Every now and then a moment or story in the world of sports illuminates a pressing and relevant social issue. Last weekend at a basketball game against Texas Tech, Marcus Smart, a sophomore from Oklahoma State, shoved a fan at courtside. In the moment, it didn’t seem like that big of a deal, at least to me. It was obvious that Smart had reacted to something that the fan said to him and it was even more obvious that Smart would be suspended, potentially for the remainder of the season.

As the remainder of the week went by it was an incident largely forgotten about by the national media. Smart got a three game suspension and that was the end of the matter. But should it be? Aren’t there larger issues at work here?

Smart’s shove was more than just an in the moment reaction. I agree he made a mistake. To me this shove is about more than just a reaction to a stupid fan. It is about a frustration that permeates the life of a young black kid.

While watching the footage, I can’t help but embrace several stereotypes. First and foremost is one from my own experiences growing up as the sole black boy in an all white town. The man smart shoved just looks like the “type” of man who used to say or clearly think racial things to me.

Without exception, I reacted the way Smart did. I always hit the person who called me racial slurs. I was all alone. There were no other African-Americans around me to share the experience with. I had no one with whom to join together and take the moral high ground.

In Smart’s situation, he did have those other people. There were officials, coaches and teammates from both colleges, most of them African-American. He could have asked them for help. But isn’t it Monday morning quarterbacking to say that?

For Smart, I think about the daily life of black youths in modern America. It is an existence in the prism of a nation that has claimed progress in racial matters. Our nation points to the politically correct way in which we “discuss” race. Shows on CNN and ESPN have discussions about racial matters, some of which are compelling but none of which tell the tale of progress actually made or not made.

For many black youths in this country there is a daily, hourly experience of race that many people do not see or grasp. We are constantly made aware of our race. It is in the look on the faces of clerks behind cash registers when we present a credit or debit card. The suspicion with which they scan the back of the card just to make sure it is actually ours. It is in the multitude of times at a department store we are asked if we need assistance as customers of other races standing in the exact same aisle are not asked if they do. I could go on and on with examples. Every single thing I just said happens to me on a near daily basis.

For athletes like Smart it is even worse. He is out there practically naked playing in front of thousands of screaming people. He is under immense pressure to perform because this sport is his meal ticket. Without success he might turn out to be just another statistic. He must succeed. He plays in front of many of the same people who may treat him in an untrusting manner at the checkout line or in the department store aisle. People who vote in candidates to public office who perpetuate things like the holocaust level minority incarceration rates.

When put into those contexts, one can understand the pent up feelings Smart may have been experiencing during the altercation. It is as if he were saying “I have to deal with this here too? Even here on the court?”

It was appropriate for Smart to be punished. You can’t have athletes assaulting fans courtside. But I am disappointed that the NCAA or at least the respective universities involved have not taken a bigger public stance on what was said to Marcus. I wanted to see them defend him a little bit and say that people can’t treat him or talk to him that way. But they didn’t and just like every other situation in the NCAA, the kid is left accepting all the responsibility for whatever transpired while the adults bear no responsibility.

Marcus Smart made a mistake but the true culprits are the rest of us who do nothing to change the atmosphere these young people grow up in.