We Matter

by Etan Thomas

  Etan: Is it encouraging to you to see the younger athletes beginning to use their voices?

  Jackson: We definitely needed something, from a civil basis, from a unity basis, to counter what was going on . . . Seeing young people respond in the way that they have to Eric Garner, to Trayvon Martin, to Donald Trump, created a sense of hope. Especially for an old guy like me . . . And we have seen the impact that sports has had on us as Black people in this country in finding our liberation. Without it, I would question where we would be. People forget that it was Jackie Robinson and Don Newcombe who were the athletes that Dr. King thanked for giving him the strength to do what he did. He used their stances as the platform for him to even get involved. They were his heroes, and they were sports athletes . . . So I’m with you.

  When I saw that, I immediately was overcome with a sense of hope, because these young individuals to a certain degree get it, and I am happy they will stand for something and use their sports platform. Let’s go to the University of Missouri, with the football players who protested until things were changed, until the president was fired. And all of that happened through sports, and we cannot lose that sense of history, that sense of what sports means and the power that sports has.

  Interview with Michael Bennett

  I remember it clear as day: We were at AAU nationals and teams from all over the country—New York, Philly, LA, Detroit—were in a big hall receiving an inspirational message. I must have been in eighth grade at the time. I was just learning about Malcolm X and reading about my history and my culture, and I was on fire. I was ready to read everything I got my hands on. So the speaker picked me out of the crowd, looking to use me as an example for his lecture. He asked me for my name, and I told him my first name only. Then he asked me for my last name, and I said that I did not know it, and he walked away, saying he wasn’t even going to waste his time on a fool like me. Then he went on to continuously reference me as a person who thought everything was a joke and wouldn’t be successful in life.

  After he had concluded his talk and he asked if there were any questions, my coach, Reverend Potter, raised his hand. He said that he would like me to explain why I said that I didn’t know my last name. So all eyes—the entire auditorium—turned and looked at me. I took a deep breath and responded, “When my people were kidnapped from our native land and brought here in chains by your people, the first thing your ancestors did was take away our history, our heritage, and give us new names, which were many times their own last names. So what I have now is a slave name, and thanks to your people, I don’t know my real last name.”

  At that point, Reverend Potter said to the speaker, “I think it was very presumptuous of you to attempt to embarrass him the way you did without knowing all of the facts.” The guy’s face turned red like a beet and he started sweating. When he walked off the stage, all of the players in the audience started clapping.

  My AAU coach Rev Potter is the perfect example of the power of mentoring through sports. It wasn't all about winning trophies and ribbons—he taught us about life.

  The man did find me later and offered his apologies and said that he was not at all prepared for anything that I had said. He told me and Coach Potter that he had been hired to conduct a motivational and educational speech, but he was the one who’d been taught the lesson. I talked to Reverend Potter for two straight hours that night. He said that I better be serious about my education if I was going to keep talking like that. He said that his prayer for me was that I would put myself in a position where nobody could harm me financially for saying the things that I wanted to say. He used Michael Jordan as an example. Jordan has created so much wealth, not just in what he received as paychecks in the NBA, and nobody can tell him nothing. He can say what he wants. Coach Potter told me that is the financial model I needed to pay attention to and follow. He pointed out that even Malcolm X had the Nation of Islam, which attempted to control what he said because they handled all of his financial affairs. The Black church tried to control Dr. Martin Luther King the same way. He stressed to me that it’s so much easier to speak your mind when you have financial freedom.

  Coach Potter also told me that I better always be serious about my education both in and out of school. He had no worries about me getting good grades but said my real education would take place outside of schoolwork. He gave me a list of about twenty books to read, and I actually got through the entire list. He told me to promise him that I would never fall into the trap of basketball complacency. I really didn’t know what he was talking about until I got older, but I made the promise and he said that I had a special kind of fire that he hadn’t really seen in a few decades. He said he would always have my back like he did that day, but that I better make sure I continued to go beyond what was taught in school. Some of the best advice I have ever been given.

  That’s exactly what happened with Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett. Once he was educated beyond what he was taught in school, and his eyes were opened to broader realities, he had a whole new understanding of the world that changed the course of his life.

  Etan: You have said that you view people like Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, and Angela Davis among your heroes, and that you see yourself as someone trying to build upon their history of both athlete activism and informed resistance.

  Michael Bennett: It all started with my mother. She went to a historically Black university and I grew up being educated on my history . . . And as I got older, I wanted to follow in the footsteps of the people I grew up reading about. The system is made to not encourage people or athletes specifically to speak out, in my opinion. You get so much notoriety and fame because of what you can do, but if you speak out and someone disagrees with what you are saying, they come down on you. The criticism starts to pour in from every direction.

