Nuggets’ Barton calls for revolution

Will Barton is calling for a revolution. Far too many Black people have died as a result of racism and police brutality — or both — in the United States. The names George

Floyd and Breonna Taylor may be new, but the trend is far from fresh.

Barton, a starter for a Denver Nuggets team with championship aspirations, is from Baltimore, where Freddie Gray died in police custody from injuries to his spinal cord six days after his arrest in 2015. All six officers who were charged in Gray's arrest and death not only were acquitted of all charges, but returned to work for the Baltimore Police Department just two years later.

Gray's death sparked local and national outrage. Five years later, the theme is the same, only the names have changed.

Barton, like many others, has grown weary. He gave speeches in Baltimore during the protests after Gray's death. The Nuggets' wing spoke out on the matter again in an interview with The Denver Post.

His message in layman's terms? Something's got to give.

“Here it is 2020, and we're still doing peaceful protests and peaceful speeches for something that's already a law, that's already in place,” Barton told Mike Singer. “To me, peaceful protesting and speeches and all that, I think it's past that point. I don't think us playing and wearing those T-shirts and all that is going to do it anymore. I don't feel like that's enough. I think a revolution is the only way at this point.”

Barton also posed a hypothetical scenario to help white people understand the urgency of the matter:

“If Black people in America were to say today, ‘We're going to war. We're going to war, not with white people, (but) with racist America. Would you stand and fight with Black people against racists or would you be out of the way?” he said. “Would you put your life on the line for a Black person for what's right or what's wrong?”

Floyd's death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer who kneeled on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds has challenged NBA players to reassess how they use their platforms. As the NBA shifts gears to return from what will be a near five-month coronavirus hiatus, some players have growing concerns that returning to basketball will create a distraction from the emphasis on racial inequalities that have been at the forefront of discussion since Floyd's death on May 25.

There has been a level of skepticism surrounding the NBA's July 31 return-to-play date, not only due to concerns of a second wave of the coronavirus, but fear that returning to play could take attention away from efforts assisting Black communities during this time.

Brooklyn Nets star guard Kyrie Irving has been an outspoken proponent of skipping the remainder of the season, helping organize and mobilize a group of NBA players who voiced their concerns in a recent phone call. Barton, who said he was not on the call, agreed with Irving's level of skepticism.

“If the things that are true that came out about what he said about trying to organize the players and question what are we doing down there, how things are going to be done, and if we should actually go, I agree with him,” Barton said. “At the end of the day, with so much stuff going on in the world right now with a pandemic, racism, I feel like you have to question those things and challenge those things. I don't think he did nothing wrong.”