“The better I got at sports, the worse the racism got”: Patty Mills and Ben Simmons detail their racially charged experiences in Australia

Akash Murty | 06/10/2021
"The better I got at sports, the worse the racism got": Patty Mills and Ben Simmons detail their racially charged experiences in Australia

Australia-based NBA players Ben Simmons and Patty Mills faced racism in their home country, but it goes unnoticed in the USA.

Ben Simmons is one of the NBA’s top prospects since he was selected number 1 overall in 2016 by the Philadelphia 76ers. 

Born in Melbourne, Australia, Simmons is of mixed race. His father, Dave, played professional basketball in Australia. Although he holds dual citizenship Simmons plays for the Australian national team, like his fellow countrymen Patty Mills, a FIBA legend and NBA veteran, who now plays for the Brooklyn Nets. 

Both Simmons and Mills pride themselves in representing Australia, but being of mixed ethnicities both of them have struggled with racism in their home country.

Also read: “Not gonna be Ben Simmons, I’m going to get me a basket”: Viral ’Florida alligator man’ hilariously takes shots at the Sixers star on national television

Patty Mills in a recent interview with JJ Reddick talked about his struggle with racism 

In his interview with the recently retired NBA player JJ Reddick, Mills described his struggle growing up being an Indigenous Australian.

He said: “For Indigenous Australians or Black Australians, the success rate for anything in life isn’t great.” 

“I remember walking in the first day of school, me and mum, mum walked me to the class, the biggest guy in the class just walks up to me and uppercuts straight to my gut, took the wind out of me, just for no other reason (than his appearance/race)” 

“I was in for a roller coaster of a childhood” 

“The better I got in sports,” Mills said in another interview, “the worse the racism got.” 

He continued to get racially targeted even in the United States. Once, while playing in an NBA game in Cleveland. 

Mills has since been a voice against racism and police brutality. In 2020, he helped launch “We Got You”, a campaign to show support for athletes as they fight racism in Australian sport. He also gave about $1 million to Black Lives Matter Australia and Black Deaths in Custody. 

Ben Simmons struggled with racism in Australia 

According to the NBA’s official website, Simmons shared his own experiences with being, “singled out.”

He then tweeted about the incident as well,  

Racism, in the NBA, the United States, Australia, or anywhere else in the world for that matter, has been a global concern in recent years. There has to be an end to it, not just because we are facing a far bigger existential crisis, but because we are better than that.

Also read: “Ben Simmons is a softie”: When Joel Embiid tried to ‘warn’ NBA fans about the Sixers DPOY well before his fallout with the 76ers organization

Post Edited By: Amulya Shekhar
Australia Ben Simmons Patty Mills racism

About the author

Akash Murty

An Electrical and Electronics Engineer by degree, Akash Murty is an NBA Editor at The SportsRush. Previously a Software Engineer, Murty couldn’t keep himself away from sports, and his knack for writing and putting his opinion forward brought him to the TSR. A big Soccer enthusiast, his interest in basketball developed late, as he got access to a hoop for the first time at 17. Following this, he started watching basketball at the 2012 Olympics, which transitioned to NBA, and he became a fan of the game as he watched LeBron James dominate the league. Him being an avid learner of the game and ritually following the league for around a decade, he now writes articles ranging from throwbacks, and live game reports, to gossip. LA Lakers are his favourite basketball team, while Chelsea has his heart in football. He also likes travelling, reading fiction, and sometimes cooking.

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