Green Light with Chris Long - History in the Making?

Episode Date: June 1, 2020

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We're kind of living through history right now. And if you haven't noticed, we always are. I think sometimes it helps to remove ourselves from this like American 2020 context and look at this with the 30,000 foot view and realize that this is not only something that's going to have hopefully far reaching implications, but the roots are very deep. This is not a George Floyd situation. It's certainly about George Floyd, but it's about. so much more and there's so much more history bubbling to the surface right now. So I just hope you consider that when framing all this. Monday afternoon, Greenlight Pod, something like it.

Listen, I planned on, well, first I planned on if I was looking at this a week ago, obviously we usually have a Monday pod. There were a whole host of things in the sports world to talk about George Floyd murder and everything that's followed has made sports seem kind of unimportant. It's also made me struggle to be motivated to put a pot out today that it's about anything other than the current events going on in this country, which are historic, or hopefully will be historic at some point. We can look back and say this was a crossroads that we actually took the right turn on. I just feel weird doing it. I'm sorry.

I know I have a lot of loyal listeners. We even have something banked last week. Me and Dave Damashek did a really good pod. Objectively, in my opinion, is a really good pod. Where we talk music with a twist for about 90 minutes. And I had a lot of laughs, a lot of great tangents. That'll come out here soon, whether it's later this week or what. And there's no rules to when I can start talking sports again

or when you might want to hear me talk sports or music or pop culture again. But this morning, I just didn't feel. like pumping a pod and saying, hey, check this pot out on X, Y, Z. When there's really a lot of other stuff going on, I just didn't, it just, I didn't feel like doing it. I certainly didn't feel like talking about the Lance Armstrong, Doc. I'll get to that at some point. Wednesday, we do have Mark Cuban. So that's a big deal for us, Steve Kerr last week, Mark Cuban this week. I'll certainly talk to him about some of the protests. I saw him out in the streets marching. And then we're certainly going to talk about the NBA and the restart. Some of the questions I asked Steve on, Mark might be

able to give us a different vantage point, being an owner, seeing what's going on in front offices, being more of a shot caller where Steve might not be able to step in it as much as Mark. So we'll get Mark on Wednesday. Today, I'm just going to talk about what's been going on over the weekend and that because Twitter sucks, man. It just sucks ass. Twitter's a terrible place. It's hard to get a nuanced message out there. Obviously, all you need to say on Twitter right now is that you're supportive and you've chosen a side because this is a side thing in my opinion. And there's right and wrong. So, I mean, that's what Twitter's for for me.

I'm not going to weigh in on every viral video on Twitter. I'm not going to do a play-by-play of the protests on Twitter. I have a podcast. And I appreciate you guys if you're willing to listen for a few minutes today. I'm just going to talk about the weekend. This is not a sports pod. This is going to be a serious pod. Sorry, but it's a serious time.

We're kind of living through history right now. And if you haven't noticed, we always are. I think sometimes it helps to remove ourselves from this, like, American 2020 context and look at this with the 30,000-foot view and realize that this is not only something that's going to have, hopefully far-reaching implications, but the roots are very deep. This is not a George Floyd situation. It's certainly about George Floyd, but it's about so much more,

and there's so much more history bubbling to the surface right now. So I just hope you consider that when framing all this. But, you know, I think one of the biggest themes is people, speaking out who haven't spoke out before, which makes you wonder why it's so different. Why is it so different? I talked to a few of my friends asking them, you know, I asked a couple of my black friends why this killing seems to be different than others, why it's getting such a visceral reaction. I asked a police officer, friend, what he thought about it. You know, my friends kind of to a man said that this is a person. one seems to hit harder, including the officer, because it's all on video and it seems so casual the way George Floyd was executed. There's no struggle, you know, there's no two-sided struggle over a gun or, you know, even a lot of these videos, a cop. can hide behind certain plausible deniabilities that we know aren't necessarily valid.

