Carmelo Anthony wrote a personal essay on his website Friday in which he called upon athletes to help bring about change in America in light of recent shootings.
“I’m calling for all my fellow ATHLETES to step up and take charge,” the star Knicks forward wrote. “Go to your local officials, leaders, congressman, assemblymen/assemblywoman and demand change. There’s NO more sitting back and being afraid of tackling and addressing political issues anymore. Those days are long gone. We have to step up and take charge.”
The post came after two police-involved shooting deaths of black men in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis, and a fatal shooting during a protest in Dallas that left five police officers dead and seven wounded.
Anthony said in the post that “we need to steer our anger in the right direction. The system is Broken. Point blank period. It has been this way forever.” Anthony then harkened back to Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali’s various fights for justice.
“A march doesn’t work,” Anthony wrote. “We tried that. I’ve tried that. A couple social media post/tweet doesn’t work. We’ve all tried that. That didn’t work. Shooting 11 cops and killing 5 WILL NOT work. While I don’t have a solution, and I’m pretty sure a lot of people don’t have a solution, we need to come together more than anything at this time. We need each other.”
Anthony added that athletes “can’t worry about what endorsements we gonna lose or whose going to look at us crazy. I need your voices to be heard. We can demand change. We just have to be willing to.”
..... - Newsday