After several NFL players participated in a viral Black Lives Matter video, many have wondered what comes next?
It’s one thing for players like Patrick Mahomes and Tyrann Mathieu to come out and say they care about a cause, but without action those words are meaningless. Mahomes and Mathieu spoke with Kansas City Chiefs ownership, coaches, personnel staff and teammates to address the next course of action. What they landed on was a program related to voter registration and making voting easier on the community.
Andy Reid explained that it’s not all finalized and ready to be announced yet, but that’s what they’re currently working toward.
“They’re heading towards a program of voter registration and working through teaching and educating with voter registration, and that’s, again, we’re working through that as we speak here,” Reid said during Wednesday’s media availability. “We’ll have a statement for you once we get it all taken care of.”
Reid didn’t have many details, but Mahomes and Mathieu were both able to elaborate on how the team decided on voter registration as the next step.
“Yeah, I think it came from talking and listening to teammates and people throughout our organization,” Mahomes explained. “Obviously, with voting coming up for local offices and everything like that, we wanted to make sure that was in the front of our minds. We’ve talked about several things, nothing that is completely in stone, but voter registration was one big one that we really want to move forward with. We’ve had initial talks with Clark and we’ve talked with Mark Donovan and we’ve set up a meeting for next week with our committee, with a lot of the players that are kind of leaders on our team, and we’re going to try to find the best way to give money or support or whatever it is to get as many people registered to vote so they can go and try to affect change in every way they feel possible.”
Education is an important step in Mathieu’s call to action. He wants people to understand that they have a voice and can create change by voting.
“I think one of the things we’re going to do, myself and the Chiefs included, which I talked to Clark (Hunt) about this,” Mathieu said. “But if we’re able to really impact voter registration, if we’re able to really give those people a voice and really allow those people to go into their communities and really elect their leaders, I think that’s going to be very, very important going forward. I think if you want to change anything, you’re going to have to educate people on what it is that they have to do to change things. A lot of times it’s a lot more than just protesting. You have to really find a call to action, and I think voter registration, that can impact a lot of people. I think that can really see good change.”
Mathieu believes that voter registration is a topic that won’t be divisive. It’s something that everyone can get behind and contribute toward.
“I think we can sit here all day and talk about a lot of different things and most of those topics are very sensitive, they’re very tough conversations and I think voter registration isn’t one of those conversations. I think it impacts everybody. I think everybody can be a part of that. Like I mentioned, if guys like myself and more guys like me can make voting ‘cool’ if we can make that a trendy thing, we’re really changing the future. We’re really setting these kids up for a great future. We’re really allowing these kids access to more opportunities. Offering these kids more education and more resources and I think the way to do that is to put people in office that are going to do that.”
While the exact plans are still coming together, it’s clear that the team is on the right track when it comes to backing up their words with action. If the Chiefs can help make voting ‘cool’ in the Kansas City community, that could have a big impact on the future.
“Probably the most important thing is to vote, but a lot of folks don’t think that’s cool,” Mathieu explained. “Maybe we can make that a ‘cool’ thing again.”
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