Tag: justice

Pete Carroll calls for unity, ensures all Seahawks registered to vote

Seattle Seahawks Pete Carroll gave an impassioned speech for racial equality and called on everyone to march together and register to vote.

The Seattle Seahawks were originally scheduled to practice Saturday afternoon following player interviews in the morning. All that changed, however, when it was announced coach Pete Carroll would be speaking to the media, first.

Carroll then addressed reporters and everyone else watching the team’s live stream about the racial injustices still plaguing Black Americans, including his own players, every single day in our country.

“The really amazing thing I’ve learned, Black people know the truth,” Carroll said. “They know exactly what’s going on. It’s white people that don’t know. We know what’s right and what’s wrong. We’ve just been unwilling to listen to it.”

Carroll said his players have been “calling out” and he, himself then made an immediate call for action.

“We’ve got 60 days,” Carroll said. “There’s a march on Washington that was all about commitment. Well, why not take these 60 days and make a commitment to vote and march together to get everybody in this country to vote so that everybody has the voice and everybody that needs to speak out gets heard, and we don’t let anybody squelch any aspect of the voting potential. Not one frickin’ vote. And we need to start now.”

Carroll promised all Seahawks players would be registered to vote by the end of the day. Carroll kept his word.

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Russell Wilson said Seahawks would not have played a game this week

Seattle’s QB Russell Wilson said Seahawks would not have played a game this week to show support for Jacob Blake and protest systemic racism.

Following the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, sports leagues around the country, including the NBA, NHL, WNBA, MLB and MLS, have postponed or canceled games to show their solidarity in protesting systemic racism.

While the NFL’s season has yet to start, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson believes the team would not have played this week had a game been scheduled.

“Yeah, for sure,” Wilson told 710 ESPN Seattle’s Danny and Gallant show Friday morning. “I think just witnessing what happened to Jacob and everything else and all the things that have added up to this, it’s devastating, truly devastating just to watch that and it’s not like this hasn’t been going on for years. That’s the scary part and sad part. The difference now is we get to see it every day because of social media and phones and everything else.”

The Seahawks were not slated to practice on Thursday, but many NFL teams that were, took the day off to show their support as well.

“I think what’s really disappointing is just knowing that we, as athletes, try to (make) a difference and sometimes people don’t want to listen and don’t want to recognize that that could have been us and that could be us,” Wilson said.

The Seahawks are set to practice at 2:00 p.m. PT on Friday afternoon.

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Seahawks coach Pete Carroll: ‘It’s the season of protests’

Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll called 2020 “the season of protests” and will continue to educate his players on justice and equality.

The Seattle Seahawks were in the middle of their mock game Wednesday afternoon when the news broke that the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks did not take the court ahead of their playoff game against the Orlando Magic in protest of the recent shooting of Jacob Blake.

Coach Pete Carroll was asked after the scrimmage whether or not it was likely the Seahawks or any other NFL team would do the same this season.

“You know, anything is possible,” Carroll said. “I mentioned to the players this is the year – it’s the protest season. It’s the season of protests.”

“So we’ll handle ourselves as we do and but this is a protest that doesn’t have an end to it until all the problems go away and we solves the issues and stuff,” Carroll explained. “So we are going to do our part and continue to work to stay actively involved and continue to stay in touch with the situations that are going on by staying on the topics.

“And with it, just in hopes that we can be there to help and support where we can.”

The Seahawks have an off day on Thursday before resuming practice Friday afternoon.

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Seahawks QB Russell Wilson shares own experience with racism

Speaking out on racial injustice, Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson shared his own personal experience with racism as a black man.

Seattle Seahawks quarterback shared some thoughts in a Zoom interview on Wednesday but he wasn’t talking about football. Wilson chose to address the racial inequality that is plaguing the nation.

“When you think about the idea of Black Lives Matter, they do matter,” Wilson said. “The reality is that, me as a black person, people are getting murdered on the street, people are getting shot down, and the understanding that it’s not like that for every other race. It’s like that in particular for the black community. I think about my stepson, I think about my daughter, I think about our new baby boy on the way, and it’s staggering to watch these things happen right in front of our faces, so I have a heavy heart right now.”

Wilson then opened up about his own experience being an African American male, sharing a story about a recent incident that had him reeling.

Wilson recalled a time in California, shortly after the team won the Super Bowl in 2014, that he was confronted by an older white man in line for breakfast. “That’s not for you,” the man told Wilson.

“And I said, ‘Huh? Excuse me?’ I thought he was joking at first,” Wilson explained. “My back was kind of turned. I had just come off a Super Bowl and everything else, so if somebody is talking to me that way, you think about circumstance and how people talk to you. In that moment, I really went back to being young and not putting my hands in my pocket and that experience. That was a heavy moment for me right there. I was like, man, this is really still real, and I’m on the West Coast. This is really real right now.”

Wilson said he chose not to confront the man – “not lash back out in the moment” – but stood up for himself, saying, “Excuse me, sir, but I don’t appreciate you speaking to me that way.”

“Being black is a real thing in America,” Wilson said. “It’s a real thing in the sense of the history and the pain, even my own family, personally.”

Here’s Wilson’s statement he issued on June 1.

You can listen to his entire Zoom interview here.

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