Boston’s Jaylen Brown continues to push NBAers to use their platform

Boston Celtics star wing Jaylen Brown continues to push his peers to use their platforms to speak on issues that matter to them.

Boston Celtics star shooting guard Jaylen Brown has emerged as a leader in the NBA on important social issues like the racial justice initiatives that have become a central focus of the NBA’s Disney restart.

Those initiatives were part of the league’s agreement with the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA, of which Brown is a Vice President of at just 23 years of age) to restart the season without taking away from their ability to contribute to the biggest pro-civil-rights protests in a half-century.

Asked what he’d learned about that dynamic while in the Disney ‘bubble,’ the Marietta native replied at length.

“What I’ve learned from being here is that guys, care more than they necessarily show on their platforms. Some of them are scared, some of them don’t … know what to say, because they’re afraid of saying the wrong things,”

“But a lot of guys here care … I know we’re paid professionals and we’re in a different tax bracket than we once were before. But, we stand to be a voice for our communities and we still could inspire others who didn’t make it out. It’s hard to get in this position. I don’t think people realize how hard it is to make it out of some of these neighborhoods.”

“And people celebrate that, those stories where guys make it from the bottom to the top, or some guys were homeless that I know and I made it to the NBA; [or from] single parent households,” he added.

The tale of the underdog is indeed an NBA staple — but what of those who were not so lucky?

“We celebrate those stories where that was going on in some of these impoverished neighborhoods and disadvantaged communities. But we only show awareness [of them] when this athlete or somebody who’s making it out. But when somebody’s going through it, they don’t seem to care. So what I’ve learned from being here is that a lot of guys pull me to the side and ask questions; a lot of guys don’t want to have discussions on topics and things like that, they … don’t know how to say things, because of the backlash that media may get [them]or they’re scared to say the wrong thing.”

Brown doesn’t want his peers to be discouraged, however.

“I want them … to continue to have that courage, we have it together. So it’s harder to single out one of us and make us look like we don’t know what we’re talking about,” he added.

The tendency in a sound-byte oriented media culture is to find those quotes that click, often at the expense of important context and real human lives.

But in working together to share information — or being comfortable passing on a question until one’s had time to do more research — are good remedies to avoid allowing the exigencies of the media cycle scare players away from speaking their minds on issues that matter to them.

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