Michael Bennett

and it shook us to the core. Even if sports does return in July, will the civil rights issues that we know are front and center on the minds of our most influential athletes keep them off courts and fields and hope of political change and justice. It's all very heavy, and this week we've produced the podcast a little differently. I continue to talk to athletes and sports industry professionals about how they're feeling during this unprecedented time while sports

is still not in our lives. This is the No Sports Report. Michael Bennett has always admitted he's a complex guy on the field. He takes no prisoners, he's aggressive and a Super Bowl champion. At one point on the seat of Seahawks, he was a league favorite because of his pelvis thrusting celebration dance that he once described as two angels dancing while chocolate is coming from the heavens on a nice Sunday morning. The only thing better than

Michael Bennett's god given skills is his personality. But alongside that outspoken humor was a desire to make change. Bennett has proven that although on Sundays he could be ruthless, outside of work, the soft spoken defensive end might care

too much. He spent years supporting Black Lives Matter, created his own foundation focused on improving the health and well being of children, called himself a feminist and the toxic masculinity of the NFL, and in front of millions of fans, peacefully protested the national anthem in the name of police brutality and racial inequality by kneeling, sitting, or staying in

the locker room. As a well covered victim of racial profiling himself, I wanted to speak to the now NFL free agent about what he's seen this week, what it's like to fear for your life while being held down by police, and if things might actually change this time. This is my conversation with football player Michael Bennett on the No Sports Report from Humanitarian also often of I think that make white people uncomfortable to accept press one.

Hello Michael, Yeah, what's up. We'll start off by asking where you're quarantining. How have you been handling it? Your your wife, your three daughters, you guys all in the same house. Yeah, we're in the same house still in Hawaii. I mean I think we've been handling pretty well. I think it is this, uh, when you are a buggy person and you used to running around and finally you get to slow down, you start to really feel like,

what's the most important essential things in life? And I think you realize that and this quarantine, these are the most essential things, and it's your family and your kids, and you realize that amount of time that you get to spend with them is very short. And then once you start just being together, you realize like, oh, I didn't really know that. Then you just started to get re introducing yourself. I think sometimes we're relationships, you forget to water them so they don't grow as much as

we want to do. And being forced to be at home a lot every day, you are forced to, you know, guard your plans and guard your relationships with your family. And I talked to a couple of athletes who are from Hawaii, and I've asked them the question of being inside in Hawaii is more torturous than you know, like being in Los Angeles or something. It's like you're looking at the water, You're looking at these beautiful things, and you can't go partaking it is that Does that just

crush you at all? It's not just an incursed me at all. I think it's just a part of it. I think is the safety of the whole is more important than the one moment of being in the ocean, of being in the grass, but just being able to have time to steady and just half time to being your thoughts and half time to be inside this cocoon and hoping that you come out a different person. I think that's what has been the hardest thing, is really dealing with with yourself. I think that's more, um, it's

been harder than going outside. Well, I'm honored to have you on the show today and what is obviously a very volatile time in America. For those that have followed your career and activism closely, they would know that you've been on the front lines of this subject for a very long time. So I wanted to start first by asking what went through your mind when you saw the

video of the just absolutely tragic George Floyd murder. For me, I think all the videos, when you look at the death of African American man's historically, it's just it's the lack of humanity. I think when you are looking at somebody who doesn't see the other person's life, doesn't have any value in any think that this third job to end it. When you look at the George Ford case, you see a man who is constantly trying to reclaim

his humanity and his dignity. Bobby minding the officer that he has a mother, and that he has a wife, and that he has kids and he wishes to see them again. I'm not resistant. A chess want to survive, a chess want to live. I think we're looking at this in this video. We're looking at a group of people in America who just want to live, who just want to be safe, who just want to have the opportunity two do what the constitution said, who have been a part of this country and have been a part

of this fabric. Even though they're just has been traumatic. They still pay taxes, they still follow their laws, and they just want to exist. And I think when we see somebody's life slowly being drained out of them and we watched it, our heart becomes our heart becomes torn, our minds become numb because we're seeing so much death so often for watching another black man die, it becomes so normalized in America. It's like we're watching reality TV.

