Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson showed Wednesday how much he has been affected by the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.
"I don't want to talk about football. I think about the pain of George, I think about Ahmaud, I think about Breonna. I think about these people that have been hurt . . . and murdered, and it's just a lot of pain on my heart right now," a dour Wilson said on a media conference call (per Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times).
Russell Wilson talking to Seahawks media via Zoom. Says “my heart is heavy right now” pic.twitter.com/jq46sWwi8O
— Bob Condotta (@bcondotta) June 3, 2020
Floyd's death last week at the knee of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, following the highly publicized shooting deaths of Arbery and Taylor, has ignited protests and riots across the country. Seattle has been one of the areas of violence. Wilson said he wished he could have joined the protesters there "who are getting brutally abused."
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"When you think about the idea of Black Lives Matter, they do matter, and 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," Wilson said in video posted by Gregg Bell of The (Tacoma, Wash.) News-Tribune.
The peaceful protests against police brutality and racial injustice have brought Colin Kaepernick's action in 2016 back to the forefront. Wilson said that Kaepernick had the right idea when he was kneeling in protest before the national anthem while he was still playing for the 49ers.
Russell Wilson says there has to be “radical changes” to our system. Says Colin Kaepernick was standing up for something way greater than was understood at the time. pic.twitter.com/XKQ5Z5AWLj
— Bob Condotta (@bcondotta) June 3, 2020
"He was trying symbolize the right thing and people may have taken that the wrong way, but I think that he was trying to do the right thing, the bottom line," Wilson said.
