Matthew Stafford wrote a hard essay Friday for The Players’ Tribune in which he detailed the racist habit he experienced with some of his teammates this spring and suggested that everyone continue to fight racial injustice.
The quarterback said his most proud day when a Detroit Lion arrived here in August, when the team canceled to protest Jacob Blake’s shooting.
Blake fired at least seven times through Kenosha, Wisconsin, police and Lions protest sparked other protests around the sports world, with some NBA, NHL and major league games canceled or postponed.
“We can’t stick to football,” Stafford wrote. ” Not as a team. Not as an organization. And we shouldn’t be like a country. “
Calling them “human problems” and political statements, Stafford detailed an incident he saw this spring while running with his teammates in Atlanta.
He wrote that he secured a box to house the passing exercises and spent four days pitching with open receiver Danny Amendola.
“No challenge at all. It’s great,” Stafford wrote. “A week later, I went to do the same thing, in the same box, with four of my black companions. We were starting to throw all the balls in the box. and some of the boys were still stretching when a gentleman arrived and told us that we had committed an infraction and left immediately. “
Stafford wrote that the guy took out his cell phone, called police and told them the organization was “not cooperating” and “not leaving the property. “
“We were there for 10 minutes in total. No one said a bad word to him,” Stafford wrote, adding, “Obviously, they got us out of there immediately. “
“I was ashamed to have put my teammates in this situation, especially when I said it was great to use the field. Especially when I’d been in the same field with Danny without any problem,” he wrote. “The only difference is what we all have We know in our hearts. Danny and I are white. The police don’t call us in those situations. We are not treated without delay as non-cooperatives. The police called us, we all know how this interaction would have gone. “
Stafford, in his twelfth nfl season, has long worried about networking projects, but has talked more about social issues in recent months.
In July, she participated in a city corridor consultation on online voter education, where she championed the importance of an equivalent school opportunity for children. He and his wife, Kelly, made a giant donation to a local food bank and a domain hospital at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Last month, the couple gave $350,000 as a component of a $1. 5 million donation to their alma mater in Georgia to launch a program designed to “implement strategic projects in the spaces of diversity, inclusion, equity and social justice” for school athletes.
And before Sunday’s initial loss to the Chicago Bears, Stafford was one of many Lions players who knelt down to play the national anthem.
“I’ve known him for a year and a part and I know he’s very fair and frank, and when something is vital to him and he feels safe, he’s going to express his criticism and he’s going to Sean Ryan, the Lions’ quarterback coach, said Friday: “I think when he sees something or something he thinks can help fix , he will. So I’ve noticed it from the beginning.
“I think the conditions have been replaced over the course of the year and a half, which has given him the ability (to say): ‘Hey, now is the time to express my opinion. ‘So I think things have replaced a lot of us in this way, however, I’m not surprised at all that the boy is in charge, that he leads and he’s honest and that we know his emotions looking at things. “
In his essay, Stafford wrote that he had been affected by a story that Lions defensive punchline Trey Flowers had told about how he dealt with the anguish of being arrested by police.
If Fdecreases is arrested, Stafford wrote that he would lower the window, put his hands on the wheel and ask the officer if he was looking for Fdecreases to get out of the car to handcuff him.
“Just so I can get home,” Stafford wrote. If you’re a white person, all I’m asking you to do is think about it. Imagine that this is your first intuition when you see the police lights in your rearview mirror. “
Ultimately, Stafford needs everyone to do whatever the Lions have been emphasizing since they discussed racism, police brutality and social injustice as a team after George Floyd died this spring – pay attention
“Police brutality, white privilege, racism, everything is real,” Stafford wrote. “It’s time for us to stop pretending, defending or just looking fat at what’s right in front of us. We’ll have to pay attention and you’ll have to keep having those complicated conversations. “
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress. com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.