Seattle Seahawks’ Pete Carroll challenges other coaches to listen to Black people’s perspectives

Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll called on his fellow coaches to fight for social justice and said White people should listen to Black people’s stories about race in America.

“So coaches, I’m calling on you,” Carroll said. “All coaches. Let’s step up. No more being quiet, no more being afraid to talk the topics, no more ‘I’m a little bit uncomfortable, I might lose my job over this because I’ve taken a stand here or there.’ Screw it.

“We can’t do that anymore. Maybe if we do, we can be a leadership group that stands out, and maybe others will follow us. But it’s not just for coaches. I just know that I might have a better ear listening to me when I’m talking to coaches.”

Carroll addressed the media for 14 minutes on Saturday following a lengthy team meeting. Seahawks players decided not to practice Saturday in the wake of the Kenosha police shooting of Jacob Blake, which led to protests throughout the sports world.

“This has been a process of truth-telling and reality checks that just brings me to a point where, as we’re speaking about all that’s going on—and this is about racism in America—White people don’t know. They don’t know enough,” Carroll said.

“They need to be coached up and they need to be educated about what the heck is going on in the world. Black people can’t scream anymore, they can’t march any more, they can’t bear their souls anymore to what they’ve lived with for hundreds of years because White guys came over from Europe and started a new country with a great idea and great ideals and wrote down great writings and laws and all of that about democracy and freedom and equality for all.

“And then that’s not what happened, because we went down this road here and followed economics — rich White guys making money — and they put together a system of slavery, and we’ve never left it, really. It has never gone away,” he said.

Carroll’s comments on the need for White people to listen and learn are similar to those of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who last week said he wished the NFL had “listened earlier” to Colin Kaepernick when he began protesting during the National Anthem in 2016.

“Black people know the truth, they know exactly what’s going on,” Carroll said. “It’s White people that don’t know. It’s not that they’re not telling us; they’ve been telling us the stories. We know what’s right and what’s wrong, we just have not been open to listen to it.

“We’ve been unwilling to accept the real history. We’ve been taught a false history of what happened in this country, we’ve been basing things on false premises, and it has not been about equality for all, it has not been about freedom for all, it has not been opportunity for all, and it needs to be.

“This is a humanity issue that we’re dealing with. This is a White people’s issue to get over and learn what’s going on and to figure it out and start loving everybody that is part of our country, and that want to come to our country, wherever they want to come from.”