Lakers' Kyle Kuzma encourages education,…
Lakers' Kyle Kuzma encourages education, voting, activism in fight against racism
The 24-year-old from Flint, Michigan, is adding his voice to the discourse on racism and police abuse in the United States.
Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma has been talking activism and history, adding his voice to the discourse on racism in the United States: "The biggest thing is just the system, and the system dating back to slavery and how that's manipulated people's minds to think that one race should be more than the other," he said Monday in a live-streamed conversation with Carmelo Anthony. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)
By Mirjam Swanson | mswanson@scng.com | Southern California News Group
PUBLISHED: June 9, 2020 at 11:28 a.m. | UPDATED: June 9, 2020 at 1:40 p.m.
Kyle Kuzma is making his voice heard.
The 24-year-old Lakers forward from Flint, Michigan, has in the past couple of days encouraged education, applauded local and national activism and stressed the value of voting as he's added his thoughts to the discourse on racism and police abuse in the United States.
He shared his perspective in a Players' Tribune piece, "Ain't No Sticking to Sports," posted Tuesday morning, and in a virtual conversation over a glass of wine Monday evening with Carmelo Anthony, the Portland Trail Blazers star.
And then, modeling the Black Lives Matter T-shirt available for purchase to raise funds for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Kuzma joined the Undefeated's Mark J. Spears early Tuesday afternoon for a conversation streamed on Instagram.
Kuzma addressed the historically strained relationship between black people and the police in all three forums, including his written piece, a wide-ranging, 1,900-word essay in which he also touches on what life was like growing up as the son of a white woman and a black man.
"My grandmother was actually a lieutenant in the Flint police department," wrote Kuzma, who earned a sociology degree from at Utah. "I know there are great police officers out there. But even though that is a part of my family, being black in America, no matter who you are, famous or not, you're still always going to be paranoid of the cops …
"Even as an athlete, I'm still scared when I get pulled over," Kuzma added. "If I'm driving and I see a cop, I'm checking my rearview mirror for like the next five minutes.
"That is the epitome of what this has done to us as black people, living in a racist society. That's what we have to fear: the people who are supposed to protect us."
Kuzma talked more about it on Monday's episode of Anthony's "What's in Your Glass" series.
"There's a lot of good cops, too," Kuzma told Anthony. "There's all races of people out there in a cop uniform, and it's more about the system than it is the actual departments. We need police around. Who do you call for anything, you call the police … you're instilled to kind of lean on it in times of despair.
"The biggest thing is just the system, and the system dating back to slavery and how that's manipulated people's minds to think that one race should be more than the other."
And when Spears asked Kuzma to identify possible solutions for improving relations with police and ending police brutality, Kuzma offered this: "Make it a little more prestigious to be a cop."
"A lot of people, straight out of high school, they just go to the police academy, and that's just a way of life," Kuzma continued. "That's something I remember in Flint: People either went to the police academy or went to General Motors and worked in the factory. So that's a prime job, but if its a prime job, you need it to have prime requirements. Like, not only getting into the police academy, we need to have extra requirements to get out of the police academy."
Furthermore, he said, "we need cops that are in these areas of color that can relate to these areas. It's never made sense to me why someone from Santa Clarita or Orange County is patrolling Compton."
Kuzma also has been stressing education, encouraging those listening to his conversation with Anthony to delve into African history and also to dig deeper into African American history.
IF WE WANT CHANGE WE MUST VOTE! 100% PROCEEDS GO TO THE NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND.https://t.co/4XJSZfgc0I SUPPORT 🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/G9r5LlHXhK
— kuz (@kylekuzma) June 9, 2020
https://t.co/YO1ob12Pat
In Kuzma's words on the Players' Tribune:
"Racism is about slavery more than anything else, and how those stories of slavery have been passed along to white families for centuries and centuries.
"In something called the Cornerstone Speech, the Confederate vice president, who led the people fighting for slavery in the Civil War, literally said their movement was based on the idea that white people were ALWAYS going to be superior to blacks. That from birth, black people were meant to live as slaves.
"He said: 'Our new government foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man.'
"And when slaves were emancipated in 1865, and when the Civil War was done, it wasn't just like boom, black people are free, racism is done, you know?
"At that time, black freedom was scary to a lot of white people in this country. There were plenty of people who wanted slavery to continue. I'm talking senators and people in power. Lawmakers with that mindset.
"So, laws were put into place after slavery to put black people in a kind of ditch that would be tough to get out of.
"Look at the 13th amendment. It abolished slavery except as punishment for a crime. Essentially, they were saying, OK, they're free now, but they can't be free if they're criminals. So, let's make them criminals. Let's make rules so tough that it's easy for them to mess up."
Kuzma said he also wants people to educate themselves on the issues facing society now — and then to take that knowledge and apply it at the ballot box.
Continue the peaceful protest!! but remember.. educate yourself on how to make positive change in politics. If your state is up for voting… VOTE!!! That's change. Especially African-Americans. WE MUST VOTE✊🏽
"That is the most important thing," Kuzma told Anthony, noting that he previously had misgivings about the validity of voting. "It's one thing to go out there and march, it's one thing to go out there and protest, to spread awareness. But if you want real change, it's not from there, you know? The real change is voting.
"But on top of voting, you have to be educated. And it's both fields: Just because you're poor or you're impoverished, don't believe that you have to automatically vote for Democrats, or vice versa, if you're super-rich, you don't have to vote for Republicans.
"Actually educate yourself on the policies, educate yourself on what the actual politicians believe in and see if it matches up with what you do. That's where the ultimate change comes from."
And in the Players' Tribune piece Kuzma indicated how he'll be approaching his civic duty: "We have to vote out people that blindly support spending more on police departments than on healthcare and education. And we also have to vote out the people who aren't making the change that we want fast enough."
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With that in mind, Kuzma ended his Players' Tribune post by announcing that he's planning to launch a voting campaign because, as he wrote, "You know, back when this all started, during slavery, the one thing that the white man feared was a black man that had a mind of his own. Someone who could READ. Someone who could WRITE. Someone who could THINK for themselves. Someone who could VOTE.
"You know why? Because that person could stand up!!
"And that's what I'm doing and going to continue to do until all people are free."
GEORGIA SOUTH CAROLINA NEVADA NORTH DAKOTA WEST VIRGINIA ITS YOUR DAY TO VOTE
I got Kyle Kuzma @kylekuzma coming through on today's 'What's In Your Glass?' Hit the link https://t.co/8FFxQ409uu pic.twitter.com/sBy0q6ir1M
— Carmelo Anthony (@carmeloanthony) June 8, 2020
A post shared by Marc J. Spears (@marcjspears)
Mirjam Swanson | Sports columnist
Mirjam Swanson is a sports columnist for the Southern California News Group. For the previous four years, she covered the Clippers, the NBA and the L.A. Sparks. Before that, she wrote about LeBron James and the rest of the Dream Team at the 2004 Olympics (where, yes, they took bronze), Tiger Woods winning the U.S. Open on one leg, and also had a tour reporting on city government, education and the occasional bear in a backyard
mswanson@scng.com
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