  Etan: You and your brother have been very supportive of Kaepernick. You spoke out about your encounter with the Las Vegas police when they profiled you and had you on the ground with a gun to your head. You continue to sit during the national anthem and, in general, you and your brother have both really taken some strong stances. What has inspired all of this activity?

  Bennett: Like I said, it all came from my mom. She was a teacher, and growing up I got a chance to be taught all of the things that I wasn’t being taught in school. The past struggle, the history, what we had to overcome as a people, what so many people fought and died for and sacrificed for me to be in the situation I am in today. So I value the opportunity now to use all of the info my mom taught me, and the classes we did at Grambling University and the NAACP program, so I have the opportunity to be woke. I think a lot of times as athletes . . . we forget that we are still Black men living in this society and the struggle is real.

  Etan: Right. You said, “I’ll be done playing football someday, but I’ll be Black forever.”

  Bennett: It’s the truth. Society wants us not to get involved in these conversations, because at the end of the day, we aren’t necessarily granted true equality and acceptance just because of the money or the fame that we receive from playing our particular sports . . . No matter what happens, no matter how much money I make or accolades I receive, or championship rings or whatever, at the end of the day, I am still a Black man.

  Etan: You recently announced that you have chosen not to go to an NFL delegation to Israel. And you talked about how you didn’t want to go if the Palestinians were going to be rendered invisible. The day before you decided to cancel, our mutual friend Dave Zirin published an open letter to all of the NFL players going on the trip. The letter was signed by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, Jewish Voice for Peace, Dr. John Carlos, Danny Glover, and many others, and it urged players cancel their plans, noting that they “now have an opportunity to speak out against the injustices facing Palestinians.” How much did being educated on this subject affect your decision not to go to Israel?

  Bennett: I wasn’t aware before . . . But after being educated on everything and sho
wn what was really going on, my entire perspective changed. I actually spoke to John Carlos and Angela Davis and was really educated even further on exactly what was going on. I was pointed in the right direction so that I can research for myself and make an informed decision. She shared with me her personal experiences of going through Palestine and how they were being treated, and their living conditions, and the history of everything and how their land was taken away from them, and how they are persecuted—so when I started doing my own research, what I found was horrifying. I related and identified and had empathy for how the Palestinians were being mistreated.

  There’s a lot of things that they don’t show us here in America. Even if we watch the news, our news especially on this topic is completely skewed. We’re dealing with Black Lives Matter and we’re dealing with the police brutality here, and little do you know, around the world, people are dealing with the same issues and worse. So I feel connected to the Palestinians, and for me to go all the way to Israel, and intentionally not be shown their story, that’s not something I could accept . . . I wasn’t going to allow the NFL to use me in that way.

  Etan: I was reading about how you checked out an article in the Times of Israel that described the real purpose of the trip as a highly organized government-designed trip that would pretty much isolate you from the Palestinian people. Why do you think they would intentionally not expose you to the full story?

  Bennett: That’s exactly the question I asked and what really baffled me. Why would they intentionally do that? I took a step back and shared with the world exactly what my thoughts were in an open letter, and you can print the letter in your book if you want.

  Etan: Okay, we’ll do that:

  Dear World,

  I was scheduled to make a visit to Israel with fellow NFL players. I was excited to see this remarkable and historic part of the world with my own eyes. I was not aware, until reading this article about the trip in the Times of Israel, that my itinerary was being constructed by the Israeli government for the purposes of making me, in the words of a government official, an “influencer and opinion-former” who would then be “an ambassador of good will.” I will not be used in such a manner. When I do go to Israel—and I do plan to go—it will be to see not only Israel but also the West Bank and Gaza so I can see how the Palestinians, who have called this land home for thousands of years, live their lives.

  One of my heroes has always been Muhammad Ali. I know that Ali always stood strongly with the Palestinian people, visiting refugee camps, going to rallies, and always willing to be a “voice for the voiceless.” I want to be a “voice for the voiceless,” and I cannot do that by going on this kind of trip to Israel.

  I know that this will anger some people and inspire others. But please know that I did this not for you, but to be in accord with my own values and my own conscience. Like 1968 Olympian John Carlos always says, “There is no partial commitment to justice. You are either in or you’re out.” Well, I’m in.

  Sincerely,

  Michael Bennett

  Etan: So, after this statement went viral, a lot of athletes retweeted it. You really started educating others after you received your own education. What was the response that you received from the letter?

  Bennett: Of course there were a lot of people who didn’t like what I said, but I got a lot of support, especially on social media, and that always is encouraging. I also have been invited to do a lot of speaking engagements now because of that letter. People want to hear more, which is good because I am willing to say more . . . For me, not being deterred by what people think is something that I try to live by.

  Etan: And again, that all started with education.

