NBA Coach Popovich Says What Blacks Have Experienced Is ‘Our National Sin’
As disappointed as we are in the terrible choice of words our nation’s President used Wednesday to commemorate Black History Month we are incredibly proud to see that there are white people eloquent and intelligent enough to address the reality of race in America.
Listen: I asked Gregg Popovich what #blackhistorymonth means to him, and once again, he spoke #Spurs #NBA https://t.co/gH9urn2hYU
— Jabari Young (@JabariJYoung) February 3, 2017
San Antonio Express reporter Jabari Young spoke with the Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich about what Black History Month means to him and boy do we agree with what he had to say!
Via ESPN:
“Well, it’s a remembrance, and a bit of a celebration in some ways. It sounds odd because we’re not there yet, but it’s always important to remember what has passed and what is being experienced now by the black population. It’s a celebration of some of the good things that have happened, and a reminder that there’s a lot more work to do. But more than anything, I think if people take the time to think about it, I think it is our national sin.
OUR NATIONAL SIN. A country whose material wealth was born out of slave labor — people stolen from their native lands, taken to a strange place, separated from their families, treated less than human. We can’t agree more. Can you.
Pop continues by challenging people who feel it’s divisive to even discuss race:
It always intrigues me when people come out with, ‘I’m tired of talking about that or do we have to talk about race again?’ And the answer is you’re damned right we do. Because it’s always there, and it’s systemic in the sense that when you talk about opportunity it’s not about ‘Well, if you lace up your shoes and you work hard, then you can have the American dream.’ That’s a bunch of hogwash.
Hogwash is a good way to put it. Especially when you have people like Ben Carson and Bill Cosby who seem to believe that everyone can achieve anything despite the challenges put in front of them.
Pop knows better. Pop knows all about white privilege and isn’t afraid to talk about it:
If you were born white, you automatically have a monstrous advantage educationally, economically, culturally in this society and all the systemic roadblocks that exist, whether it’s in a judicial sense, a neighborhood sense with laws, zoning, education, we have huge problems in that regard that are very complicated, but take leadership, time, and real concern to try to solve. It’s a tough one because people don’t really want to face it.
One of the best parts of Pop’s commentary is when he calls out Trump for all his lies and disparaging comments about President Obama and how much his rhetoric is responsible for perpetuating racism in this country:
And it’s in our national discourse. We have a president of the United States who spent four or five years disparaging and trying to illegitimatize our president. And we know that was a big fake. But still, [he] felt for some reason it had to be done. I can still remember a paraphrase close to a quote “investigators were sent to Hawaii and you cannot believe what they found.” Well, that was a lie. So if it’s being discussed and perpetrated at that level, you’ve got a national problem. I think that’s enough.”
Seriously… He touched nearly every aspect of the conversation about race in this nation that we ALL need to be having on a regular basis. What was your favorite thing about what Popovich said?
Source: bossip.com
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