But the reality TV isn't scripted, but it's almost like it's scripted because the show always in exactly the same it ends in the death. Yeah, and and being raised in Texas, which is extremely segregated between the rich and the four especially in Dallas, I know, and uh, you can have wildly different experiences from one side of the state to the other. Did did you and your family run into a lot of races in white supremacy growing up?

Racism and our supremacy is is pretty I feel like it's noted in Texas, and it's woven into the history.

If you think about June Team, and if you think about you drive because the originally for Louisianna and having to drive to certain parts of Texas and hoping that you don't run out of gas because you know that there's a reality that there's you're gonna have to deal with something, maybe the k K K. Maybe who knows what you're gonna have to deal with if you stop then Invider and I always thought, even with the James burd situation in Jasper, that always it was a sense

of um danger. Always felt like there's a danger for life when the police because growing up in in the neighbors I grew up, we thought about the police. We didn't think about the story historical, you know, think that the cartoon was like they helping you take the cat out the tree and doing all this kind of stuff.

We always felt like it was like the opposite. It was like they were vilified because people were horrified of them because the history of black people being police point I thought, growing up, we are always felt that heat of that on my back. It was like this crowd spider at my spine. There's of conscious fear of what am I going to be? Yeah, totally. It's something that I think a lot of us. When I say us, I mean white people are starting to sort of try

to understand. I don't think we ever will fully understand it, but to hear those words over and over this week has been very powerful, and we fast forward to two thousand seventeen when you had your own experience with police brutality and racial profiling in Vegas, where cops used successive force on you and threatened to blow your head off, and though you had nothing to do with what they were looking for it and yet it seemed like it was pulling teeth to get them the answer for their actions.

I mean, even when I did research going into this interview, I can't really get them apologizing. I can't find anything. They seemed to have immediately went on the defensive. What did you learn from that experience? You, Uh, facing it firsthand? I had me in my back. I felt the feeling that can't breathe, and I felt I wanted to exist, not to be deleted from the universe. I felt all that, I felt the heat, I felt the history, what it what it was, the threat of death, the threat of

losing my life. And and what I learned from that was that as a black man, we really don't have that. I didn't have value on my life the way that every other American felt. Felt that the police, at the end of the day, they were going to protect their own there wasn't going to protect the citizen who had been wronged. And and then that I felt like that that line he was it was a line drawn between protecting that their own and actually protecting the citizens rights

to exist. If you make a mistake and you thought somebody was the wrong person, you should apologist. Hey I thought you get a wrong person. Everybody was running, Hey, I'm sorry. But that never happened. So it was like I was I was just upon. I wasn't didn't I wasn't a human. I was a thing that didn't didn't have a voice. And I think the only reason people past you was because I was an athlete and because I was a high profile person. If anything goes, it

had just been swoop up into the road. Yeah, and and and now we see the protests and riots and cities and other countries. But when you see this on television, there's there's clearly a narrative going on between the word sugs versus the oppressed. What do you see when you look at it at a larger scale of what's happening around the world. I think we're looking at the power. We're looking at suffering, and we're looking at that what

comes with power is a sacrifice, suggestice. We're looking at people who are in power and they have done so much to become into a power that they have created so much injustice for those at the bottom. And we're looking at people who are screaming and try to reclaim their humanity and they dignity to have a voice. We're looking at a war on poverty in the in the world. We're looking at one man having one chillion dollars. We're looking at people wanting water, fair water. We're that people

wanted fair treatment. It's just beyond just the death of George Floyd. The death of George Ford is the fire that ignited the world's pain and the world's engine to want to have equality in every single fact of the world. And I think we're looking at anger, we're looking at love, we're looking at passion, we're looking at trauma, We're looking

at all types of things. We're looking at a system that was supposed to be protecting and the government who's supposed to be governing his people and reflecting the issues of his people. It has not been recognized. And now we're looking at the traumatic experiences of everybody else being put out into the streets, and people don't know how to react to people don't know what to do because they've been asking and being patient and being peaceful, and

