Killing of Alton Sterling

So it's so natural to me to just speak on this, too.

You know, I remember sitting in my bedroom with my wife watching the protest for Alton Sterling.

And I remember what it did to me, what it stirred up in me.

And, you know, it's a huge part of why when you decided to protest, I wore a Colin Kaepernick jersey.

How much thought did

you put into, Eric, what the reaction to the protest would be?

So you raised a great point with Alton Sterling, because that touched so close to home for me, being that it happened in Baton Rouge.

My dad worked at LSU for over 30 years, so he was always in that general vicinity for 30 years.

Yeah.

So, we have another, mm, if we wanna start with Trayvon, eight-year period of Trayvon, Tamir, Philando, Alton Sterling, Eric Garner.

We, we have a 10-year period of mass media showing us Black men who are just regular men like me and you-

Mm-hmm

I think 2016 was an inflection point and a flare-up that felt to me very familiar.

Now, the means by which those inflection points began to exist, and I'm thinking particularly of the murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.

Like Philando Castile was murdered on Facebook Live, you know, and that seemed like a very of the time kind of thing.

So the technology by which we understood Black death, for example, had evolved, but the actual root issue was no different than, you know.

Mike Brown was huge, bro.

Alton Sterling.

You get all those.

Yeah, bro.

... or gradually build." But we got out of the gate with the Colin Kaepernick situation, and then so many other things were happening at the time.

You got the, the, the Walter Scott, the Alton Sterling, the-

Oh, the sh-

...

And the experiences navigating police, the experiences navigating racism, um, having to educate myself and, and learn and do research, and auditing graduate classes at Berkeley, like, all of those experiences ultimately led up to that moment of protesting in 2016, in addition to seeing the, the political climate of what was happening.

You know, this is on the back of, of Mike Brown being killed and Eric Garner and Tamir Rice, and then more recently into 2016 was Mario Woods, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and that, that's the backdrop that leads into the protest.

Similarly to the football side, like when I first start in the NFL, that's 15 plus years in the making.

Um, so all of that leads to that moment and ultimately becomes a decision of now that I have a better understanding of the systems that are perpetuating this, as opposed to looking at them as one-off instances, what am I gonna do about it? Do I, do I take this understanding and just sit back and be like, "Man, I hope someone fixes it," or do I take action and try to affect change in the, the best way possible, um, in the ways that I feel like I have access and the ability to? And that's ultimately what led to that moment.

To me, that, that is the bare minimum.

Um, ultimately, every one of these instances, and you, you talked through this earlier, whether it is Mario Woods or Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, we, we are in a space, we have to show up for each other, we have to fight for each other.

And while there, there are instances throughout my life that I've been put in similar situations, um, that could have led to that, I also don't think we should ever have to be in a position that we're thinking about this as far as it's coming to knock on my door so I take action.

We can't wait for it to knock on our door.

Mm.

We see Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge.

We see Philando Castile in Minnesota.

And having all of that history, all of that context, to be able to put those, those moments into a systematic issue led to the moment of when "The Star-Spangled Banner" played, I didn't stand up for it because I didn't believe in the propaganda that the US ultimately is putting out.

It extended through Ferguson, Missouri.

Colin Kaepernick became a sports amplifier of that movement because of the police murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile.

And then that grew out into hundreds of high school athletes around the country taking a knee when that anthem would play.

And that is a movement.