ESPN’s Michael Smith: ‘Black Lives Matter Is Not Anti-Police, It’s Anti-Police Violence’

ESPN2’s “His & Hers” co-hosts Michael Smith and Jemele Hill opened up their first show after a week-long vacation Monday by talking about last week’s violence and debating how athletes need to speak out.

Smith encouraged athletes to speak out against police violence, saying that “more has to be done.” He added that the country needs to improve how it talks about race and that Black Lives Matter is not anti-police, but rather anti-police violence.

“[W]e still don’t know how to talk about race,” Smith said. “As much practice as we’ve had, people run away from it so much until we run into situations like this, people start to show their true colors, pun intended. This is not black versus blue. This is — saying that black lives matter does not mean other lives don’t matter. This is — Black Lives Matter is not anti-police, it’s anti-police violence. That’s simple, but there’s so many people who want to turn this into a debate rather than a dialogue, until the problem solving step can’t be achieved because we can’t agree what the problem is, and that’s a legitimate problem to begin with.”

Hill then responded, “[W]e need white athletes, white people, in general, to step up.”

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