But there might be some gray, and gray is a relative term. There was nothing gray about this. The video was very clear. Chauvin was casual. He had people protecting the scene of the execution. He had people imploring him not to. telling him exactly what he was doing. That's audible on the on the video and he just continues to do it. So for me, I look at it and I say it's horrendous. It made me nauseous. It made me angry. I'm still like

angry about it. But it's also not new. So I would just ask you consider that as you're parsing the reaction. And this reaction does not feel like it's over something new. And it's not. but George seems to be the killing that has tipped this thing over the edge. And I think it's good that it's been tipped over the edge. It's good that the Band-Aid is off. I hope this means that the Band-Aid is off. Because that's the only way we're going to we're going to heal hopefully. And healing is not a fast process.

So I think some people are like, even if we acknowledge it, okay, let's get it over with we acknowledge it. like there are going to have to be it's going to be years even best case scenario of people mobilizing to change legislature to revamp the way we we police our country to attack policing on an individual level on a systemic level to you know groom younger people to think differently than older generations, which is no automatic as we've learned because I've seen young racists in this country as well as old. This is a process and police are a big part of it and police brutality is a big part of it because feeling safe as an American citizen

if we do truly live in the greatest country in the world, if we do. Which currently it doesn't look like. I hate to say that. Yes, I live here. Yes, it's home. Do I love living here? Sure. I just want my neighbors to feel the same way about it. And that's the point. Like, how great can it be if not everybody feels the same way as I do about it and that presumably you do? So, you know, but a lot of these white, white folks are stepping up and making statements. I do see some really, really on target statements. And it's a tricky thing because, you know, I was once the guy that said something for the first time on a big,

big stage. Now, granted, I was tweeting and nowadays a tweet is enough in the early 2010s about stuff like this, but this was in the dark ages of Twitter. So by the time my views were blasted to the world, because I played in a big market in the midst of the Kaepernick stuff and that sort of thing.

I had already had a bunch of practice swings that I think some people, some white folks aren't getting right now. There were probably tweets where I was trying to say the right thing that I probably fumbled over it at times. There were probably tweets that I sent around Trayvon Martin or around Mike Brown. And mind you, I'm not talking like pro police tweets or anything. I'm just saying like even trying to be part of this solution can be tricky because you don't, it doesn't come out right or you don't, you're presumptuous about your understanding the situation, being white and that sort of thing. It is a mind field.

Like you can say the right thing and still be criticized. That's just kind of like the way it is right now. And so I would just say, yes. The first time you speak out about it, if you're a white athlete, it's walking off a ledge, I would imagine, I guess. Again, I had like years and years of practice swings that people didn't pay as much attention to. But if you're white and you're going to say something, if you're an athlete or corporation or a coach, because we've seen all of it, the key is to me, say something.

don't just throw a word salad out there without confronting specific issues that you see in this country. The reason I like the Carson Wentz statement was it wasn't just

the shock factor of that white dude from South Dakota with the labs and the duck blind and the pickup truck. It was also, of the fact that he used the word systemic racism

and called certain very specific forces at play out. And I think if you're going to say something, say something or just don't say anything. I know that like people are going to side eye you if you're silent, but I'd rather just

see you silent than and check the box with some vanilla bullshit. I mean, just, just if you're going to say something, really say something or just don't. And I do wonder what took everybody so long, but as I said this weekend, it's time. So I'm not going to ask too many questions right now in the moment. And we've continually asked for this.

So we've asked for white athletes to stand up. We've asked for high-profile white athletes, white people in general, but we've asked for the Carson Wentz's of the world to stand up. And Carson Wentz stands up. there's going to be more people to follow. I want to shout out Bo Allen, who I played with. A guy like Bo Allen, I know Bo Allen.

Bo Allen is a terrific human being. Anybody that's played with Bo Allen will tell you that. The fact that he hasn't tweeted about this stuff for four years since the gap thing, to me, it makes some sense because somebody like Bo Allen is not thinking, like, I'm supposed to be first in line. And I'm like the third D tackle on a team or, you know, one of the unsung heroes on a team. Like it's not my place to be the first one out there.

Now, I never felt that way, but I can understand how some people will feel that way. But that attitude has to change. And somebody like Bo has taken it upon themselves to be one of the first white athletes that I saw this weekend to say something of substance. And he did. So I was really psyched about that. and, you know, a number of my teammates have spoken on this stuff at this point. I would just say make it substantive, you know, say something. And Jim Trotter asked me this question because I was, he called me to a story yesterday.

