Arizona Wildcats forward Ira Lee finds his voice in protesting police violence

“I see the pain. I see the tears. I see a group of people full of hate and fear. I don’t know why they gotta die for you to get the message. We just want to fly. My people die. These mommas cry. They don’t know if their babies gonna be back alive. We fight a war we don’t have to fight. So maybe you can take my hand and we unite. We are just tired of the games. Of four hundred years of shame.”

— “It’s Time,” a song written and sung by Ira Lee, June 2020

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Three months stuck in idle have left Ira Lee plenty of time not just to work out, but also study, cook, make a coloring book, write songs and stay socially conscious.

Sometimes, they converge into the same things.

“The first month, I thought I was a chef, so I was just trying different recipes out,” Lee said. “My songwriting has gotten better because I’ve had so much time.

“You get your workout in, you do your summer classes and then you have a whole day. It’s not like I can go to the beach or go have fun with my friends so I’ve just been working on my craft and my other hobbies.”

The UA senior forward can’t know what his basketball work will lead to, with the serious coronavirus concerns facing the season, but one thing is certain: Lee has put his voice down — literally and figuratively — with regard to Black Lives Matter and other movements during these tense times.

His Twitter timeline contains original thoughts and retweets concerning the deaths of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Tamir Rice and Breonna Taylor, among others. Also, topics such as ICE, the Ku Klux Klan, starvation in Yemen and the Navajo Nation’s battle with COVID-19.

At the top of Lee’s Twitter page, subbed out for both his header photo and profile photo, are plain black spaces. And, on June 2, Lee pinned a video of him singing part a three-minute original Black Lives Matter-related song called “It’s Time.”

“When I say ‘we,’ I speak for all my black brothers and sisters!” Lee tweeted while posting the video. “I have much love for all of you and I just want you guys to know if we keep sticking together we will break down these walls to capture the change we have always wanted.”

Last weekend, Lee also posted a suggestion.

“If you’re uncomfortable with my retweets then keep unfollowing me,” Lee tweeted, “... actually just go ahead and block me.”

In a 25-minute Zoom interview with Tucson media on Friday, Lee said he hasn’t received any “harsh” messages in response but had a few he ignored.

Among the basketball issues he discussed were his workouts with incoming freshmen Tibet Gorener (“he can really shoot”), his weekly FaceTime conversations with postmate Christian Koloko (“he’s gonna be a monster”) and what his upcoming senior season might will be like.

“I’m trying to stay as positive as possible for myself and my teammates,” Lee said. “But I have my moments where I doubt, ‘Hey, how is this going to work?’ Because I know coronavirus really hasn’t gotten that much better. I mean, Arizona just had a spike.

“So I would love to just keep thinking positive but I also have to be realistic. We’re all unsure. I’m just like everybody else, just waiting. Waiting for more information and go from there.”

That part is out of Lee’s hands. With everything else, he’s trying to make a difference:

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Here’s how he told the story behind his song and how his personal experiences contributed to the views he holds today as a 22-year-old senior at Arizona:

“Everything that I retweet, everything I post, I stand strongly by. I’m not a racist. If you know me, I love everyone, I’m cool with everybody. I’m the nicest person in the world. But the pinpoint issue right now is black lives do matter because there’s a lot of things going on. There’s young black men getting hung, there’s people getting shot. In that song, I said 400 years of shame, because this has been happening for over 400 years, and we always try to say, ‘Oh, it’s better, it’s better,’ but I’m trying to highlight the issue that it’s not as good as everyone makes it seem. If people don’t agree with me, people don’t agree, but it’s what it is.”

Saying he’s sometimes awkward socially, Lee said both basketball and songwriting allow him to express himself smoothly in a way that “just flows.” Not surprisingly, then, his Black Lives Matter song came about quickly.

“The funny thing is my mom, my dad — actually my whole family — can sing, so growing up I thought singing was just a normal thing. I got into high school, and I had friends that saw my talent and they said, ‘Do you like writing poetry? Do you like writing?’ I was like, ‘Yeah,’ so they got me into songwriting. And since then, I’ve used it as a method to cope with personal issues and just to express myself.

