Gregg Popovich has been one of the most outspoken critics against President Donald Trump. In just the past few months, Pop has called the President a “impotent,” “cowardly,” and a “destroyer” who will “eat you alive for his own purposes.”
These feelings no doubt stem from a culture of division and racism that the President has helped grow — whether intentionally or not.
Fast forward to today, with all these protests, and it’s clear people have had enough. Years of police brutality bubbled over with the death of George Floyd and it sparked a huge, worldwide movement to fight racial injustice.
Coach Popovich took a break from his flame of the President to talk specifically on the death of Floyd and the topic of racism in America today.
“In a strange, counterintuitive sort of way, the best teaching moment of this recent tragedy, I think, was the look on the officer’s face,” Popovich said in an emotional video released by the Spurs as part of their #SpursVoices series on social media. “For white people to see how nonchalant, how casual, just how everyday-going-about-his job, so much so that he could just put his left hand in his pocket, wriggle his knee around a little bit to teach this person some sort of a lesson — and that it was his right and his duty to do it, in his mind.
“I don’t know. … I think I’m just embarrassed as a white person to know that that can happen. To actually watch a lynching. We’ve all seen books, and you look in the books and you see black people hanging off of trees. And you … are amazed. But we just saw it again. I never thought I’d see that, with my own eyes, in real time.”
“It’s got to be us that speak truth to power, that call it out no matter the consequences. We have to not let anything go. Our country is in trouble and the basic reason is race.”#SpursVoices pic.twitter.com/uTyOIzGnTg
— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) June 6, 2020
Indeed, the only thing sadder than the death of George Floyd is the way in which it happened. As the man sat there, pleading for his life, four officers stood, in silence, doing nothing. To them, it wasn’t a big deal at the time.
Needless to say, it was a big deal to everyone else. Gregg Popovich is just one of thousands (millions) to speak out on the death of Floyd and many other black victims who suffered a similar fate. They want change and have already inspired a lot of it.
