Richard Sherman uses his sports platform to address Black Lives Matter movement

I thought I was going to be writing about and listening to Richard Sherman talk about moving from cornerback inside to play nickel back against slot receivers, as he did last week at St. Louis and is likely to again Sunday night in the Seahawks’ early season, marquee showdown at Green Bay.

Then the All-Pro cornerback went remarkable. He used his weekly press conference in the main auditorium inside team headquarters here in Renton to take on an entire societal movement with which he has first-hand experience living growing up in Compton, California. He tackled head-on a hugely important, real and controversial issue in our society without regard for the backlash he is already receiving for it.

While he was talking, I thought of the hundreds of athletes I’ve covered and watched who had platforms as large or larger than Sherman’s who never have and never would stick his neck out to speak on such an issue for fear of criticism or marginalization.

Without being asked, Sherman began his talk denouncing an internet posting he says was erroneously attributed to him in which the author denounces a leader of the Black Lives Matter movement. The posting Sherman says was not from him has misspelling and grammar mistakes that makes it doubtful an A-student graduate of Stanford, as Sherman is, wrote it.

“There’s was some article written, I don’t know if you guys have seen it, talking about ‘King Noble’ and all this. I did not write that article,” Sherman said to begin his Seahawks press conference today.

“There were some points that were in that article, or that post, that were relevant and I could agree with. But there were also some, obviously, ignorant points in there. I don’t think (there’s) any time to call out a time for an all-out war against police, to, you know, any race of people. I thought that was an ignorant statement.

“From personal experience, living in the ‘hood, living in the inner city, you deal with different things. You deal with people dying. I dealt with a best friend getting killed, and it was two, 35-year-old black men. Wasn’t no police officers involved. There wasn’t anyone else involved. I didn’t hear anybody shouting “Black lives matter!” then. And I think that’s, that’s the point we need to get to. We need to deal with our own, internal issue before we move forward and start pointing fingers and start attacking other people. We need to solidify ourselves as a people and deal with our issues. Because I think as long as we have black-on-black crime and one black man killing another, you know, if black lives matter then they should matter all the time.

“You should never let somebody get killed. That’s somebody’s son. That’s somebody’s brother. That’s somebody’s friend. So you should always keep that in mind.

“And there’s a lot of dealings with police officers right now. I don’t think all cops are bad. I think there are some great cops out there who do everything in their power to uphold the badge and uphold the honor and protect people out in society. But there are bad cops. And I think that also needs to be addressed. The police officers that we have right now, some of it is being brought to life because we have video cameras; everybody has a camera phone. But these are things that a lot of us has dealt with our whole lives. And I think right now is a perfect time to deal with it. The climate we are in, everybody’s being more accepting. So I think the ignorance should stop. We are all human beings. Before we are Black, White, Asian, Polynesian, Latino, we are humans. It’s up to us to stop it.”

Sherman went on to talk about playing nickel, how Seahawks coaches asked him only Monday night via an initial text if he could learn the inside position in time for the opener at St. Louis less than six days and three full practices later -- “I do what I’m coached to do,” he said. He said he thinks him moving around the field and covering other receivers instead of staying at his usual, left cornerback spot as he had for most of his first four seasons “changes the dynamic a little bit” for his defense and foes’ offenses.

“It changes the way they have to approach it, the way they have to game-plan for it,” he said. “It also changes the way I have to approach it.”

Then I asked Sherman why he chooses to use his football-star platform to bring societal issues into the NFL realm when so many other high-profile athletes stay silent or non-commital on topics beyond sports, often with lucrative endorsements and images in mind.

“I’m not scared to be judged,” Sherman said. “I’m not afraid to be criticized. I’m OK with who I am. I am OK with being human, with being a person and understanding that I do some things great and I make mistakes. I’m OK with that decision. I’m OK with people judging both sides of my character and trying to attack me. I am perfectly fine with that.

“Some people are afraid to deal with that, because you deal with a lot of things when you put yourself out there in that way. Whether it’s on the field or off the field you have to deal with the good and the bad that has to do with the spotlight. And I think some people don’t want to deal with that.”

As if on cue, Sherman got criticized almost immediately after he spoke.

And that was one of the printable responses.

This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 3:06 PM with the headline "Richard Sherman uses his sports platform to address Black Lives Matter movement."