Turns Out The Eagles Are Going To Be The Team To Solve Race Relations In America
Associated Press – Chris Long, the Philadelphia Eagles defensive end who grew up in Charlottesville, Va., put his arm around teammate Malcolm Jenkins as a show of unity during the national anthem before the Eagles’ exhibition game Thursday night against the Buffalo Bills. Jenkins stood with his right fist raised in the air as he’s done since last season. Long was to his right with his left arm on Jenkins’ shoulder.
“I think it’s a good time for people that look like me to be there for people that are fighting for equality,” Long said…”It’s not just a hard week for someone being from Charlottesville,” Long said. “It’s a tough week for America. I’ve said before that I’ll never kneel for an anthem because the flag means something different for everybody in this country, but I support my peers. If you don’t see why you need allies for people that are fighting for equality right now, I don’t think you’ll ever see it. Malcolm is a leader and I’m here to show support as a white athlete.”
People from outside of the city love to talk about Philly fans throwing snowballs at Santa Claus and batteries at injured opposing players. But this is Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love. And the city that is going to change the world one National Anthem at a time.
I don’t want to make light of this situation too much because it’s clearly a serious issue in our country today. But honestly, that move right there already made the signing of recurring guest Chris Long worth it. With one left arm over the shoulder of Malcom Jenkins, Chris Long completely flipped the narrative in Philly. I feel like whenever people think about the city, they just automatically assume everybody here is pissed off and/or can’t read or smells or some shit like that. I don’t know, I get all of my news from the comment section.
But Chris Long and Malcolm Jenkins just brought this city back to our roots. Phileo being Greek for “to love” and “adelphos” being Greek for brother. A city where a white athlete can go over and support a black athlete’s protest but not try to make it his own. That’s love right there. If Chris Long was taking a knee during the anthem then yeah, that shit would be 100% for the publicity of being the first white guy to kneel during the anthem in the NFL. That’s not what’s going on here though. He’s just showing a small sign of support for a cause that very few NFL players have been brave enough to take up over the past year.
It may not be next year. It may not be 5 years from now. It may not be 10 or 15 or 20 years from now. But one day, racism is going to be gone in America and when the historians look back on what ended it, they’ll go back to this photo of Chris Long and Malcolm Jenkins. And the Philadelphia Eagles will forever be known as the team who ended racism while also winning 5 Super Bowls in a row.