The murder of George Floyd, whose death has sparked protests around the globe, infuriates Nuggets guard Jamal Murray.
“When something as blatant as this happens, you can’t shut up and dribble,” Murray said Friday.
Outrage over the police brutality that killed Floyd has spread like fire in the streets of NBA cities, where protests have grown too loud to ignore. This anger roiling inside Murray is deeply personal, etched in emotional scars from policemen that harassed him as a young man in Canada.
We live in a society where inflammatory words go viral at the speed of 5G. And make no mistake, Murray’s take on how racist cops bait blacks is hot and raw.
“They can’t wait to use their power on the people, on the black community, on people they don’t really think matter,” Murray said, during a Zoom press conference. “That’s why Black Lives Matter. (The police) do stuff that is so blatant. They poke you, they jab you, they try to intimidate you.”
But then the conversation took a turn I didn’t see coming. Something spontaneous and altogether wonderful happened. A 23-year-old NBA guard displayed wisdom beyond his years. What could’ve unraveled into just another story of pain and outrage staked bold, new ground in a place where maybe meaningful change in America can actually happen.
Twenty minutes into the press conference, after rapid-fire media questions that had covered topics ranging from the Nuggets’ championship swagger to Floyd’s horrifying death to Murray’s pandemic beard, this young Denver point guard turned the chat on its head, refusing to let the session end until he asked a question of his own.
“Have any of you guys ever experienced, seen or been in touch with any racism stuff that has happened to you in your lives? Murray said.
Then he sat back and listened. It was a more impressive move by a player known as “The Blue Arrow” than when Murray dropped 48 points on the Boston Celtics in November 2018, or when a 6-foot-4 guard posterized Bucks forward D.J. Wilson with a dunk shortly before the coronavirus shut down the league in March.
What Murray did was simple and powerful. True champs have more than game. His move to prompt discussion was beautiful, because what America needs now, every bit as vital as grace, justice or demands for long-overdue change, are people willing to humbly shut their mouths long enough to open their ears and hearts with empathy for fellow Americans.
That’s the change this country needs most. We can’t move forward and get through these difficult times together, without first knowing where each other is coming from.
Murray listened intently, asked keen follow-up questions, eagerly tried to understand what prejudice means to reporters on the call that are Asian, white, black, gay, Hispanic, Millennial and Boomer.
The very personal stories of journalists that Murray heard overturned rocks, revealing the dark underside of America. He was told of an ethnic slur that slammed a child and still stings in adulthood, as well as the recent shock of being blamed by strangers for a pandemic whose birthplace was in China.
Murray heard the lingering anxiety of a daughter who saw her father unjustly jailed, and why a bi-racial woman looks back at how her self-image was bruised in adolescence by peer pressure to straighten her Afro. While we like to think sports are a great meritocracy, there was also an anecdote of how prejudice frayed the unity of a struggling basketball team that once counted a current Denver broadcaster as a member.
“Everything is good when you’re winning,” Murray acknowledged. “But true colors come out when you lose.”
The undeniable take-away from the discussion he moderated? Prejudice, in one form or another, touches us all.
And Murray wanted to hear it all, before sharing frightening childhood experiences of bad cops harassing him and his Jamaican-born father, memories that make him feel the knee that snuffed out the life of Floyd on his own neck.
“Not every cop is bad, not every white person is bad or racist,” Murray said.
Better understanding begins with better listening. Murray dropped a sweet dime, and we all should be thankful for the assist. It requires more discipline to seek knowledge than be heard.
“I know it’s not an easy topic,” said Murray, who also understands transforming righteous outrage into meaningful progress is going to be tricky.
After the chanting in our city streets fades away and protesters go home, effective action plans will be the work of difficult, face-to-face cooperation born of tolerance of an America that looks different than us and sees this nation differently than we do.
“We want to have these conversations,” Murray said, “because we want change.”