I had the honor of speaking at this conference at Harvard University. So many dynamic and powerful speakers and panelists. My panel was on Athletes and Activism and I was joined by Bill Rhoden author of 40 million dollar slave and Seth Devale of the Cleveland Browns who was the first white NFL player to take a knee during the National Anthem. So many topics were discussed during this event, from the importance and significance of each role of athletes utilizing their voices, the level of influence it has on younger and future generations of athletes, as well as the power of the athlete voice.
It’s was really a pleasure listening to Seth Devale ad talking with him more in depth after the panel. Seth said that he didn’t want the attention to be on him as being the “white savior” or anything but wanted the focus to be on the topic of what exactly were the reasons for the protests in the first place. I told him on the panel that while I definitely understand and agree with him on not being labeled as the wyhite savior we need more white athletes and white people in general to speak out and use their voices like he did. I told him that there are a large portion of society that won’t hear it from Kaepernick or Lebron or anyone else but they will hear it from someone who looks like them. They’ll hear Coach Popovich or Coach Steve Kerr or Stan VanGundy, and that’s why it was important for him and other like minded white people like him to continue to use their voices and their platforms. Much Respect to him for not being afraid to do just that.
I also had the honor of having lunch with Bill Rhoden author of 40 million dollar slave after our panel at Harvard University. We discussed putting together some speaking engagements at a few Universities for the fall. Definitely looking fwd to that. Always great discussing/debating with him. Much Respect
Really enjoyed listening to #DonnaBrazile today at #HarvardUniversity. Very powerful speaker. So much wisdom and courage and strength and real talk from her today. She didn’t hold back at all. Really great event and it was an honor to be a part of it. And thank you to Harvard COOP bookstore for hosting a book signing for me after the panel.
