Cleveland Browns team captain Joel Bitonio met with reporters on a Zoom video teleconference on Tuesday to talk about the offseason progress. Bitonio tackled the ongoing protests and unrest surrounding the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed by police in Minneapolis.
Bitonio talked about the players using their collective platform to help fight injustice, police brutality and endemic racism in America. He noted the Browns met as a team, including coach Kevin Stefanski, in a separate Zoom session on Monday and talked about what came out of that discussion.
“The conclusion we came to is obviously there’s injustice in this world right now and people are hurting,” Bitonio said. “People need help, and we’re going to try and use our power and our position to help them. Jarvis came up and he spoke to the team for maybe 10 minutes yesterday and just tried to tell us how we can use our platform a little bit better because I think the vast majority of people want to help. They want to improve the situation.”
Bitonio talked about his personal experiences with friends and their battles with racial and socioeconomic injustices. He stressed the importance of listening and really hearing what is said, the intensity behind the emotion.
“I think people are hurting, though. I think there is a real hurt and a real cry for help, and they want people to listen to them and understand where they are coming from. I think that is the biggest thing is they do not want to start an argument and they do not want to start a crazy discussion about it. They want you to listen and they want you to truly accept what is going on and then kind of see where we can go from there.”
The full media session is available via the Browns’ YouTube channel: