Watching and waiting
Justin Reid hopeful NFL statements indicative of changing tides throughout league
Justin Reid has witnessed this moment before, and it’s painfully familiar to the Texans’ veteran safety.
When Reid was attending Stanford in 2016, he watched as San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and his older brother, Eric Reid, knelt in protest during the national anthem. They did so to raise awareness about police brutality and systemic racism following the killings of African Americans Philando Castile and Alton Sterling during police shootings.
Instead of the NFL players’ peaceful protest sparking a deeper conversation about human rights issues and the Black Lives Matter movement, the conversation frequently was misinterpreted or deliberately misunderstood and used for political purposes. Kaepernick, Reid and others who took a knee at NFL games, including Kenny Stills, Michael Thomas and Arian Foster, were accused of being unpatriotic and even faced death threats. Donald Trump, a presidential candidate at the time, was deeply critical of players who knelt and called on NFL owners to fire them. His stance hasn’t changed since he was elected.
In the wake of Houston native George Floyd’s death and the murder charge faced by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who jammed a knee into Floyd’s neck, Reid is focusing on engineering tangible, permanent change. He wants to increase awareness after the deaths of Floyd in Minnesota, Ahmaud Arbery in Glynn County, Ga., and Breonna Taylor in Louisville.
“We tried this back in 2016, and it didn’t work because the narrative was hijacked,” Reid said in a Zoom interview Wednesday afternoon. “It became a dispute over whether we were disrespecting the flag rather than paying attention to what Kaepernick and my brother and other individuals like Kenny and Michael Thomas were trying to bring attention to, which was the police brutality and innocent people being killed with no consequences for the officers killing them. It really became a struggle for the narrative, which was so disappointing. The message today is finally getting across where everyone knows, for the most part, what the real problem is.
“You have the Drew Brees comment, which he has been rightfully so educated on, so we’re not distracted from the issue we’re trying to pay attention to, which is police brutality. It isn’t exclusive to only African Americans. It happens to all races: black, white, Hispanic, Asian. There’s just a tendency that it happens more to African Americans. This is a real thing; it’s just been taboo. It’s finally being talked about. People are speaking up, and I think that’s huge. I think the next step for us is turning that raw energy into action, into changes of the structure of society, the structure of the police and their behavior, their accountability.”
Brees has repeatedly apologized for his widely criticized interview with Yahoo! Finance during which he said, “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America.” To Reid and several other players, it brought to mind how Kaepernick was characterized as unpatriotic years ago.
When Trump expressed support for Brees, the New Orleans Saints quarterback rejected his endorsement and wrote that talk needs to be about “real issues of systemic racial injustice,” not the American flag.
Kaepernick effectively has been exiled from the NFL since his final season with the 49ers in 2016. He filed a collusion grievance against the league and its owners in 2017, then withdrew it last year after reaching a confidential financial settlement.
A planned workout for the former Super Bowl quarterback at the Atlanta Falcons’ facility unraveled last year because of a dispute over waiver language. Kaepernick worked out at a Georgia high school for a handful of scouts but remains unemployed. So is Eric Reid. He was cut by the Carolina Panthers this offseason one year into a three-year, $22 million contract despite setting singleseason franchise records for a safety with 130 tackles and four sacks last season.
A week ago, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell issued a pair of statements. First, he offered condolences to the families of Floyd, Taylor and Arbery.
After several high-profile NFL players, including Deshaun Watson, Patrick Mahomes and DeAndre Hopkins, called out the league in a video by saying “I’m George Floyd,” Goodell acknowledged the league was “wrong” in its stance about protesting.
“The NFL went out and issued a public apology because I feel like they didn’t really have a choice with how the entire country erupted, figuratively speaking and in some ways literally, over what happened with all the murders that happened … Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery,” Reid said. “The NFL issued an apology, which is cool, they took responsibility for it. I give them credit for that, but what are they doing next? Colin still doesn’t have a job; he hasn’t even had a phone call. My brother hasn’t even had a phone call. He’s coming off setting two franchise records last season, and not even a phone call. Are you guys truly with us? Or is this a PR move because you had no choice but to accept responsibility?
