Warriors head coach Steve Kerr praised former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick for trying to start a conversation about racial inequality in 2016, but is disappointed in the lack of progress made over the last four years.
“It’s really hard to look at what’s going on right now with all the violence and the protests and not look back to four years ago and say, ‘Look, this guy was trying to peacefully protest and nothing came of it,” Kerr said on The Ringer’s “Flying Coach” podcast with Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich Tuesday.
“The killings went on and nothing changed and he was actually ridiculed, so it’s a real tough one to think about.”
Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem in protest of police brutality has been revisited in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man who was killed last week in Minneapolis by a white police officer.
Though Kaepernick sparked a national conversation, his act was often misconstrued as anti-police or anti-military.
“It’s still the statement that we’re making today,” Carroll said. “We’re not protecting our people. We’re not looking after one another. We’re not making the right choices. We’re not following the right process to bring people to justice when actions are taken. So I think it was a big sacrifice in the sense that a young man makes, but those are the courageous moments that some guys take.
“And we owe a tremendous amount to him for sure.”
Meanwhile, Kaepernick has been unable to get back into the NFL since 2016.
Last week, Floyd died after Derek Chauvin, a white Minneapolis police officer, kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes. Chauvin and the three other officers on the scene were fired, and Chauvin has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
In the days since Floyd’s death, peaceful and violent protests have risen across the country.
“The thing that has to be done before anything, is an understanding and an awareness that there needs to be a reconciliation, an admission of guilt,” Kerr said.
“Not a message of, ‘Hey all you white people, you should feel guilty, this is your fault.’ That’s not the point. But this is the way our country is, it’s our responsibility to admit that this is what’s going on in our country, and let’s look at our past and let’s truly examine our past.”
Both Kerr and Popovich believe current NBA players are more informed about social and political issues than ever before, and several have used their platforms to help affect change.
However, Popovich told a heart-breaking story on the podcast about trying to explain what happened to Floyd to his 8-year-old granddaughter.
“I was watching the news and she happened to walk in, and it was the exact time when they were replaying the policeman with his knee on George Floyd’s neck,” Popovich said. “I didn’t realize she was there. I turned for whatever reason, I saw her standing there and she was just staring and she said, ‘Poppy, why does that man have his knee on that man’s neck? What is he doing?’
“I was dumbfounded. I turned [the TV] off and then I thought, ‘Should I have left it on and explained it to her? Or how do I explain it to her now that I have turned it off?’ I made some feeble attempt, but I didn’t know how far to go, how deep to go. What age is it? Is she ready or not ready?
“Then I thought, ‘Wow, that’s a problem for me.’ And then I thought, ‘What about a black family?’ You think they have a problem talking to their kids and figuring out what’s going on here? It’s so convoluted and complicated that … everything sort of fades away if we don’t have that initial admission, that sorrowful recognition of what went on in the past and what has continued.”
Kerr recently joined Popovich and several other former and current coaches on a committee on racial injustice and reform through the National Basketball Coaches Association.