now people are at the point we're fighting. Is their first option, you know, their first their second option? Now they're fighting is this thing does fight to survive? If I don't fight, how am I going to survive? And now we are here the president who doesn't know, who doesn't have the common sense to connect what's happening into the world and what's happening to his people. He has to control of these people. He's had the control of America and has done nothing but perpetuate more hate and

more division between the citizens. And he's made more barriers between the color of people's game, between the wealth gap in America and everything is happening at one time. And I believe that the COVID nineteen really showed what America has been really focused on it and it's the economy.

When we have a hundred thousand people who have deaf and you have somebody who is numb to one death, then we have an issue because you're seeing the people die every single day and you're not recognizing the numbness and the pain that each person feels when they lose somebody. So we didn't want a lot of things, and they think that the thing, the most important thing that we're

dealing with, we're dealing with a spiritually bankrupt system. That there's more more with Michael Bennett after this right now, Feeding America is working tirelessly to ensure our most vulnerable populations, like students who are out of school, the elderly individuals whose jobs are impacted, and low income families continue to have access to food and other needed resources during the

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org backslash COVID nineteen. Now here's the rest of my chat with NFL alignment and co host of the podcast Mouthpiece, Michael Bennett. You've been vocal about your support of Black Lives Matter over the past few years, even when it wasn't the cool thing to do, and this week, more than ever, there is so much going on about them and around them, smear campaigns and assumptions of what they are, and disinformation on the internet. What is it that drew

you to that organization specifically? What you mean was the idea that that black lives matter. I grew up in the idea that when I watched TV, when I look at the world, that black lives don't matter. Here's somebody saying that I matter. And I think people are offended. But the concept of somebody saying that a particular people matter. See what happens with privileges that as soon as somebody

says that they have privileged, that makes another person. I want to acknowledge that your privilege isn't over my privilege, But the privilege to live is the privilege of every single human being, and I think that that shouldn't affect anybody else. To start process for saying that black lives matter,

that women lives matter, they do. At this point, we're dealing with the issue that our black brother and around the world lives have been lost on the deity and we watch it every single day, and so that was a draw drew me to the situation. But it also drew me is that this is an opportunity for us as people to use our platform to talk about the humanity of another person and the humanity of what connects

each person to enter connection between us. At the end of the day, everybody's blood is read, and the most important commodity on the planet is the human being. As much as we don't want to agree that, we want to talk about black culture and love black culture, but the commodity of the black man, or the black woman, the black child, the black school, the black existence is important because they're human beings. And I think we overlooked

the fact that human beings exists. And I think because if you look at the historical context of African American person was never a full human being. They never had the right to feel human being. We had to go to court, We had to go to court. We literally had to go to court and get a judgment. But it's a pretty court to say that we are a full human being. And that is amazing. But that's the history of the country. And I think a lot of white people have failed to forgift, have forgotten the story

of the other people around us. And I think Black Lives Matter reminds us that there is a story. There is a story belong before Martin became There's a story of slavery and what has that done to our society. We're looking at the grandchildren of those slaves. We're looking at the grandchildren of pain. We're looking at the grandchildren of so many things that have happened to their forefathers, that this is the only way that they feel is to bring the light unto the history of what has

happened and the traumatic situations. Would be an African American in America, and you've participated in peaceful protests in the past, taking a knee during the anthem or state, staying seated or waiting in the locker room, kind of following early leads from from Colin Kaepernick. You were endlessly criticized for doing that. And now we see non peaceful protests in the streets, and now that is problematic as well. Does this give black people a mixed message? How can you

actually protest? The problem is that we're protests in the system, and whatever we protest and how we do it is constantly going to affect the people who think they know right. But the people who think they know right. They never do right. They think there's this way to protest, this this way, What is the what is the boy to protest? When you want to live, When you want to live in your dreg there you're fighting to survive out that water.

