The revolution is being televised as every week another athlete or coach is deciding to join Colin Kaepernick’s call for social justice. Eagles Safety Malcolm Jenkins is the latest athlete to announce plans to protest during the national anthem. Jenkins did not describe what type of protest will take place, but it appears that kneeling like Kaepernick has been ruled out. Jenkins spoke to Sportsradio 94 WIP, and detailed a plan for himself and several Eagles players to demonstrate in some manner.
“Last week, we talked about doing some stuff, but we wanted to make sure that we didn’t do anything to take away from the families that suffered from 9/11,” Jenkins said. “We didn’t want to mess with that day, so we left last week alone. But moving forward, I’m sure there will be guys that will probably join in.” “For me, it has nothing to do with this country or the flag or the anthem in itself,” he said. “Really it’s just to continue to push forward the conversation about social injustice, and that’s a range of things from police brutality to wages and job opportunities, education. There’s just a lot of things systematically that have been set up in this country since its inception that put minorities, especially African Americans, at a disadvantage when you talk about quality of life and actually growing in this country. “So we want to continue to keep that conversation going and push it to as many people as we can obviously while doing our part in bringing forth change. Obviously this has been a hot topic, and the more players that join in, the further this conversation goes.”
Jenkins stated that several players will protest but did not give an exact number. He also stated that he will most likely be one of the players that demonstrate.
“I’m not sure,” Jenkins said when asked exactly how the players intended on expressing themselves. “I still want to talk to some of my teammates. There’s been conversations that we’ve had of, what do we want to do? Do we want to do something as a team or as individuals? And I think that’s still being discussed. But I doubt that we’ll have anybody kneeling.”
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