Photo Credit: AP Photo/Matt Slocum
NFL leaders, like many others across the country, are speaking out with words of encouragement and calls for action in the wake of last week’s tragedy in Charleston, South Carolina. A $100,000 donation from Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson may have been the league’s first significant move in showing support for the families, friends and community directly impacted by the heinous crime, but it’s far from being the last.
For Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Byron Maxwell the tragedy hit far too close to home. In an interview with MMQB, the Charleston native shared the same emotions that many of us are experiencing and asked the same questions that many of us are left wondering:
“At first you feel shock. Anger. Disgust. Then the next question is, what do we do about it? How do we stop things like this from happening?”
Saints tight end Benjamin Watson, who moved to South Carolina from Virginia in 1996, took to Facebook to share his anguish and dismay against the Confederate flag’s continued presence on the capitol grounds of the state he once called home.
It’s hard to explain how I feel when I see the rebel flag. The emotional bucket overflows with anger, trepidation, sorrow, a perverted pride and apathy. As hard as I try not to make assumptions about whoever is flying the flag or driving around with it mounted on their truck, my mind can not hold back the painful images of the past generations…. and the current one. The nine racially motivated murders of last week, have written a new chapter in the annals of race violence in this country. And at the center of it all, proudly displayed in images of the killer, the rebel flag.
As part of a plea to remove the Confederate flag from a place where it has been perched since the early 1960’s, Waston continues:
The past and its people, as acclaimed or afflicted as they may be, should always be remembered. But it is difficult to completely “move forward” if painful, divisive icons continue to stand unchallenged.
Calvin Johnson returned from a Twitter hiatus with a call for change that begins from within:
Hi Twitter I’ve had many emotions since the heinous act in S.C. but eventually it comes down to how we raise our own and those we can impact
That’s if we want to see change. We are born with love, hate is learned so let’s love our neighbor. Happy Father’s Day.
It is often in times of tragedy that we see people come together and it is our hope that NFL leaders continue to leverage their influence to instill positive change and progress throughout this great nation.
