Jacob Blake was an innocent African-American male that was trying to diffuse a situation between two females. The police were called on Mr. Blake because he was present on premises that he shouldn’t have been. In an attempt to arrest Mr. Blake, video showed him walking around a gray SUV as police officers had their weapons drawn. When Mr. Blake bent over to open his vehicle’s front door, one police officer attempted to grab his white shirt from behind and then fired seven shots seconds later.
It was reported that Mr. Blake was reaching for a knife, but it wasn’t visible to anyone in the video. Jacob Blake has been recovering from the wounds over the past couple days and is now reported that he’s paralyzed from the waist down. We’ve become restless with the continued police brutality in our world. It has put our whole sports world on pause as we’ve now put our focus back onto things that matter; the citizens of our society.
“Shut up and dribble” was the iconic soundbite made by Laura Ingraham on Fox News after her rant of Lebron James and other professional athletes using their platform to voice change. With all the madness that’s been going on in our world, the NBA had decided to take it upon themselves to be that leading voice as organizations decided to postpone all their games until further notice.
It’s worth noting that prior to all of this, all-star point guard Kyrie Irving mentioned that we should not resume the NBA season in the bubble until we’ve taken the next step forward in change and a lot of other things that we are now considering. After, the likes of Lebron James and Chris Paul seeked advice from President Barack Obama on finishing the season. After Wednesday’s majority NBA player led meeting with NBA officials, it was uncertain the post season would resume. Before ultimately deciding that the playoffs will resume today, the NBA and NBPA made commitments about how they can help off the court.
The commitments are to establish a social justice coalition featuring reps from players, coaches, and governors. Convert team arenas into voting locations for the 2020 general election. Create advertising spots in playoff games that promote civic engagement in local and national elections. The NBA has done a fabulous job of being the epitome of a professional league as the MLB and others have followed showing us all it’s more than just a game. We have a ways to go to become a united country and it’s going to take much more effort from the rest of us to create change, but we are heading in the right direction.
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