![]() ![]() This offseason, in a culture flailing to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and a police-brutality epidemic, these men have decided to risk public reproach - from their league, the public, the president of the United States - and speak their minds. Watson, Russell Wilson, Kyler Murray, Cam Newton, Teddy Bridgewater, Dak Prescott - there has never been a more empowered or talented group of Black men playing the most scrutinized and fetishized position in sports. Another (Baltimore's Lamar Jackson) is the NFL MVP. Enough with being told you need to be educated before you address something the entire world can see with its own eyes.Ī BLACK QUARTERBACK (Kansas City's Patrick Mahomes) is the Super Bowl champion. Enough with gratitude being mistaken for complicity, grace being defined as weakness, and money being viewed as insulation against injustice.Įnough with fearing that your voice will alienate the money and power that sits in judgment behind thick luxury-suite glass. Enough with politely declining to comment when the man who owns your franchise suggests that players kneeling during the national anthem projects an image of "inmates" running "the prison." Enough with being told there's a right way and a wrong way and your way is always wrong. Enough with fading into the background and issuing anodyne blandishments when someone publicly ascribes a failed late-game decision to the color of your skin. Enough with being judged, for as long as you can remember, by how you carry yourself and what you wear and whether you speak with requisite deference. His body language and his words convey a single sentiment: Enough. ![]() Y'all don't know what y'all talking about.'" So in reality, they're like, 'Hey, y'all Black quarterbacks - shut up. "To keep it real with you, I feel like whenever a Black quarterback speaks up, the outside world sometimes doesn't think they're educated enough to know what's going on. "Honestly, I'm going to take that back," he says. The Houston Texans quarterback was ready to do what he's always done: say the right thing, be gracious and respectful and polite, conform to the standards of those who want to be entertained by his actions and made comfortable with his words. Watson and I are 2,000 miles apart, connected only through technology, but I can see the layers being strip-mined as he reconsiders. His large hands slap his knees, and he looks back at the camera. He is not satisfied with the curated, focus-group answer he is about to give. "I think you have to watch what you say sometimes," he says. It's as if a button on the jukebox is pressed, and the song enters the room. Deshaun Watson is asked a question - What unique challenges does a Black quarterback face when deciding to speak up on social issues? - and he begins to answer without thinking.
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