Atlanta Braves join players and other teams in making statement denouncing racism

As professional sports teams not just in the United States but all across the planet are coming together to make public statements that at the very least denounce the systemic racism that black people face and at the most also denounce the system that allows racism against black people to flourish, the Braves have joined the growing list of teams to release a statement. Although they were the last team in the Atlanta metro area to make a statement, it’s still better late than never — especially considering that we’ve seen an example of an organization that is actually willing to stand idly by and say nothing during this time.

This was also accompanied with the Braves following suit with a bunch of other sports teams by blacking out their logo in support of Black Out Tuesday, which is actually causing some debate among people who are protesting as to whether or not this is actually helpful. Either way, the Braves have decided to show some support for what people are currently in the streets protesting in an effort to eradicate racism. They may not have addressed the exact reason why people are protesting in cities all across the world right now and the Braves themselves still have some questions that need to be answered as far as the Tomahawk Chop goes, but it’s still a decent gesture from the organization to actually say something when silence was definitely an option.

Here’s a sampling of what the players (past and present) have had to say on social media (and I encourage you not to just scroll past these posts; please read every single word that they put out there):

That’s just a sampling and there’s more where that came from. As a black man, I do appreciate the fact that it appears that more and more people from all walks of life and from all points of interest are actually stepping up and saying something. This situation isn’t new — we’ve seen unarmed black men get killed by either a police officer or a “concerned” neighbor time and time again and it always seems as if the conversation only lasts for a day or two before we go back to normal. However, this incident combined with “going back to normal” meaning “going back to life in a sports-less America during a pandemic” and the massive protests that have broken out over the past week means that this is something that our society actually has to reckon with for a while.

I encourage all of you who are reading this to talk to someone you know who thinks that this is all a bunch of nonsense and everybody’s getting worked up for no good reason. If that results in an awkward conversation, then that’s good. If that results in you having to make a tough choice to cut loose a friend who won’t cut loose their hatred, then that’s even better. The point is that it’s clear that most of society is ready to progress into a time where we don’t have to have protests and violence breaking out en masse because that would mean that unarmed black men wouldn’t be getting killed anymore. As the Braves and many others have said, “ENOUGH.”