By Will Satler | wsatler@msudenver.edu | December 3rd, 2018
COLORADO — Day after day, we see more and more African-American professional athletes stand up and speak for change. In what feels like an eternity ago, Colin Kaepernick stood up for change when he sat and eventually nealed for the National Anthem during his team’s NFL game. Since then, many athletes have spoken out about many different issues, including racial injustice.
More recently, players around the league sported black shirts with “ENOUGH.” across the chest in support of the victims of the Thousands Oaks shooting in California just days before. The face of the movement is an African-American basketball star, LeBron James, an outspoken activist in our nation.
James is the recent producer of the Showtime TV series, “Shut Up And Dribble,” a series that documents the struggles that African-American athletes like Muhammad Ali, Lewis Alcindor (also known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Allen Iverson faced over the last two centuries. The documentary is a direct result of the spark of change created by Kaepernick in 2016 when he protested racial inequality, police brutality, and a number of other social issues.
The first player to kneel alongside Kaepernick was Eric Reid, who recently debuted with his new team. Kaepernick was a player in the NFL who has had success as a quarterback but has been sidelined since the end of the 2016 season, arguably mostly because of his protests.
Reid, reaffirmed his political position Sunday as he began the next chapter in his NFL career. None of Reid’s teammates joined him in demonstrating during the national anthem and, without great question, many in the crowd at Bank of America Stadium objected to his form of protest. No matter, Reid remained authentic to and for his activism. For Reid, just because he is now on a different team in a different city, won’t change anything.
“Everybody in this [locker room], everybody who watches this game [and] everybody in this country knows what we’re talking about. It’s the truth. You can’t deny it. We’ve just got to do more to make this better,” Reid said. “People who don’t want things to change, people who want to maintain the status quo … they have to subvert. They have to distract. They have to redirect from what we’re trying to accomplish. We have to stay strong. We have to stay diligent.”
Kaepernick’s teammate, Reid became a free agent when his contract expired in March. He then went unsigned throughout the offseason, training camp, the preseason and the first few weeks of the regular season until recently being signed by the Carolina Panthers.
Reid was further inspired by current events in his most recent protest, including the confirmation of controversial judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the hiring of the police officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland four years ago by another police department in Ohio.
“I can’t close my eyes and go to sleep at night without feeling like I did something to try to make this place better,” Reid said. “It’s bittersweet. I won the game, but Colin is at home with my kids. He should be playing.”
Some content from this article was provided by Jason Reid of The Undefeated.
Will Satler 