I love Jim Trotter. He's a super good dude. And he asked me, you know, why it was mostly just me and Josh in 2016 speaking on these issues. And as you really do have to. consider the fact that we're seeing this stuff from a vantage point that we've never seen before. And some of these guys are younger. They're young in the league. They're getting more comfortable.

They also have seen people get that stab at it and succeed or fail. Like as this weekend has gone on, they've seen people doing it and getting crushed for taking ambitious swings that fall flat. And they've seen people succeed at putting out a statement that people are appreciative of. So I think they're watching, they're learning, and now it's time. It's time to speak. And so sure, with some guys, I wonder what's taken so long with some guys, I understand that maybe they might have felt like they were being self-important. And that's something I've had to fight and speaking about it.

like I'm certainly not one of the best players in the NFL. You know, I was a good player. At certain points in my career, I was a really good player. But overall, I'm not like a household name. I had to get over the insecurity that, you know, I am going to be called self-important by people that don't want to hear the message period mostly. But, you know, I have to consider that it really doesn't matter.

It really doesn't matter who you are. Somebody has to speak out. And I know Josh McCown feels the same way. I know a number of players that have spoken out feel the same way. So if you're white and you're going to say something, just say something substantive. Don't say nothing. No word salads. Address the things that we're talking about here.

As the protests, you know, this is not a protest or a riot over just George Floyd. I said that. This is a riot or a protest over a thousand George Floyd's. This is a riot because or a protest because, and by the way, the vast majority of people are protesting peacefully, this is a riot or a protest because all other options have been exhausted. There are people who have had enough. Like take this occurrence again out of our it'll work out American bubble. In the rest of the world, there's uprisings all the time over corruption, authority,

violence, race. And in the rest of the world, like violence begets violence. That's kind of the way it is. I'm not saying I'm excited that stuff's on fire or anything like that, but it's not really my place to litigate property damage in the face of generations of loss of life. We haven't had something this big in my lifetime as far as protests and that sort of thing. you know i was in st louis during the mike brown thing if you remember kenny britt taevan austin stebman bailey they ran out of the tunnel in a midwestern

city you know with their hands up and people were furious uh death threats were coming into our facility um these guys felt unsafe um people turned in their season tickets that sort of thing There were protests. We went down to some of the protests. I can remember walking in Ferguson. And I don't mean like mobilized walking. Like I'm not claiming I was like, I'm not like one of these politicians that say,

yeah, I walked with King and then they looked for the pictures and that didn't happen. I mean, the D-line, we went down there and walked around and kind of took it in and saw what was happening. And you knew at that point, that was history. but this feels way bigger. And again, it's not just one instance. It's a long line of bullshit.

And people have had enough. So you take it out of that American bubble. And I just ask what makes us think that we're immune to the ways of the world. This is the way the world works. If you let chaotic shit happen in your country, chaotic shit happens in your country. But if you're asking me to join you in like loudly. denouncing people flipping squad cars or property damage so it can be the lead and like cancel out the cause the reason that this is going on and by the way you want to see if i'm if i'll acknowledge it

and that i'm real by your standards usually you're on the opposite end of a political spectrum which this has nothing to do with politics um i'm going to ask you why you've been quiet about every george floyd that's ever happened for your entire fucking life but you want me to get it at my virtual podium here at my house and tweet, I think it's wrong that that squad guard got flipped. And did you see that guy throw a rocket, a police officer? And there was a building on fire. And that's wrong.

Are you satisfied now? Like, that's not what I'm going to do right now. Yeah, I got people sending me videos of this group of masked white dudes burning a homeless guy's mattress. Okay, those guys are fucking assholes. Like, I'm sorry. They're assholes. We always talk about you don't punch down.

A homeless guy getting his mattress lit on fire is not getting it done for me. But I don't know. If you're sending me this video, like, care to comment? Like, do you really think that I'm going to share that to overshadow the positivity of the protest and the function of the protest, which has nothing to do with lighting homeless people mattress on fire. And anybody reasonable will tell you that those people are probably outside agitators that have nothing to do with the folks that are really hurting and have been living this

thing for generations. Like, do you think I'm going to share that and overshadow the efforts of people peacefully protesting or getting a little messy protesting? Like, that has nothing to do with that. Those aren't, number one, outside agitators don't cancel the cause. They're not a part of it. Like people boosting sneakers running out and laughing boosting sneakers like you expect me to A get enraged about it or B, I'm certainly not impressed by it. But I'm certainly not going to get enraged about it.

