Doug Baldwin deserves a better America

Earlier this month Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin used a press conference to call for a review of police training and tactics.

Baldwin’s father is a police officer and he made it very clear in his remarks that his call-to-action was not an indictment of cops in general: only a select few. Here’s the complete video of his statement:

That hasn’t gone over well with a certain segment of the population.

Speaking an interview with 60 Minutes Sports, Doug Baldwin revealed that he has received several death threats from some of them. Baldwin was that these threats will not silence him and that they’re proof something needs to be done, via ESPN:

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Doug Baldwin is an outstanding human being and extremely brave for taking this stand. He deserves better treatment from his fellow countrymen. It’s foolish to discredit death threats because they came via Twitter.

The time has come to tell the truth. There are a lot of ignorant, conservative white people in this country who are becoming increasingly hostile and dangerous. Baldwin’s death threats are only the tip of the iceberg.

These sad excuses for Americans have been emboldened by the rhetoric coming from one of this year’s Presidential candidates. The lunatic fringe is becoming mainstream because a low-brow con artist is betting that he can ride a wave of right wing hatred all the way into the White House. I’d like to think that this country is better than that, but every day my confidence is getting a little more shaken.

People who hide behind internet anonymity to make death threats are cowards. They feel threatened by people like Doug Baldwin because he’s everything they’re not: Courageous. Principled. Thoughtful. Capable.

Baldwin’s teammate Michael Bennett fully supports everything that he and Colin Kaepernick have been saying. He has also made a crucial point: that a high-profile white player needs to join in with this movement. If an Aaron Rodgers or an Andrew Luck could acknowledge the fact that unarmed black men being killed by police is unacceptable and call for reform the conversation would accelerate in a major way. Guaranteed.

It’s time for all decent Americans to take a stand against our racial bigotry problem, even if it’s coming from across the dinner table.

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