Ex-NFL player Marcellus Wiley says that the NBA’s decision to paint Black Lives Matter on court sidelines is a bad idea.
Last month, the National Basketball Association announced that it intended to paint Black Lives Matter on the floor of the court at Disney World in Orlando that is to be used for the coronavirus shortened 2020 basketball season.
But former Buffalo Bills player and sports analyst Marcellus Wiley is not on board with the NBA’s activism. “It’s not a good idea,” he said during a recent broadcast of FS1’s Speak For Yourself.
Wiley congratulated the players for having the pull to get the league to bow to their social justice demands, but in the end, he feels that “no matter how well intentioned” putting black lives matter on the sidelines will be an act of division and polarization, not unity.
“There’s a problem when you start going down this road,” Wiley said adding that he worries that there won’t be enough “social space for those who don’t support” the social justice message.
“That’s where I wonder where this is going to go,” he said, “in terms of identity politics. We know what identity politics does — it divides, and it polarizes. No matter how you want to look at it, that’s just the effect of it no matter how great the intentions are. We all know the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
.@MarcellusWiley breaks down why the NBA’s plan to paint ‘Black Lives Matter’ on courts is a bad idea. pic.twitter.com/EoCJNf7ho1
— Speak For Yourself (@SFY) June 30, 2020
Wiley explained that the Black Lives Matter mission statement is very concerning, especially the movement’s declaration that they want to “dismantle the patriarchal practice,” and “disrupt the western-described nuclear family structure requirement.”
It’s an interesting play right here. I don’t know how many people really look into the mission statement of Black Lives Matter, but I did. And when you look into it, there’s a couple of things that jump out to me. And I’m a black man who has been black and my life has mattered since 1974. And this organization was founded in 2013 and I’m proud of you but I’ve been fighting this fight for me and for others a lot longer.
Wiley noted that the integrity of families were “vitally important” to him. “Not only the one I grew up in but the one I am trying to create right now. Being a father and a husband, that’s my mission in life right now. How do I reconcile that with this, the mission statement that says, “We dismantle the patriarchal practice. We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement,” he said.
“When I know statistics, when I know my reality, forget statistics, I knew this before I even went to Columbia and saw these same statistics that I’m going to read to you right now,” he said before going into the numbers.
Children from single-parent homes versus two-parent homes. The children from the single-parent homes — this was in 1995 I was reading this — five times more likely to commit suicide. Six times more likely to be in poverty. Nine times more likely to drop out of high school. Ten times more likely to abuse chemical substances. Fourteen times more likely to commit rape, 20 times more likely to end up in prison, and 32 times more likely to run away from home.
Wiley pointed out that too many black men already grow up without a supportive family structure and it harms them terribly.
“So, when I see that as a mission statement for Black Lives Matter, it makes me scratch my head,” he said.
Wily concluded noting that all this “white supremacy” BLM keeps talking about does not really exist.
When I also see their mission is to eradicate white supremacy. In 2020, white supremacy is the mission. That’s a lot of digging through minutiae right there. I’m on a show that I’m hosting with another black guy who is hosting with me who replaced another black guy, and that’s just one example of it. So, I understand, I respect your space. I respect what you’re protesting for. But will you respect others who don’t support that same protest?
These are the divisive issues that the NBA is pushing on fans by supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, Wiley said.
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