By: Amanda Anderson-Niles
Seattle Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman is no stranger to speaking his mind, and now he has some words for the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
SB Nation writes:
A couple days ago, it was reported that the Seahawks’ Richard Sherman allegedly wrote a post about the Black Lives Matter movement, specifically after an activist posted an image of him and Marshawn Lynch on his website. On Wednesday, Sherman began his time during a press conference to address that post, which he didn’t write, and ultimately about the Black Lives Matter movement itself:
“Before we get started, I’m gonna address the — because there was some article written. You know, you guys have seen it. Talking about King Noble and all this. I did not write that article. A lot of people had sent it to me over the weekend, but I thought this would be the best place to address it. There were some points in that article, or in that post, that were relevant and I could agree with. But there were also some obviously ignorant points in there. I don’t think any time’s a time to call out for an all-out war against police or any race of people. I thought that was an ignorant statement. But as a black man, I do understand that black lives matter. You know, I stand for that, I believe in that wholeheartedly.
But I also think that there’s a way to go about things, and there’s a way to do things. And I think the issue at hand needs to be addressed internally, and before we move on, because from personal experience, you know, you have living in the hood, living in the inner city, you deal with things, you deal with people dying. Dealt with a best friend getting killed … it was two 35-year-old black men. Wasn’t no police officer involved, wasn’t anybody else involved, and I didn’t hear anybody shouting “black lives matter” then … and I think that’s the point we need to get to is that we need to deal with our own internal issues before we move forward and start pointing fingers and start attacking other people. We need to solidify ourselves as people and deal with our issues, because I think as long as we have black-on-black crime and, you know, one black man killing another … if black lives matter, then it should matter all the time. You should never let somebody get killed — that’s somebody’s son, that’s somebody’s brother, that’s somebody’s friend. So you should always keep that in mind.
And there’s a lot of dealings with police officers right now, I don’t think all cops are bad. You know, I think there’s some great cops out there, who do everything in their power to uphold the badge and uphold the honor and protect the people in society. But there are bad cops, and I think that also needs to be addressed. I think the police officers we have right now — you know, some of it is being brought to light, because of video cameras, everybody has a camera phone. But these are things a lot of us have dealt with our whole lives. And I think right now is a perfect time to deal with it. The climate we’re in … everybody’s being more accepting, you know, so I think the ignorance should stop. I think people realize that, at the end of the day, we’re all human beings. So, you know, before we’re black, white, Asian, Polynesian, Latino — we’re humans. So, it’s up to us to stop it. Thank you.”
Here’s the meme King Noble posted on his website that rubbed Richard the wrong way:
Of course conservatives are praising Richard’s comments all over social media. Check out the video below:
Sigh…
Just play football a$$hole….
The same people praising him for saying this dumb sh-t are the same idiots who called him a thug when he got passionate about that play when he was being interviewed by that white reporter.
LOL! Girl I was just about to say this too. Sherman has a short memory.
Preach!
So much tap dancing.
A lot of people from the hood feel this way though. When you see all the things they see, it changes your perspective about things and your own people.
Wow. After he had that awesome response to the racists who called him as a thug, I just thought he would be better than this.
Smh I just can’t.
I’m disgusted.
Not him too!! It’s like an uncle tom movement going on with our celebrities. So sad!!
When you are from the hood, you see more people get killed by their own kind than you do by police officers.
I still like him. People have to understand that those who grew up around a lot of gang violence (Richard is from Compton, so is Kendrick) tend to see things that push them to these kind of views.
He talks too much.
Not him too!
You can have a college education and still be ignorant. God bless him.
He really didn’t tell many lies. Yes, he sounded like he was just kissing butt BUT at the same time, he grew up around that constantly..black people killing black people. It’s true….we have to be as passionate about our own people killing us as we are about a policeman or another race killing us. I never grew up in the hood but my father has this same mentality. He’s nowhere near ignorant or uneducated…
So people on here are just going to defend this and act like white on white violence isn’t increasing every year and only a few percentage points lower than black on black violence? This is my problem with Richard Sherman and people who agree with him. They are supposed to be intelligent and college educated, but they don’t even understand that every race has high percentages of violence against each other because most criminals commit crimes in their own territory. How many more white shooters need to kill white people at movie theaters before it clicks? Most criminals hurt who’s close to them. And I also loathe how ignorant college educated blacks can be that they also buy into the ignorant mentality that black people can’t tackle multiple issues at once. So we can’t say black lives matter because gangs exist? So when we say black lives matter that means white lives don’t matter? Yes, Richard is ignorant and so are the defenders of his mentality. White people have been killing black people for well over 400 years. And that was before gangs were in existence. I’m so tired of weak and uneducated black people with college degrees. They are educated in everything except their own history and basic crime statistics.
Well said. Thank you.
People need to read up on the systematic racism and the history of black street gangs. Gangs used to protect black people from police officers. That’s why they were formed. It’s when the government started putting drugs in black neighborhoods that gangs started to terrorize the black community. And that was the whole point. Drugs are the number one reasons so many black people are in jail right now. But you Richard Shermans stay sleep tho.
Black people have been fighting black on black violence for a long time but rarely does that make the news. Not too long ago a teacher was killed in Chicago by a gang member because she was such an activist against gang violence. Believe me we are out here fighting for multiple causes to help our people so it’s really pathetic to see people like Richard Sherman say this kind of mess. Black Lives Matter is a movement targeted to end police brutality. If Richard is so passionate about ending gang violence, why haven’t we seen him putting in the work to stop it? The main people who try to shush black people with the black on black violence rhetoric are the main ones who aren’t out here trying to make a difference either. Yes he and anyone else with this mentality are ignorant!
He just lost a fan.
So in a nutshell, he thinks it’s black people’s fault that cops kill us like dogs in the street even when we’re unarmed and our hands are up. F-ck him.