“All they really want is an unbiased tryout, an opportunity to prove themselves that they are the best player available to make the 53-man roster. My brother was coming off the prime of his career (with the 49ers), and it still took him almost a year before he got signed with Carolina. When he did sign with Carolina, he became an immediate impact player and still gets released and not even a phone call. There hasn’t been fair opportunity they deserve. Once they do get that opportunity to prove themselves, it won’t be surprising to me that they show what they can do and get on the roster.”
Texans coach and general manager Bill O’Brien delivered a powerful, emotional message a week ago expressing outrage and sadness about the killing of Floyd, a Yates graduate. O’Brien spoke out against racism and police brutality.
“I’m emotional. I’m sad,” O’Brien said. “I’m frustrated because I’m questioning, ‘What can I do?’ I’ve got to do more. I’ve been blessed throughout my life to have deep and meaningful relationships with players and coaches who are different than me ethnically.
“I simply would not have the perspective I have now without these relationships. So to see discrimination of any kind against an innocent man who was murdered out of evil and ignorance, it simply breaks my heart and makes me angry, makes me angry personally. We have to do better.”
To hear that passion from O’Brien and for him to reinforce it privately during a team meeting was significant to Reid. O’Brien, executive vice president of team development Jack Easterby, Texans chairman Cal McNair and defensive end J.J. Watt attended Floyd’s funeral along with other players and team officials.
“I’ve got all the respect in the world for OB,” Reid said. “He had the public statement that he made publicly and also in a private team meeting. He let us have the opportunity to talk with him and give our opinion and feelings on what’s going on in the state of the country and what we can do about it. My true feelings are that him and Jack and all the other guys are sincere.
“They still texted me even when they went to the funeral: ‘We’ve got your back.’ But what I’m going to be waiting to be seeing is how these conversations are going to go into the future and how we really start making some meaningful change and be a part of that. My first feelings I got from the conversation with him is that he is sincere, and he’s going to do what he can to help.”
One thing Reid is doing to prompt change is increasingly using his voice on social media. He’s encouraged by laws being passed in several cities outlawing chokeholds by police, including the Eric Garner Anti-Chokehold Act in New York.
“I don’t want people to think I dislike the police,” Reid wrote. “I like and have great relationships with many officers! I just want the bad ones to be held responsible. THANK YOU to all the good officers doing their job RIGHT! …
“Only talking about the ones who kill unarmed, non-violent people which is an independent and mutually exclusive group from the ones who don’t kill them.”
Now that there’s a call to action to defund police around the country, including Minneapolis, Reid wants to see reform and a hard look at how financial resources are used for law enforcement.
“I didn’t even realize the disparity between the funding for police versus civil liberties,” Reid said. “We’re not talking about removing the police. Can some of the funds be redistributed? Yes. What I’m doing is trying to keep the facts straight with everybody. It’s not a political issue like (conservative black political activist) Candace Owens is saying. It’s a humanitarian issue.
“I don’t care who makes the changes. I don’t care if it’s a Republican, Democrat or an Independent. What I am chasing is I want the change to be made. I’m just looking out for the health and safety of America. I’m trying to recognize there’s a problem here that needs to be fixed.”
Several NFL players, including Adrian Peterson, plan to take a knee during the anthem in solidarity. The NFL has said they are free to do so without penalty. Stills knelt for the entire season last year with the Texans. Referencing the Floyd tragedy, O’Brien said: “This is why Kenny Stills takes a knee.”
Reid is contemplating what he will do this season. He doesn’t want the larger message to be lost in translation again.
“I don’t have a problem with the kneeling either way,” Reid said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. It’s finally been observed that kneeling isn’t about the flag; it’s about police brutality.
“I can see (kneeling) continuing because that’s still the issue at hand. We don’t want the energy of the movement to just die down. We want it to continue, to get real, meaningful change. When that change finally does happen, that’s when players won’t kneel anymore.”