North American sports events were racked with player protests on Wednesday in the aftermath of the shooting of Jacob Blake. Some, like the NBA playoffs, even had some games postponed. Seattle Seahawks safety Quandre Diggs stated Friday that in the wake of the numerous incidents of racial discrimination and violence against Black people by police officers in the United States, he constantly fears for his family and makes sure he contacts his mother every day as a result.
“We’re more than entertainers, we’re more than athletes,” Diggs said. “We have families outside of this. My whole family’s black, so at the end of the day, I’m scared for them every day. I call my mom every day. No matter if I’m a multi-millionaire or not, she worries about me each and every day.”
Diggs heaped praise on the athletes across various sports leagues protesting the current state of affairs and stressed that they should continue to make their voices heard as much as possible.
“I applaud those guys. I applaud the NBA players, the WNBA players, MLB, all those guys that were able to take a stand and just shut the world down,” Diggs said. “Even if it was that day, that made a statement. It’s crazy times in the world, and at some point as athletes, as entertainers, it’s our job to let people know . . . I have respect for those guys, and I think as a league, as the NFL we’ve got to come together, we’ve got to figure out what our message is going to be, and just continue to keep the voices going and keep the movement going – don’t let our voice not be heard.”
Diggs emphasized that in addition to athletes, other notable figures with sizable platforms like high-profile celebrities must join in and publicly advocate for change and that all people should try to do the same, even if the impact is initially minimal.
“Anywhere, wherever you’re working at, whatever you’re doing in your life, you can always make an impact on somebody,” Diggs stated. “Of course we’ve got the bigger platform, and we’ve got to continue to use our platform, but people in my little town of Angleton, Texas, they can use their platform any way they have it. You can have impact on somebody, and all you have to do is leave an impact on one person every day, and you can help change the world. We all need to do better, and that’s including myself. The only way this world is going to get better is if we all do better and we all collectively do it better.”
If these incidents between police and Black civilians continue to occur with such frequency, the protests from athletes and postponements of sports games will likely follow suit.
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