San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, 71, says he’s “embarrassed as a white person” that a white man could allegedly murder a black man, referencing George Floyd, and suggesting such “lynchings” are commonplace in 2020 America.
“In a strange, counterintuitive sort of way, the best teaching moment of this recent tragedy, I think, was the look on the officer’s face,” Popovich said in a video posted by the Spurs, according to The Associated Press. “For white people to see how nonchalant, how casual, just how everyday-going-about-his job, so much so that he could just put his left hand in his pocket, wriggle his knee around a little bit to teach this person some sort of a lesson — and that it was his right and his duty to do it, in his mind.”
“It’s got to be us that speak truth to power, that call it out no matter the consequences. We have to not let anything go. Our country is in trouble and the basic reason is race.”#SpursVoices pic.twitter.com/uTyOIzGnTg
— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) June 6, 2020
“I think I’m just embarrassed as a white person to know that that can happen,” he continued. “To actually watch a lynching. We’ve all seen books, and you look in the books and you see black people hanging off of trees. … But we just saw it again. I never thought I’d see that, with my own eyes, in real time.”
Floyd died last week after a police officer had his knee on the 46-year-old’s neck for over eight minutes during an arrest, as shown in viral video footage. That officer has been charged with second-degree murder. – READ MORE
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