  Bennett: Education is everything. The lack of education or awareness can really keep someone completely in the dark and unaware of what is going on. We have to control the type of education we receive, even if we can’t change what we are being taught in school. We have to teach our children what they need to know at home, so you get two different types of education.

  Etan: Changing gears again, you had a very public debate with your teammate Richard Sherman after his statements during a press conference where he acknowledged police brutality and the impact it has on Black lives, but he also expressed that the more pressing issue was Black-on-Black inner-city gun violence. I actually wrote an open letter to him as well shortly after he made the comments, and both your debate and my open letter seemed to have been received very positively by Sherman. Talk about the importance of being able to educate someone on a respectful level.

  Bennett: If you are not in tune to what is going on, and if you do not do your own research and rely solely on what the media presents to you, it is easy to become misguided and develop a not-complete understanding of what the full picture is, as I had with the NFL trip to Israel . . . I wanted him to realize that here is a problem with Black people killing Black people, white people killing white people, Mexican people killing Mexican people, but there is a system that is systematically putting this in place and having laws to create situations that we see in our communities, such as inadequate schools, lack or resources, lack of jobs, police violence, etc.

  Black lives matter and should matter, just as much as everyone else’s lives, and unfortunately, it doesn’t look like society agrees with that . . . I feel that it is important for us to stand up and say that no matter how you are treating us, we are not going to accept it as okay . . . While I respect him and his opinion, I felt that I needed to give my perspective and my opinion so that two different sides are presented to the world. He understood where I was coming from and after our discussions he started to open up and see that maybe there is a bigger problem, and he was appreciative of the different perspectives that we both presented to him, and presented to the world, especially all of the young people who are watching. I tell the media all the time that as much as you guys love to glorify what we do on the field, glorify some of the work we are doing off the field as well.

  Etan: What do you say to young people about the importance of educating themselves?

  Bennett: To be honest, young people gotta get off their behinds and realize the power they have. They are the future. If you don’t like the type of education you are receiving, it doesn’t take much to research something yourself, especially with modern technology—you can look up anything you want . . . Young people gotta have a thirst for knowledge, they gotta want to know and want to be educated, and they can’t wait for someone else to educate them, they gotta educate themselves.

  Etan: But do you agree that there is a problem with what they are not being taught in school? I mean, when I was young, my mother taught me what I needed to know at home, and my grandmother and grandfather taught me about my culture and my heritage. As a community, we need to stop relying solely on the schools to educate our children, don’t you think?

  Bennett: Oh, 100 percent. Recently I had a problem with my kid’s school. I went to them and I said, “Look, I’m paying all this money for my kids’ schools, and you mean to tell me that they aren’t learning any Black history at all, whatsoever?” So I connected with this historian . . . and we put together a program for Black History Month for the school.

  Etan: Wow, that’s great. We homeschool our kids so we are able to teach them a lot, but it’s really interesting thinking about how when I was younger, I really wasn’t taught Black history in school.

  Bennett: It’s crazy because I’m a grown man and even now I am researching and learning stuff that I didn’t know and was never taught in school and should have been taught at some point.

  Etan: Talk about the specific athletes you look up to and who have influenced you to be the athlete-activist that you are today.

  Bennett: Obviously Muhammad Ali. I mean, he stood up to the American government in the sixties, at a time where we were being lynched and having water hoses turned on us and dogs attacking us, and he said, “I am not going to your war.” That was just amazing. And of course John
Carlos and Jim Brown, but I really loved reading about Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey as a kid and Charles Hamilton Houston and James Baldwin and Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit.” We have a long way to go, but I really feel that athletes possess the power for change . . . Imagine all the athletes who are sponsored by Nike saying, “We’re not going to wear any more of your products unless you put ten million dollars into our inner-city schools that are all dilapidated and have old books and poor conditions.” You think they wouldn’t give in to that demand? . . . We have so much unrealized power and once we realize what we can really do, the sky’s the limit.

  Interview with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf

  Once you become educated everything changes, just as it did for Michael Bennett. I remember when my mother first introduced me to the story of John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Olympics. I remember when I learned about how the third verse of the national anthem celebrates slavery. I also learned about the 1921 attack on Black residents and businesses in Tulsa known as the “Bombing of Black Wall Street.” Needless to say, the more I learned, the more reasons I had to protest. I began doing the Black Power salute during our Pledge of Allegiance in school assemblies. I remember how two teachers in particular grew irate with me. One went off on me in the middle of class, saying that I was anti-American. That I didn’t understand how privileged I was to live in the United States, and if I didn’t like it so much, I should consider leaving. I remember telling her that my forefathers built this country and if anyone should leave, it certainly isn’t their descendants. She looked at me with eyes that could kill.