Over the course of her volleyball career, Rainelle Jones emerged as one of the best blockers in program history, becoming Maryland’s all-time leader in total blocks and block assists. As she rose to stardom and began to gain some popularity, the volleyball star decided she would use her platform to fight social injustice. But not everyone supported that.
Throughout the 2020 season, Rainelle Jones began active in her fight against racial injustice, speaking out vocally on social media, wearing tape featuring the letters “BLM” on her wrist during games, and regularly kneeling during the national anthem in pregame ceremonies.
Her national anthem protests, in particular, generated quite a lot of controversy leading to some horrible hateful comments and messages directed toward her.
Before a game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers in Lincoln, Nebraska, Jones kneeled for the national anthem. Before the music started playing, a spectator yelled “stand up, you piece of trash” and several other spectators joined in.
“I just remember not knowing what to do and the people around me and on the other team didn’t know what to do either,” Jones recalled in Maryland’s One Magazine. “I was completely in shock. I of course knew that was a possibility, but you can never really prepare yourself for something like that.”
Jones posted about the incident on social media the following day. And while most of the comments were supportive, she received quite a lot of backlash as well with people calling her “pathetic”, “disrespectful” and “ignorant” and telling her to “shut up and play” – and that doesn’t even include the direct messages she received.
But Jones decided to keep all those comments up – no matter how hateful.
“People have asked me a lot if I want to delete the comments, but I don’t because I want people to see it and see these things that people are saying out of hate,” Jones said. “Even though people may be hiding behind a phone or fake face, the words mean something.
“When people get to see the reality of what people are actually thinking when it comes to these negative comments, they see that even though our environment is so much more progressive now, there’s still a lot of people who have hate in their hearts when it comes to kneeling or to fighting against social injustice,” she added.
The messages didn’t deter her – she kept it up.