When you're running when you reward somebody should and you've running the sacs you can, you're trying to survive. What is the right way to survive? I don't know what the right way to survive is. All that know is there's many people trying to survive, and there isn't a goddess. But the people who have all the answers on how to protest aren't the people telling us how to survive. There aren't making the rules that people feel like they

could survive. They're only sitting in the room and saying the world, this isn't the way I could do it, this is how I wouldn't do But the end of the day, it is about surviving and living and creating a future for their kids and our kids. And like I said, peaceful protests wherever, type of protests, but at some point their voice has got to be heard. It's on the government of the United States to stand up

and speak for its people. But if those people don't have values, then what's the question If white men we're going and white men were getting drug out their car, shot in their head and pulled out, and then have the rules, guess what will happened? Do you know? Boston Party would happened to? The American Revolution will happen. These are the things that have happened to white people. And they fought for the independence with the against the monarch

gave the British. They wanted to be. Really, they wanted to create a new country. The idea of America, the idea of the ideology of what Americas is supposed to be.

It sounds so great, it sounds so dignified, But the actualogy, the people within that system that is supposed to be upholding that idea have been spiritually bankrupt and morally corrupt that they can't even see what it means to what people are fighting for the same thing that they were fighting for, but they're only fighting for what was promised

to them. Well, you've always been sort of in front of the league before everyone else, calling yourself a feminist, aligning yourself with numerous clean food charities, which was something I had never really heard of in the NFL. At least you've criticized the toxic masculinity in the league. You supported Bernie Sanders presidential bids twice. What makes you unable to follow when people say to just shut up and play? What? What is the importance in speaking up for you? I

think the importance is my children. I think the idea that if I want my children to have a voice, and I want them to speak up and I want them to be a certain way, do they need to local TV to find inspiration? Was it important for them to find inspiration at home and you see that their father and their mother stood up for what was right all the time. And also the ability to have a platform,

the ability of free will. You know, when you think about the Biblical tooriums and you think about religion in this point right, free will is the think that the devil fought for and we left the heaven for free will is a burden, and so what our free will, it's one of the greatest things that we have. And what our free will be choosing to do wrong, then

that's shame on us. But the free will to will, you neighbor, to will, the situation, to bring others to the light that are in the darkness, the sickness, the opportunity to people who are sick, to bring them, to help, to people who don't have food, to give them food. That is the reason of being at the end of the day, I do it is because it is the reason that for a living is to build a community.

Is not just to be in my capitalistic mindset. And I think what's happened in America and what has happened to us. We have become so capitalistic and materialistic that we've forgotten that every time we have a luxury, it preys suffering. And I think it's important that we remember. And that's the reason why I speak, because people are

literally suffering every single day. And I speak on all these issues because there are people suffering who want help and who need it, and people like us, it's a bee and an obligation to stand upon our forefather's shoulders and continuously build these bridges that other people can see and bring light and continue to bring help to others. I don't know anything else, honestly, And I know you've become friends with John Carlos over the years. Who do you look to as mentors or idols for for this

kind of activism and speaking up. I think John Carlos for sure. I think historically I love breathing Martin ud King because I feel like Martin Luther King was such a complicated human being. I think about the intellectual that he was. I think, um, I love reading his stuff. Just those people. I just look up to John College for sure because he lived in and Dr Harry Edwards,

Berney Brown, people like them. So it's not also about racist, also about understanding the mindset of human beings and what do people want in life and how they figure all those things out on top of the social issues, on top of racism, but also just the ability to live in the world to live. So there's a lot of people that I followed like that. But at the end of the day, there's so many great people who are

great leaders. And whoever listen to this podcast or where you go out, I would just challenge you, whoever listened to this is to challenge yourself, is to look in the mirror. I think we live in this situation. I'm sorry to round belong, but I need to say this. Please keep going. I think we live in this world. We personify everything that we want people to think of us, and we look. We make Instagram, we make Facebook, we make twitters so people can see who we want them

