Seahawks’ Bobby Wagner was at Seattle protest Saturday. What he saw. What he asks
Bobby Wagner was watching with most of America what was going on in our nation’s urban cores this weekend.
But instead of relying on what was being relayed to him through social-media posts on the internet or on television, Wagner got out of his Seattle-area home. He went downtown.
The Seahawks’ All-Pro linebacker wants you to know what he saw first-hand in downtown Seattle this past weekend during the protest of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
And that it’s not what you may think it was.
“I was there at the protest on Saturday,” Wagner said Monday on a Zoom online call from his home.
“It was very peaceful—until some white people started burning up cop cars.
“So instead of reporting, um...report the protest, the peaceful side of the protest, as well. Report people doing good, because there are a lot of people doing good out there.
“There are a lot of people that want to see the world change, and don’t want to see the world like this anymore. That want to feel good to have our kids in this world.”
Wagner said he saw, hours into Saturday afternoon’s peaceful protest for racial equality and an end to police brutality through Seattle’s center business core, a white man throw something at police. That’s when all hell began breaking loose: police vehicles set afire, automatic rifles stolen by rioters from police vehicles, a plain-clothes security man obtaining possession of one of those stolen police rifles by pointing a handgun at a young rioter, then disassembling the automatic weapon in the middle of the street, stores such as the Seattle flagship of Nordstrom looted.
And that’s when Wagner decided to leave downtown, for his safety.
“It was very peaceful,” he said. “Everything was peaceful, until there was a white person that threw something at the cops and they started fighting. They started tear-gassing everybody. I watched, you know, a group of white individuals destroy a cop car and set it on fire. And I watched black people try to stop them from doing that. But, you know, it just wasn’t happening.
“And it got to the point where I felt it was against my safety for me to be there, so I left.
“I’m hurting,” he said. “I’m pissed off like everybody else. I’m tired like everybody else.”
Wagner, a native of southern California who turns 30 this month and played college football at mostly white Utah State, challenged white media members on Monday afternoon’s Zoom call, media members reporting on the protests and white people across the country to listen and try to educate themselves on what it is to be black in America today.
“I feel like a lot of focus is on the rioting, the looting, the people stealing stuff, but we’re not talking enough about what started that,” he said. “I think the black community is tired of seeing the same things going on and not seeing change. I think we’re tired of not seeing people being held accountable for the actions that they do, but understanding that if we were in that position we would be held accountable.
“So I challenge everybody on this call to be a part, and the media, to report the message and what it really is. We’re tired of seeing black people killed, you know what I’m saying?”
Wagner, who’s lived in and played for Seattle since 2012, also challenged whites to help blacks elect leaders who understand and enact social change.
“It has to mean something, guys,” Wagner said. “You know, I feel like it won’t really hit home until it happens to you.
“So, I mean, I know—I can’t see everybody on this Zoom call, but I’ll go out on a limb and say y’all rock with me. I’m pretty sure everybody on this call rocks with me. So imagine if I was that person. Imagine if that was me, with the knee to the neck. How would you feel? It don’t have to happen to someone close to you for you to feel that way.
“I just urge everybody to educate themselves, and to figure what to do to make this better.
“The point is not, do you agree or disagree? It is, are you listening to the other perspective?”
Wagner said coach Pete Carroll did not spend a second of the Seahawks’ daily Zoom call that has become their offseason training with NFL team facilities closed during the coronavirus pandemic on football. Wagner appreciated that Carroll devoted the entire 90-plus minutes to players expressing themselves to each other on how they feel about what it going on in our country right now.
This story was originally published June 1, 2020 at 2:11 PM with the headline "Seahawks’ Bobby Wagner was at Seattle protest Saturday. What he saw. What he asks."