There are things I matter about right now. And I know the aim is when you send me a video like that to get me to share it so that you can feel better about your narrative, which is that everybody. protesting for justice is fucked up. I'm not going to do it because I'm not going to play your game. Even though like a fucking dude lighting a homeless guy's mattress on fire is dead wrong, it's just like that goes without saying. So stop sending me awful shit people are doing to take advantage of the protest as if it's representative of Black Lives Matter or people who are really in it for the right reasons.

I mean, do you think anybody's excited about those isolated incidents? Do you think I'm excited about those isolated incidents? When it comes to agitators, you've got videos of masked white dudes rolling up to J-Crew, spray-painting BLM, with black people imploring them not to do that because they don't want to get blamed for it. You've got some white guy in a mask again,

hammering concrete yesterday, just hammering concrete in the middle of a peaceful protest. I don't know if he thinks that the protesters are not going to notice that, but they all jump him and pull him out and literally deliver him to police. And as they're unmasking the guy, by the way, he's like covering his face.

He's an older white dude with gray hair. There's a storefront that I saw like get vandalized with the words colored. And that was supposed to be spray paint from an African American person, like any black person uses the word colored in 2020. Like, come on. We know who's doing shit like that.

I've seen, you know, white dudes in masks, lighting fires, breaking store windows. I've seen a lot. I've also seen the same. I've also seen more of the same from the cops. An organization of over 10,000 police officers last night actually doxed de Blasio's daughter who got arrested at a protest and posted her arrest record with her address online to thousands of followers. That's not the NYPD account, but that's an account representing an alliance of over 10,000 police officers.

And they're essentially asking for people to roll up to this chick's house or apartment. That's the way I look at that. She's in jail. She got arrested. Do you really need to put her address online? and blast that out to your followers who are all very probably who are all not very sympathetic to the cause that she was protesting for. I think we can read between the lines there.

You know, I watch cops do stuff like fire rubber bullets at a woman's face who was just walking home with her groceries, fucking middle of her forehead, just split, bleeding all over her face. Just walking home with their groceries. I see him hitting the press with rubber bullets. I see him pulling down a guy's N95 mask and just macing him in the face while the guy's

standing there with his hands up, like actually pulled down his mask and then hit him in the face with mace. I see police cruisers plowing through protesters. I see a bunch of national guard looking dudes and cops violently breaking windows and pulling a black college couple out of their car and tasing the kid over curfew. Well, there's another car right in front of them with two white people in it. I don't know what's going on in the car in front of them. Maybe they didn't give any directives.

They're walking up like this couple is a terrorist cell. And they're smashing in the windows at a stoplight and yank the girl out. The guy is petrified. You can see it. These dudes are in like fucking gilly suits. Like it's call of duty. and the kid who's seen countless videos of black people getting shot from moving their hands just puts his hand on the fucking steering wheel.

I can tell he's either numb or just petrified, probably both. And he's tased, he's yanked out. It's just an ugly scene. I've seen a lot like that this weekend. The list goes on. And then you see like some positive. You see or what you believe could be positive. You see police standing with protesters in what seemed to be a very off-script manner.

First, you see the guy in Flint kind of looks like my dad walking with protesters kind of going viral that way. You see cops kneeling in Miami, not all of them either with protesters. It's one by one. And then you see protesters even protecting a police officer who got separate. from the group. And I'm still cynical. I don't, in fact, it's not still cynical. I'm primarily cynical.

I'm not one to gush over seeing a police officer hug a protester. I've seen videos like that get shared. You know, don't just give a protester a fucking hug. Do you agree with them that something needs to change? I saw a couple cops holding up a sign that said end police brutality. You know, like these are all things that would seemingly give you hope. But again, that cynicism is pretty natural. They could be pacifying us.

