequences real.
Hamby has been through more this year than most players go through in a career. Her willingness to keep speaking up, keep playing at a high level, and keep pushing the conversation forward is the reason she is one of the most important voices in the WNBA right now.
The man who sent the text is unemployed. Hamby is still one of the best power forwards in the league. That is the correct scoreboard for this story, and it will hopefully make the next idiot think twice before hitting send.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
