‘Gonna do what I believe is right.’ Expect a Chiefs social justice protest Thursday
Sixty-two minutes before kickoff in the NFL’s opening game Thursday, the Chiefs will walk onto the field for warmups and see an Arrowhead Stadium emptier than they’ve ever seen it before.
They will have a reminder of an offseason unlike any other in NFL history. A reminder that outside their playing venue, a global pandemic marches on.
Nine minutes before kickoff, a Super Bowl LIV banner will drop inside Arrowhead Stadium, providing one final reminder that this team accomplished what their 49 immediate predecessors could not.
And three minutes before kickoff here in Kansas City, as a national audience of millions watches from their homes, Chiefs players will likely turn the reminders outward.
To you.
With a gesture they’ve declined to publicly reveal ahead of time, they expect to step aside from football and place the spotlight once more on a topic that has enveloped Main Streets across the country.
Social justice.
Or social injustice.
Chiefs and Texans players have hinted they will prompt all of us to examine a real-world problem, all the while knowing some have craved this game as an avenue in which to briefly ignore it. They aren’t revealing what the act will entail — a kneel during the anthem, a fist in the air, an article of clothing with a message or some sort of alternative —but they have implied a plan to do something.
Something that might tick off some of you at home who would prefer athletes stick to sports and shut up and play, like gladiators inside a coliseum. Something that might tick off the President, who once referred to some of them as sons of bitches.
But something they believe — and want to make clear —is far more important the three hours that will follow.
“I’m going to do what I believe and what I believe is right,” Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said. “I’m going to do whatever I can to fight for equality for all people. I feel like I’ve shown that over this offseason. I’m going to continue that fight.
“I’m not worried about people and how they’re going to do negative stuff back to me. I’m worried about doing what’s right for humanity and making sure that all people feel equal.”
‘Enough is enough’
On a Thursday night in June, 10 days after a white police officer planted his knee into the neck of a Black man and killed him, Giants running back Saquon Barkley posted a video on his Twitter feed.
Layered one after another, some of the top athletes in the NFL stared into their iPhone cameras and demanded the league address an issue it had previously demonstrated a preference to brush aside.
What if I was George Floyd? they ask, referring to the victim in the aforementioned incident.
In the 70-second video, players recount the names of Black men and women killed by police officers, building to the key moment.
Mahomes pops on the screen.
“Black Lives Matter,” he says earnestly.
In a matter of seconds, Mahomes had thrust himself into the center of a movement that has become a political talking point, even if those three words — Black Lives Matter — are merely an acknowledgment of the prevalence of racial inequality.
“Enough is enough,” Mahomes said, explaining his participation and subsequent decisions to post messages on social media. “We gotta do something about this. I’m blessed to have this platform. Why not use it?”
The separation of politics and sports is gone. It might never return. They have bled into one another, conversations about Black Lives Matter dominating segments of sports talk shows and arguments about athletes’ role in social justice missions overwhelming the A Block of a national news program.
It’s not the first time — John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists on an Olympics podium in 1968 — but the magnitude of these past several months has fueled the cause. Colin Kaepernick ignited the uncomfortable conversations in September 2016, when the then-49ers quarterback first knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality. The method of his protest derived from a conversation with Nate Boyer, a former NFL player and member of the U.S. Armed Special Forces.
Kaepernick has been out of the league since 2016, and looking back on it four years later, Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu said, “I think in hindsight, we feel like we let Colin Kaepernick down. For a lot of us, we were focusing on self and we were focusing on our careers and not necessarily understanding the true impact we could really make on really bringing about social change. I feel like we can have one of the biggest platforms in the world. We can reach a lot of people. We can inspire at lot of people.”
Whereas hesitancy to join Kaepernick overwhelmed some professional athletes in 2016, that’s evaporated in his absence. The very actions that likely shut Kaepernick out of the NFL are now part of its fiber.
Players won’t stay silent. Not on social media platforms. Not on Zoom call interviews. Not on the field.
In Major League Soccer, one of the first leagues to play competitive games after Floyd’s death, more than 100 Black players from all teams walked onto the field and raised their right fists skyward, a show of solidarity. In the NBA and WNBA, players boycotted by refusing to show up for actual games.
“When it comes to societal change,” said Richard Lapchick, the director of The Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sports, “you see that sports often really lead the way.”
Locally, Mahomes and Mathieu have spearheaded voter registration and awareness efforts through talks with team president Mark Donovan and chairman and CEO Clark Hunt. And just last month, Donovan revealed the organization is trying to transform Arrowhead Stadium into a polling location this November.
On Thursday, as the NFL launches its season, you’ll see the result of the player-led conversations in visible ways. Along the outer edges of the end zones inside Arrowhead Stadium, Chiefs employees spent part of Wednesday afternoon stenciling in the phrases, “It Takes All of Us” and “End Racism.”
Players and coaches have also received permission to display social justice-related phrases on helmet stickers and apparel patches, the NFL announced. They can wear T-shirts during warmups that present similar messaging.
“These issues are important to our players. They’re important to our coaching staff, our entire organization,” Hunt said. “This is the time to be sensitive. It’s a time to listen. It’s a time to understand.”
A display of unity, togetherness
At a glance, the Chiefs and Texans have the makeup for the NFL’s next long-lasting rivalry. Two young and elite quarterbacks, each of them under contract for years to come.
But for at least a moment Thursday, it could seem nothing like a rivalry.
Texans coach Bill O’Brien said this week that players from his team and the Chiefs have even spoken to each other “about what may or may not take place on Thursday night,” in the hopes of figuring out something to do together.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid, who has twice opened video press conferences with off-script messages on the topic, has pledged full support of his players. Behind the scenes, he’s opened the forum for ongoing dialogue.
The dialogue has stretched outside the locker room. Mathieu is a former Texans player. He still has friends on the team.
“I think whatever we do, we’ll try out best to display unity, togetherness, even if that’s with the opposing team,” Mathieu said. “But I think if anything, people should take away from whatever we may do, they’ll take away the unity and the togetherness part of it. So that’s ultimately the picture we’re trying to paint for our league and for the world going forward.”
Because somewhere along the way, the messaging got lost. The anticipation of what might or might not be done took over.
And perhaps that’s why players aren’t aren’t saying ahead of time what exactly any potential demonstration will look like. Whatever happens Thursday, that’s the essence they want to convey.
It’s not about the demonstration itself.
It’s about the reason behind it.
“It became something about whether or not you’re going to kneel instead of the reason why the kneeling began in the beginning, which is social injustices and police brutality,” Mahomes said. “I feel like that’s been the biggest thing — it’s not necessarily the gesture.”
This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 5:00 AM.