On the heels of police shooting two African American men and the subsequent sniper murders of five Dallas, Texas, police officers, New York Knicks small forward Carmelo Anthony jumped to his Instagram account to demand that athletes get involved in politics to “fix the broken system.”
Starting his post insisting he is “all about” protesting for change, Anthony then wrote: “We have to be smart about what we are doing though. We need to steer our anger in the right direction.”
The player went on to point out that many responses to our cultural problems have not worked and also condemned the attacks on police in Dallas.
Our anger should be towards the system. If the system doesn’t change we will continue to turn on the TVs and see the same thing. We have to put the pressure on the people in charge in order to get this thing we call JUSTICE right. A march doesn’t work. We tried that. I’ve tried that. A couple social media post/tweet doesn’t work. We’ve all tried that. That didn’t work. Shooting 11 cops and killing 5 WILL NOT work.
Anthony said he didn’t necessarily possess all the solutions but insisted that the only way to solve today’s problems is to “come together” and work for solutions. He also called on athletes to lead the charge.
I’m calling for all my fellow ATHLETES to step up and take charge. Go to your local officials, leaders, congressman, assemblymen/assemblywoman and demand change. There’s NO more sitting back and being afraid of tackling and addressing political issues anymore. Those days are long gone. We have to step up and take charge. We can’t worry about what endorsements we gonna lose or whose going to look at us crazy. I need your voices to be heard. We can demand change. We just have to be willing to. THE TIME IS NOW. IM all in. Take Charge. Take Action. DEMAND CHANGE.
The player also illustrated his Instagram post with a 1960s-era photo of a press conference that featured famed athletes Muhammad Ali, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Jim Brown.
Fellow NBA player LeBron James noted on his own Twitter account that Anthony’s comments were “on point,” according to ESPN.
Of course, the murder of five Dallas officers and the shooting of seven others during an ambush in downtown Dallas during a Black Lives Matter protest spurred Anthony’s post. The protesters sought to raise awareness of the police-involved shootings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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