“I actually went to the protests in Hollywood. It started out peaceful, but things went out of control when the police showed up. So I came home and I wrote that song in an hour … a lot of it came from anger and sadness and just stuff that I was seeing, as far as George Floyd, the way that situation happened, Breonna Taylor, and then to go out to the protest and see some of my young peers getting shot by those rubber bullets. How could that not make anyone mad? So I just wanted to put it down on paper and I wanted to show the world, ‘This is how I’m feeling. This is how a lot of us feel. And you guys need to understand.’”

Born to a black father and a Korean mother, Lee has seen racism from many sides.

“My grandma brought my uncle and my mom over here from Korea when they were 12-13 years old and in Korean culture, interracial couples aren’t really a comfortable topic. So when I was born, my mom’s side of the family didn’t really agree with that. I have so much love for my grandmother because she didn’t care. She just was happy the fact she was gonna have a grandbaby.

“So there’s that aspect of it and I’ve had a few encounters. I remember I just got a brand new car, and I’m driving to get some food, and I get pulled over for no reason. Literally no reason. I’m just a young black kid in a brand new car.

“And I had an incident where I was 12. I’m walking to a friend’s house, I have a red polo shirt on and some pants and they’re asking me about gang activity and where I was going. At the time, when I was 12, I didn’t realize ‘That’s not right.’ But being 22 (now), looking back at that, that wasn’t right at all, because I wasn’t doing anything; I was just minding my business walking to where I needed to be. …

“I came home and told my dad what happened. I’m real chill, like nothing really happened and he’s mad, he’s screaming: ‘Who did it? What are the cops’ names? What was the badge number?’ Then he really explained it to me and since then, he’s always educated me on our history. He’s showed me some documentaries and we have our talks. But we didn’t have that talk till I was 12.

“You know, growing up, I thought everybody was cool. I’d go to my dad’s house, everybody’s black. Go to my mom’s house, everybody’s light or yellow or whatever people want to describe Asian people as. My childhood best friend is white and Japanese. I grew up in a predominantly Latino neighborhood. So in my head as a kid, I’m like, ‘Oh, everybody’s cool. There’s no racism. What’s racism?’ Until my dad really broke it down to me. And I just had my own experiences growing up, up to this point. I see racism as a very big issue, and it’s nowhere close to being gone.

“I could tell you a bunch of stories. That’s why I’m so vocal right now because this is an issue. We’re not saying all lives don’t matter. We want everybody to have the same rights. We are not trying to be violent. We’re not trying to start anything. We just want to be equal.”

Lee said he was pulled over for the first time in Tucson while driving his new car. (Lee was also arrested for DUI in August 2018 by UA police but expressed no issue with how that was handled.)

“I just got my brand new car and drove back to Tucson from L.A. I think I was driving to Jack In The Box at like 11-12 o’clock at night. I made a right turn. Officer was in the far left lane, and he just makes it sharp right, pulls me over, and asked me for my registration and asked if it was my car. ‘Yeah, it’s my car.’ So I give him the temporary registration because I just got the car two days before. And I’m sitting there for 30-40 minutes. And he comes back and he says, ‘This is not a registration,’ so he gave me a ticket.

“My dad came down the next day and raised hell in downtown Tucson. And they ended up dropping the case because I didn’t do anything. I showed him my license, proof of insurance. Registration showed that the car was brand new. This is a temporary registration. So that’s my only bad encounter I’ve had with police. And then my other incident was on me, so I can’t say anything about that. … The officer was really cool. He was really cool.”

As the Wildcats’ only fourth-year senior on the roster for next season, Lee is clearly in a leadership position. But he said he sees a greater responsibility, too.

“I’m 22 now, and as I go into my fourth year of college, I’ve seen a lot of different things. I just feel it’s my turn to be a leader, not just to the Arizona basketball team but to everyone that’s seen me come up. I have a bunch of young guys in high school who don’t really know what’s going on so I feel it’s my duty to educate them. And I’m also about to have a niece. My sister’s due within the next week so I’m thinking in those terms, like she’s gonna be a young black girl growing up in America. So whatever I can do right now to help make it better for the future generation, then I’ll do.”