My belief in this movement is why it was important to me to talk openly, in dueling press conferences with my brother Richard Sherman, about why I support Black Lives Matter. There are so many dishonest ways that this movement is attacked, and Richard gave credence to the most commonly repeated slander. It’s an attack tactic used by some of the same people who have treated Richard like he’s the devil with braids: the idea that we don’t care about what is called “Black-on-Black crime.”
Our back-and-forth started when Richard was falsely accused of “liking” a post online that mentioned killing police. It was all a lie, and Richard held a press conference where he spoke about his support for law enforcement. He then said, “I dealt with a best friend getting killed … it was two thirty-five-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.… As long as we have Black-on-Black crime and one Black man killing another … if Black lives matter, then it should matter all the time.”
I respected that he was speaking from the heart and felt for his loss. But I also disagreed with his position, and at my own press conference I said, “When people talk about the Black lives matter thing, I think he’s misinterpreting it. Yes, Black people kill Black people. White people also kill white people. People kill people every day. This is about social injustice: the people that are supposed to protect them.”
I didn’t call a press conference because of Richard. We could have talked privately, like we do all the time. He’s sharp as hell and I know he’d listen. I went public because I wanted not just Richard but everyone to realize that looking only at street crime, tragic as it is, ignores the larger problem. The problem is a system that inflicts inadequate schools, lack of clean water, and lack of jobs on the Black community, and police violence is a part of compelling us to accept second-class citizenship. For us, it’s a situation of “You were put here to protect us, but who protects us from you?” in too many cities. Police should be a resource for comfort and safety, not a symbol of fear. The point is not that Black lives matter more but that they need to matter as much as everyone else’s. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this society, from the White House down, agrees. I support the Black Lives Matter movement, and I feel it is important for us to stand up and say that, until there is true equality, we will not accept the way you are treating us.
Richard and I disagreed. But we also talked about it behind the scenes. I said to him that it’s cool for us to see things differently, but, while I respect him and his opinion, I felt I needed to give my perspective so that a different side was presented to the world. I told him I thought there was an institutional problem we needed to confront. Yes, I do believe that Black people killing Black people is one hell of a problem. But when people are being killed by those who are supposed to protect them, we need to raise our voices. I also wanted him to understand that the Black Lives Matter movement doesn’t involve just Black people. There are white, Latino/a, Muslim, Jewish, and Asian supporters in this movement—all types of people who are looking reality in the face and saying that Black lives must matter, also.
I asked Richard to think about everything he has accomplished in this life, and my dude has done a lot. He gives back to the community in ways that get no publicity but directly impact people’s lives. He does amazing things. But I asked him to think about why his path has been so hard, and whether it really had to be that way. Behind the scenes, it wasn’t just a conversation between Richard and me. It blew up throughout the locker room. There were about ten of us talking, but everyone knew it was going down and pricked up their ears. The discussion was heated but respectful. Everybody had differing opinions, but at the core was an acknowledgment that, as Black professional athletes, we are all outliers. We have been able to overcome the institutional obstacles that most people from our backgrounds would never, ever have had the chance to overcome, simply because we played sports freakishly well. We got pushed through the system in a lot of ways that most people wouldn’t, because we are in the athletic top .01 percent. That is a blessing, but it also comes with a responsibility not to forget those left behind.
We all grew up with so many others who were smarter, more creative, or more analytical than we were, but because their abilities and intelligences were not reflected in
