Fred VanVleet on Jacob Blake shooting: 'Nothing's really changing'
It's exhausting.
Toronto Raptors’ guard Fred VanVleet didn’t want to talk about basketball, so he didn’t take a single basketball question at the Raptors’ media availability session on Tuesday.
Instead, he wanted to talk about the shooting of Jacob Blake — an unarmed Black man who was shot eight times in the back by police officers in Kenosha, Wisconsin after de-escalating a fight.
VanVleet was asked how he was feeling, and what he described was total exhaustion. There was also a feeling of total disappointment.
The NBA has done a number of things to bring awareness to the Black Lives Matter movement. The players are wearing social justice messages on their jerseys. They’re also wearing BLM warm-up gear. The court even has a BLM logo on it.
Yet, despite all of that, another unarmed Black person was shot by police officers and is now paralyzed from the waist down.
VanVleet just wants it to stop.
Fred VanVleet today pic.twitter.com/yqtGMFsZrI
— James Herbert (@outsidethenba) August 25, 2020
“I was pretty excited, and then we all had to watch Jacob Blake get shot yesterday. So that kind of changes the tone of things and puts things in perspective. So that’s really kind of all that’s been on my mind. And coming down here, making a choice to play, was supposed to not be in vain. But it’s just starting to feel like everything we’re doing is just going through the motions and nothing’s really changing and here we are again with another unfortunate incident.”
Being Black in America is totally exhausting. One minute, you can be having an incredible day. Everything could be going just the way you planned it.
And then, the next minute, you could be watching someone with the same skin tone as you being shot on camera by people who are sworn to protect.
That’s where VanVleet is. He and other NBA players are doing work. They are trying to solve problems. They’re talking about the issues. They’re giving people access to vote. They’ve broadcasting the right messages.
But the reality is that none of those things alone were going to solve the problems with racial inequality that we have in this country. And even if they did, it was never going to happen over the course of a few months.
These problems are centuries in the making and have taken root systematically. It’s going to take a lot more to pull those roots up.
Talking, alone, won’t stop it. Voting, alone, won’t stop it. It all takes time. And that’s truly the most exhausting part of it all.