Seahawks Stand Together, Make a Different Kind of Statement

We’ve all been waiting to see what Seattle was planning since earlier in the week when it was announced that the Seahawks would make a public statement as a team before Sunday’s game. On Saturday, their QB Russell Wilson made those plans known to the world on his Instagram page. Wilson posted a picture of the entire Seahawks roster side by side with a caption that stated,

“CHANGE can Only happen TOGETHER. Unity. Love. Forgiveness. Change. 🌎 We are linking arms & standing to Stand Up for Social Justice, Love, & Peace for All. #BuildABridge The Question is… Will you?”

I love what the Seahawks are doing. While Colin Kaepernick, Brandon Marshall and others elect to not stand for the national anthem and bring negative attention to the issues plaguing our society, they only succeed in further dividing this country. Meanwhile, the Seattle Seahwawks players get it and plan to make a statement this Sunday the right way, TOGETHER! A lot of black people have shown their outrage and disgust for what the Seahawks players are doing and they only show their ignorance when they do. So let me get this straight. The Seahawks are standing together and linking arms with their goal being to unify all people and have everyone treated well and people actually have the nerve to be upset about that type of message. What the hell kind of society do we live in where trying to unify all people is frowned upon and considered selling out. But if you think about it we’ve seen this before. Back in the Civil Rights movement, you had two different personalities in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. Both wanted better for African-Americans, but the difference is Malcolm seemed to only care about black people and Dr. King cared about everyone. And if you remember when Malcolm X first started his movement, it instantly became more popular among some African-Americans. However, history would soon show whose train of thought was correct and whose was not as Dr. King’s method proved to be much more effective and much more productive in improving the lives of African-Americans all across this nation. Now here it is 2016 and we have two different view points yet again. There are those blacks like Russell Wilson and Richard Sherman who, like Dr. King, feel that things need to get better for African Americans, but also feel that it’s going to take a unified effort to achieve that and that all lives matter. Other famous athletes both active and retired such as Deion Sanders, Jerry Rice, Cam Newton, and even Allen Iverson have also vocalized similar sentiments. Yet other athletes and normal everyday African Americans seem to only be looking at things 1 sided and taking that Malcom X black lives must get better and we don’t care about anybody else approach. Obviously, black lives matter but at the end of the day that kind of campaign only really alienates other races of people. And not standing for the national anthem also alienates people and even worse it takes focus away from the very issue that Kaepernick is fighting to bring awareness to and divides this country as now you have people taking sides on whether or not we should stand for the national anthem at all. In a time where we need to come together as Americans and find a solution to the blatant prejudice and unequal treatment of African Americans and other minorities by the police and our justice system, we’re too distracted. We are too busy bickering about a damn flag or whether or not black lives matter or all lives matter and that is time wasted that could be better served trying to find solutions. Standing or not standing isn’t going to change things. Hash tagging Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter doesn’t amount to squat. We need to be coming together and going to our congressmen, governors, mayors, law enforcement officials and others trying to create dialogue and create solutions.  But we can’t because people are too busy trying to be fake black panther activist on Twitter or too dumb to realize that just because black people say black lives matter it doesn’t mean that all lives don’t matter. I’ve honestly never been pro black lives matter or all lives matter. I’m pro equality and equal treatment of all human beings because we were all love equally by the good lord and savior Jesus Christ. How about we just compromise and start a new hash tag that #LivesMatter and let’s make some real change and stop worrying about what side we’re on.