Seahawks Bobby Wagner, black Americans see this as an opportunity. Are whites listening?
Bobby Wagner sees this as an opportunity.
“I feel like this is a very interesting time right now,” the Seahawks All-Pro linebacker said Monday, talking on a Zoom call about George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis and millions of Americans paying attention to it. “I feel like a lot of people are listening, especially in the white community—maybe, I’m not sure.
“But I think it’s important that you try to get that knowledge.
“I don’t have all the answers and I don’t even know if what I’m saying is coming out perfect, but I do know that we need to educate ourselves, on both sides. I feel like white people need to educate themselves on what the black experience is like. We look at the media and the media is very white, but there is some black media and I think it’s important to have a conversation with them to understand what are some of the things they’re going (through). Because it’s just as important for you all to understand who you’re working with the things that they have to deal with.
“Football is a special place because we get to be around all walks of life—white, black, people from Canada and all over—to be exposed to different things.
“So I challenge you guys to educate yourselves on what it’s like to be black in America.”
Wagner’s right. Many, many people are listening. White people are listening.
The people walking through my Seattle neighborhood next to the University of Washington for a small, peaceful protest Monday at the University Village shopping area were white. They were carrying Black Lives Matter signs.
Gregg Popovich is listening. The socially conscious, NBA title-winning coach of the San Antonio Spurs spoke up—and out—to Dave Zirin of The National on Monday.
“The thing that strikes me is that we all see this police violence and racism, and we’ve seen it all before, but nothing changes,” Popovich, a 1970 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy and former military officer on active duty then as a major in the Air Force reserves until 1993, told Zirin. “That’s why these protests have been so explosive. But without leadership and an understanding of what the problem is, there will never be change. And white Americans have avoided reckoning with this problem forever, because it’s been our privilege to be able to avoid it. That also has to change.”
So white are listening.
But is everyone listening?
That’s what Wagner is asking. The 29-year-old veteran of eight NFL seasons was at the mostly peaceful protest Saturday in downtown Seattle. The one that looters—white looters—turned into police car-burning, store-stealing idiocy.
That and the nightly chaos in urban centers across the country are hijacking the message that blacks are screaming.
Racial equality must happen. Police brutality must stop.
“I want to say that I support the protesters. I understand the message,” Wagner said on an online Zoom call Monday from his Seattle-area home. “I understand why, what’s going on, what’s happening.
”I feel like it’s important, especially sitting here with you guys in the media. You guys play, I think, a pretty big role in what’s going on right now, because you guys play a part in the narrative. Over the years, we have talked to you guys about you being able to control the narrative and say what’s really going on. I feel like a lot of focus is on the rioting, the looting, the people stealing stuff, but we’re not talking enough about what started that.
“I think the black community is tired of seeing the same things going on and not seeing change. I think we’re tired of not seeing people being held accountable for the actions that they do, but understanding that if we were in that position we would be held accountable.
“So I challenge everybody on this call to be a part, and the media, to report the message and what it really is. We’re tired of seeing black people killed, you know what I’m saying?”
Do you know what he’s saying?
Do you want to know?
“It has to mean something to you guys. It don’t really hit home until it happens to you,” Wagner said near the end of six minutes and 48 seconds of unscripted, unvarnished, real talk Monday.
What’s it going to take?
“It’s going to take some leadership,” Wagner said, turning his attention to President Donald Trump.
“We don’t have that leadership right now. We have somebody in office that is calling black protesters as ‘thugs’ and white protesters as good people. And that’s not OK.
“As white people, y’all need to check that, you know what I’m saying? It’s on y’all to check that. We can only check it so much. It’s got to mean something to you.
“Yeah man, that’s kind of what I had on my heart. Hopefully that came out how I wanted it to come out.”