to see us and who we are. But I want us to really look in the mirror. And I think sometimes looking in the mirror is the hardest thing because when you put on makeup, you put on clothes, you can't see the scars. But when we look in the mirror, we see our emotional scars. You see who we are. And I will challenge just to really look in the mirror and really ask ourselves what have we really done the change the culture, change the tradition, change the lives

of other people. And if we look in the mirror and we don't see that, I think we need to really go out and really obtain changing. Man, It's not just about Instagram and Twitter and Facebook. Is about really getting your hands into the soil and really play and the seed that can grow and a tree that really bears fruit. You know that bears love, that bears humbleness, the bears faith that bears loyalty that does so much more than just about me, me, me, It's really about

the whole. And I think we in this moment where everybody is starting to realize is looking in the mirror and realizing that it's about the whole. If the arm isn't working, the leg is working, if the heart is working. That you did it is like the body needs every part of it. And we think about the whole human being with a whole a part of one body, and when one person where one part of our body hurts,

the whole body feels it. And I think if we start thinking like this, who united is to really see that it's really the system that we need to be adjusted. And it just goes so far everything you're saying, I mean, it really shows. I mean, I know you've been on this way for a long time and everything we're facing this week for years you've been talking about and it's put you in the spotlight and it's negatively affected your wallet in the past. I mean, you're you're you're talking

about this change. Do you think we're going to see any actual change? And I don't mean to make you say glass half emptier, glass half full? But should I have optimism now? I think we're shu there is some optimism. I think the limitations on our human mind and our ability to see the future is just been really blurry because there's not a moment in the reality or at that time that we ever can remember harmony. All we know is fighting, and all we know is kill us.

All we know is taken. So I do think it's time for a light in the future because I think we're starting to get to this point where we started to transfer transro main into something more than just body that God was up a flesh that only harvenesses and eats. We're starting to look into our spirit and started to

fulfill our spirit. So I do think there's a possibility that the future is going to be burned because I think a generation is judged on the kids, and I think the kids and this generation are really the ones who are really ruled in the change in America, just like it was in the sixties, was the kids is the young people twenty five and younger. And now you're seeing people who are sixteen and young girl in these streets who not with the America. And there aren't just

black kids. There's a white kids of her and spending kids, and they're the ones who haven't been tainted with all these other ways to oppress other people. They're thinking as as a whole human race when we think about climate turning. And you see that young girl brother's standing up there, she's talking from a young person perspective. So this is what we're seeing. I think we're seeing that the young people are are upset about the future of this country

and what they're being left with. They're being left with a presidential Canada and Canada. They being left with president forty five being Donald Trump. I mean, if I died Barack Obama was my last president, I'll be like, Okay, I'm good, you know. But people are dying with Donald Trump being their last president, dying with a leader who's starting of hate. They're dying with that kind of stuff

in their heart. That can't be a peaceful way to though. No. And and finally, you have a new podcast with your white pay Let's called Mouthpiece, And I know you're gonna be talking about a lot of this stuff. And I just want to know, what do you and your wife

tell your daughters about the events this week? Um, telling my daughter, my owliest daughter, really, because trying to get her to understand about researching and the importance of researching and the importance of understanding what's happening around you and how you could be used for a negative for positive. So just really talking about having the positive impact has showing them that, look, there's a lot of people upset and how you feel, please tell us? And I think

at this moment, I really can't tell our kids. We really are trying to listen to them and say hey, what are you affected it? And there's been so many things conversations burned up that have been amazing because you never know how young kids are thinking. So I would advise everybody's listened to this. I think you guys should actually kids, how do you feeling. I know we want to tell them how to feel, but at this moment, I actually think you should listen to them how they should. Well.

I I greatly appreciate you talking to me today, and I know a lot of people around the sports world and world in general, including myself, I've looked to you for a lot of these kind of answers and at least your insight, and I know people would appreciate it. So I thank you for giving me the time. Well, thank you. The No Sports Report is produced and distributed by tree Fort Media. The show was executive produced by Kelly Garner, Lisa Ammerman, Matthew Coogler, and me Jensen Carr.

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