Brian Urlacher Missed The Mark In His Comments On NBA Players Protesting
Former New Mexico great Urlacher is in some hot water.
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Someone needs to talk to Urlacher
Former New Mexico great Brian Urlacher took to social media to voice his opinion about the NBA players, and other leagues protesting over the shooting of Black man Jacob Blake seven times in the back by the police.
The pro athletes decided to use their platform to take a stand and essentially strike to bring awareness to what happened to Blake and want reform to police and highlight social injustice.
Urlacher’s Instagram story made a comparison that is not all that accurate by comparing Brett Favre playing after his dad died to players standing up for a shooting that clearly seemed to be over the top.
Favre’s father died of a heart attack and was not at the hands of someone else’s doing. This also was a personal tragedy for Favre — plus, family and friends of his father.
Whereas, Blake’s tragedy is more of an unfortunate trend when looking at the broader picture of things which include police murdering George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others. Those clearly were devasting to those families but also the Black community-at-large.
As for Blake having a warrant, that is correct but he has not yet gone trial and that is not actually relevant for being shot in the back. The police were called to the area and it noted that address did have a wanted man, but it is not 100 percent clear if that wanted person was Blake or if it was someone else.
What Urlacher is missing is some common sense. His post about why the NBA and other pro athletes opted to not play in a way to use their voice to show their disdain for what is going on.
There are plenty of people who do not understand why these players are sitting out and that is OK, however, it is not hard to figure out and learn to know why.
The problem is taking the time to ask questions instead of shooting off a social post when emotions running high. The reason these players are taking a stand is that their platform is so high and they have the stage and for people to take notice.
Yes, they make a lot of money and are privileged that way and can take time off of work to protest and they are doing it for those who are unable to take a day off of work to protest. However, when pro athletes decide to not play, people take notice and it is a big deal and it gets covered on news networks and not just the sports networks.
These are things that Urlacher clearly doesn’t understand. Had he taken a few minutes to perhaps reach out to some of his former Chicago Bear teammates who are Black, he would have at the very least understand why those players are protesting.
Again, if Urlacher doesn’t agree with how they protest, that is fine, but he needs to know what these athletes are protesting for. One would like to think that Urlacher realizes that what happened to Blake was wrong by being shot in the back but his post seems to suggest otherwise.
The bigger issue with Urlacher was him liking an Instagram post on an account that is now set to private which was about a 17-year-old who came from Illinois to protests in Wisconsin. He brought guns and is now arrested on intentional and reckless homicide in the Kenosha, Wisconsin, protest shootings.
He used an AR-15-style rifle to shoot and kill Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, and injured Gaige Grosskreutz, 26.
According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, he even made a phone call saying he shot someone.
Video captured by eyewitnesses at the scene shows the shooter, who the complaint says was unarmed, was chasing Rittenhouse through the car lot. Rosenbaum is seen throwing something toward Rittenhouse, which the criminal complaint says was a plastic bag.
A witness told investigators Rittenhouse shot the man when he grabbed for Rittenhouse’s gun.
After the shooting, Rittenhouse is seen on video putting a phone to his ear and saying he shot somebody. According to the complaint, he called a friend, who later spoke to a detective about the call.
However, Urlacher felt it was important to hit the like button along with over 174,000 people. To be clear, taking time to hit the like shows he is in support of the release of someone who took automatic weapons across state lines to join a protest and then is arrested for shooting for killing two people.
The Chicago Bears stepped in and released a statement on Thursday to distance themselves from Urlacher’s comments.
“The social media posts in no way reflect the values or opinions of the Chicago Bears organization.”
That was clearly the right move by the Bears as their players want action to make sure these types of heinous crimes do not happen again. They also did not practice on Thursday, as did other teams.
One would like to think this is a one time instance but it is not from Urlacher as he has liked similar posts. Here is a Twitter thread of accounts he follows and has liked posts in the same vein as what was mentioned above.
So, this is not a one-time thing and thoughts that Urlacher clearly believes and some are fairly extreme.
Let’s just shoot Urlacher to the moon.
