Russell Wilson details racism against him, Colin Kaepernick’s missed chance with Seahawks
Russell Wilson’s father was an attorney. His mother was an emergency-room nurse. They sent him to a private high school in a leafy section of Virgina’s state capital city.
The Collegiate School, kindergarten through 12th grade, now costs $16,000-24,000 per year to attend in Richmond. After he starred in multiple sports there, Wilson got a football scholarship to North Carolina State. He played college and professional, minor-league baseball, too. He transferred to Wisconsin, played in the Rose Bowl, got drafted by the Seahawks. He’s been starting for them since game one, for eight years, won a Super Bowl, and last year signed the richest contract in NFL history, $140 million.
Yet Wednesday he wanted to share what he’s told his Seahawks teammates this week after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the national protests because of it.
That he’s been experiencing racism since he was a kid.
“I went to Collegiate School, which is a private school, the interesting part of it was I was around a lot of white people, obviously. ...A lot of my teammates were white,” Wilson said Wednesday during an impassioned talk online via Zoom from his offseason home in southern California. “I had a couple black friends that were on my team...but I also went to a church downtown, on Third Street, which was primarily a black church.
“My dad was a lawyer. Growing up—my mom was an ER nurse—so I was around a lot of socioeconomic classes, and races. I experienced a lot. I do recall this—and I talked about it in our team meeting the other day, on Monday: I talked about how my dad...telling me all the time, every time I got out at the gas station, ‘Don’t put your hands in your pockets.’ And that was a real reality.
“To be honest with you, I understood it but I was kind of like...after a while you are like, ‘Oh, OK.’ But as you grow older...when you turn 13, 14, 15, and you really understand why. And you understand fully, especially now, turning 31 and having two kids with a third one on the way, you really understand the significance of what that means.
“The fact that my dad even had to tell me that is a problem, right? And going in a grocery store and the assumption of, someone may accuse you of stealing, something like that, is a terrifying thought.”
Wilson said soon after he and the Seahawks won the franchise’s first Super Bowl championship, in the dismantling of Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos in Feb. 2014, Wilson was having breakfast in a restaurant in California.
“I was in line,” Wilson said. “And an older gentleman, white gentleman, told me: ‘That’s not for you.’ And I said, ‘Huh? Excuse me?’ I thought he was joking, at first. My back was kind of turned. And I’d just come off a Super Bowl, and everything else. If someone is talking to me that way, think about just not that circumstance and how people talk to you (as a black man).
“At that moment, it really went back to being young and not putting my hands in your pockets, and that experience. That was a heavy moment for me right there. I was like, ‘Man, this is really still real. I’m on the West Coast, and this is really real right now.’ That really pained my heart.”
He told the man he did not appreciate being talked to that way. The older white man walked off. Wilson said he didn’t escalate the moment, remembering what his late father had always told him.
Yet Wilson sees hope. He says he’s hopeful that our society will use today to make change, real change, for tomorrow on the issues of racial inequality and police brutality.
The issues for which Colin Kaepernick knelt, four years ago.
Kaepernick and the Seahawks
Wilson and the Seahawks could have signed Kaepernick, in 2017. It was months after the former Super Bowl starter and the San Francisco 49ers decided to part ways following a 2016 season in which Kaepernick became a national lightning rod for kneeling during national anthems at games.
The Seahawks and coach Pete Carroll came the closest of any NFL team to sign Kaepernick, who hasn’t played since. In the spring of 2017, the Seahawks had him in for a free-agent visit. Seattle didn’t sign him.
Carroll said at the time, curiously, that Kaepernick was a starting quarterback and the Seahawks already had one. Wilson has yet to miss a game let alone an in-season practice in his eight years in the league.
This week, Carroll was on his “Flying Coach” podcast with Steve Kerr, coach of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors. On it, Carroll said: “I think that there was a moment in time that a young man captured. He took a stand on something, figuratively took a knee, but he stood up for something he believed in.
“And what an extraordinary moment it was that he was willing to take.”
But Carroll and the Seahawks weren’t willing to bring Kaepernick and his stand onto their team. They became like every other of the NFL’s 32 teams. Kaepernick hasn’t been employed since.
That begs a question: did the Seahawks miss an opportunity to further Kaepernick’s—and thus blacks’ and the country’s—cause by not signing him in 2017, and again when they considered it before the 2018 season?
“That’s really a Pete question,” Wilson said. “But I think, ultimately, he could definitely be on our roster, for sure. He can do a lot of great things, you know. He’s a really talented player, that’s for sure.”
Wilson on Brees’ kneeling comments
On Tuesday Yahoo published an interview with Drew Brees. In it, Yahoo asked what he thought of the possibility Floyd’s death and the unprecedented anger from not just blacks but many white Americans could lead to more NFL players taking knees during national anthems at games this fall.
“I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country,” Brees told Yahoo Finance.
Brees said when he looks at the flag and stands with his hand over his heart during the anthem he sees his grandfathers who fought in World War II.
“And is everything right with our country right now? No. It’s not,” Brees said. “We still have a long way to go. But I think what you do by standing there and showing respect to the flag with your hand over your heart, is it shows unity. It shows that we are all in this together. We can all do better, and that we are all part of the solution.”
Blacks, whites, pro athletes, superstars such as LeBron James, they sharply criticized Brees Wednesday for still not recognizing Kaepernick wasn’t kneeling against the flag or the military. His reason was to highlight social inequality and police brutality.
Retired Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor had this comment:
Asked about Brees’ comments, Wilson said Wednesday afternoon: “I was in meetings. I just got out of meetings. I didn’t get to watch the whole thing.
“But to me, the reality is this: We get lost in the shuffle of understanding.
“The reality is, Colin was trying to symbolize the oppression that was going on in America, that has been going on for 400 years,” Wilson said. “And I think people go into a box of, ‘OK, this person is this, and that person is that, because they didn’t do this or they didn’t do that. The reality is what Colin was trying to do was sit down and do the right thing and try to stand up, figuratively, for what is going on in America.
“What I do know is that I wish I could have been there in Minneapolis and kneeled down and just helped George Floyd. I was I could have been there just for the people in Seattle who are getting unfairly abused (at protests). The reality is we all need to help. We need to figure out how we are going to love, how we are going to make a difference. ...
“It’s heavy on me. ...Colin, for me, he was trying to symbolize the right thing. People may have taken that the wrong way, but he was trying to do the right thing, the bottom line. And he stood up in so many amazing ways to really stand up for black lives and what is going on, and the oppression that is going on. ...I think it is the right thing is that he has been trying to do.”
Wilson said Kaepernick should be playing in the NFL.
“Colin is a talented football player,” Wilson said. “I remember playing against him; the man could play some football. But he stood up for something far more greater than football. And that’s peoples’ lives. ...for everyone who is African American and the oppression that has been going on.”
If Kaepernick had a job the last four years, would the country been more aware of his platform and perhaps understanding and advanced on those issues?
“That’s an interesting question,” Wilson said. “Yeah, obviously, being in the NFL and playing every Sunday definitely would help. Do I think it would fix the situation? No.
“Racism has been going on for 400 years. There have to be radical changes to our system. ...
“I think Colin should definitely be playing in the NFL, and could have had an opportunity to do that. ...
“It’s unfortunate. But I also know that he also stood up for something way greater. He’s had tons of significance in terms of what he’s meant to trying to make a change.”
This story was originally published June 3, 2020 at 5:12 PM with the headline "Russell Wilson details racism against him, Colin Kaepernick’s missed chance with Seahawks."
