San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich once again used his press availability to launch into politics instead of basketball, as he heaped praise upon Austin, Texas, after their recent vote to defund the police. The coach then went on a rant about how “racist” Trump is because of what Popovich thinks is “voter suppression.”
During his comments, Popovich waxed ecstatic that the City of Austin is moving to slash a third of its police department budget and added that he hopes his hometown of San Antonio would do the same, according to San Antonio’s KENS Channel 5.
Popovich was asked about the police defunding issue and used his answer to call Trump a “racist.”
The virulently left-wing coach said defunding the police and passing ordinances claiming racism is a public health issue, is “key” in how the country should move forward.
“I think that’s the key, very frankly,” he bloviated. “Obviously nothing’s happening from the top. We have a president who is obviously racist by any measure, so the local grassroots politicians have to take the lead, and I’m thrilled at the notion of the two actions that have just been taken.”
The coach added that the police are still racist despite all the talk about fixing it.
“All the systemic racism we talk about is still there because all we’ve done is talk about it for so long, and nothing has really happened,” he said, “or we’ve taken a step forward and two steps back, but to act the way you just described in San Antonio I hope and in Austin is the way that we have to do this. People will get it done.”
Popovich also used his time to talk about the 1955 lynching of black Mississippi man, Lamar Smith, who was murdered for registering blacks to vote. He then conflated that 65-year-old outrage to today’s election cycle as if it were still happening.
“I just want to bring that up as a reminder to everybody that this fight has been going on for a long time, and we can’t let people who want to suppress the vote win the day,” he said after relating the story of Smith’s lynching.
“Some people talk about getting tired of hearing about it, but that’s the point: it has to change, and we have to act,” Popovich intoned.
Indeed, official records note that from 1882 to 1968, about 4,743 people were lynched across the U.S.A. Of that number, 1,297 were white, and many of those whites were lynched for helping blacks escape their tormentors or standing up for black people’s rights.
But this sort of crime is a thing of the past. No one faces such terror during our elections today. For Popovich to act like it is all just like it was 65 years ago makes the lie to his claim to want everyone to understand history.
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