I also wonder what's taking them so long. But every time something like this happens, we ask, where are the good officers? What's the point of asking the question if you don't acknowledge the occurrence, even if you're cynical? You know, like for me, at least I might not blast it out and say, great job, guys. But I do think that under one condition, some positive reinforcement,

Okay, now the condition here is that there's a fucking follow-up. What's next, Mr. Officer? Proved to me that this isn't just a convenient gesture. And then eventually, I'm going to want to know what took you so long. But in the meantime, get your buddies to stand with the people that are fighting to dismantle this system that's been so oppressive and violent towards especially a population of people in this country. And I even called a buddy, a black dude, good buddy of mine. I bounce a lot of ideas on this stuff off of. He has multiple relatives that are police officers, including his dad,

who was a police officer in Atlanta for 40 years and never got promotions because he would raise hell over bad practices. And he said he would call people out. He said, there's a number of cops to speak out off camera and off Twitter. But I hope they're realizing that that hasn't worked. I think they need to cross the picket line loudly. So it's complicated. It's messy.

Watching a viral video, you don't know who's who. I'm certainly denouncing someone who's lighting a homeless guy's mattress on fire. I mean, come on. Shit like that. But let's not act like that's the lead or that's the majority of people. And let's not act like some bad actors cancel the cause. Don't also expect me to... clutch my pearls at a fucking police cruiser flipped over or with the windows smashed in.

That's property damage. Let's remember why this is happening in the first place. Let's not act like some bad actors are canceling the cause because the art of peaceful protest is not on trial. Police are on trial. Policing in America is on trial. It's not about protesters. I know some real don't tread on me type dudes with the flags and license plates would you say the way black people have been treated by police in this country constitutes as being treaded on? I would say so.

Do you romanticize about American people rising up for various causes against depression throughout history? I mean, do you highlight some of those things including the inception of our country? consider this instance in historical context. I'm not saying the country is going to go belly up. I'm just saying that like when you let chaotic shit happen, again, chaotic shit happens. And I don't get to tell people who have felt unsafe in this country for a long time how to feel.

Now I do get to say that these outside agitators are fucking assholes. and if you're lighting a homeless guy's mattress on fire or the like, I think you're an asshole. But there's a lot of smoke when it comes to this outside agitator fire. There's a lot of smoke from the standpoint of, man, some of these people doing the really senseless shit here are not really down with the cause and are not here

are not here for the right reasons. and who it is, I could be speculating. I just know it just does not make sense some of it. And certainly outside agitators do not cancel all the positive going on. They don't cancel the gains being made, even if it's messy. A riot is the language of the unheard. We've heard that quote a lot this week. We've had Kaepernick.

Hey, not like that. You know, we've had voting. Yeah, well, that's not working. Hashtag black lives matter. Well, all lives matter. And also not like that, please. The list goes on. In my lifetime, in the lifetime of the generation that came before, you know, my generation,

the list goes on when it comes to ways that have been tried, including peaceful protests. and these people have not been heard for generation. So I hope they're heard. And if you feel like sticking around for some music bullshit, hard right turn from this serious stuff, me and Dave Damashek discussing system bands for well over an hour last week, just pulling out of the archives here because I got no sports for you. we can let that thing run. And I appreciate you guys listening.

This is messy. If you resist chains long enough, things are messy. And again, that doesn't excuse some of these outside actors and agitators. But as a whole, this process is necessary. And Kreme Abdul-Jabbar wrote a pretty good piece that I enjoyed reading on this whole thing. There's a lot of good reading out there. I would just ask you to consider the root causes

of this entire process and not some of the worst parts of the protest because they're certainly bad actors but I'm never going to concede that that's the lead. Never. And I'm certainly not going to be more upset about a cone

hitting a police cruiser than I am the loss of life or a police cruiser getting the windows smashed in Or like you let chaos happen in the country long enough. Chaos happens in the country. And so I hope they're heard. I hope this is the last time we have this situation. But only people in power get to decide if this is the last time there's a protest or riot or whatever you want to call it.

I don't get to decide it. I can certainly try to amplify the voices of people. that need to be heard and I can speak out, but I don't get to decide if this is the last time. I can do my part. Eventually, the system has to change. And it's evidently don't seem to change with hashtags or with peaceful protests or silently kneeling at a football game. Because all those things, we were told not like that. People were told not like that.

I received threats of violence from putting my hand on a black guy's shoulder during the national anthem. So I can only imagine what some black people have experienced speaking out on these subjects.