On the debut broadcast of Fox Sports 1’s “Speak for Yourself” on Monday, co-host Jason Whitlock reacted to this weekend’s mass shooting at an Orlando, FL gay nightclub.
Whitlock said the sports world needs a “prominent” role model like Muhammad Ali to be a “trail blazer” so “we can remove some of this hate and fear of people in the LGBT community.
“In sports, there are opportunities, we’ve seen it for sports to be a leader in social change, and clearly I don’t want to avoid this man or this tragedy affected the LGBT community, and there’s a reason why the LGBT community wants the sports world to embrace people of the LGBT community and have a role model for gay and lesbian athletes,” Whitlock said.
He continued, “Muhammad Ali just passed. He opened a lot of doors for African-Americans. He took a bold stance against the Vietnam War. I think we’ve reached a time, I hope that there’s some athlete out there, some prominent athlete out there, that says, ‘You know what? It’s time for me to stand all the way up and take on this responsibility and be a trail blazer like Muhammad Ali, that we need that in sports.’ It’s important that kids have this role model. Maybe we can remove some of this hate and fear of people in the LGBT community.”
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