A black child growing up in an otherwise white area of Georgia, Jonathan Jones used to go out into his driveway and find bags of flyers for the Ku Klux Klan.
“It was normal,” he said. “It was normal.”
Jones was one of many members of the Patriots to shed light on his personal experiences of racism in a one-hour roundtable that aired Friday night on WBZ. Twenty-one players, coaches and scouts were divided into small groups, where they discussed the state of race relations in America.
For Jones, the flyers are just one example of how he was treated. While studying at Carrollton High School, he went out with a white classmate, which prompted some of the white soccer coaches to call the girl’s parents after seeing the couple walking to school together. Once Jones found out, he said he felt a certain level of “mistrust” between him and these coaches.
“How can you be for me but you don’t like me dating someone else’s daughter?” He asked.
For center David Andrews, as a compatriot from Georgia, hearing the story of his teammate not only saddened him, but also opened his eyes to a very different reality.
“I am someone who loves the state of Georgia and wants to live there,” said Andrews, who also spent four years at the University of Georgia. “It hurts your heart to hear that. It’s very different. I haven’t had many of these discussions. “
Andrews recognized that as a football player, the changing room environment – even with black and white teammates – is not necessarily representative of the outdoors.
“It is not really how the world works,” he said.
Andrews remembers how he and his college teammates went to bars that applied seemingly frivolous rules, such as prohibited earrings. At the time, he didn’t think about it. The group would simply go to another bar. Now he realizes that these rules had a deeper meaning.
“It was not to keep the earrings,” he said. “You look back, and all these things – it’s such a small thing and something that pops out – but you don’t realize it sometimes, how people were feeling, or that some of your teammates were facing things like that. “
Scout Steve Cargile called being a black man “a daily struggle,” which requires additional awareness. Cargile, who lives in a community of townhouses where the trash cans are at the end of the complex, said he thinks twice before taking out his trash late at night.
“Instead of saying, ‘Well, I can get my trash out at 10 o’clock in the evening,’ that could be a problem,” said Cargile. “If it’s cold outside and I have a hoodie and come back, and someone looks out the window and sees a tall, tall, imposing black man who they say is threatening, it can turn into a situation where the police are called. “
Scout Ronnie McGill, a native of South Carolina who has been with the Patriots for 10 years, said people were telling him, “There is no racism in the North.” However, once McGill arrived in New England, he learned that this was not the case. At the start of his tenure, McGill remembers taking a group of players to a Boston hospital for physical exams. In the waiting room, a white woman sat two seats away from him.
“She puts her bag next to me,” recalls McGill, “so I think they called her name to go to the office, and she looks at me, I look at her, and I’m not really paying attention to her, and she says, “You’re not going to steal this, are you?”
McGill was surprised but chose not to say anything.
“If I hadn’t worked for the Patriots, then there would have been a better chance that I would have said something,” he said. “I didn’t want to get fired for arguing with an older white lady.”
Other players shared the tactics their parents taught them if they had to meet the police. Defensive end Deatrich Wise Jr. said his mother told him to move very slowly and deliberately, so the officers could see clearly where he was reaching. If he had to grab something out of the officer’s field of vision, Wise was advised to grab it with two fingers to avoid making the situation worse.
Linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley said he was taught to report that he was not a threat by waving a lot and smiling.
“You wave and smile just to ease everyone’s nerves,” said Bentley. “Our normal has not always been normal. It was never normal. “
Players and staff hope these conversations can generate action.
To help fight systemic racism, Patriots owner Robert Kraft recently pledged $ 1 million in monthly donations of $ 100,000 to grassroots grassroots organizations working to achieve equality and create change. significant.
“As a white person, hearing these kinds of stories, which I would say in the past few months is something I have heard more about, it is embarrassing,” said player personnel director Nick Caserio . “You hear that, and you are embarrassed by the ignorance that exists.”
“It’s been a crazy year,” added wide receiver Julian Edelman. “With all that has happened, I think we can really use it and learn from it and put it into the future to try to improve ourselves. Listening, learning as a white guy is what I’m going to try to do. “
Cornerback Jason McCourty said he was encouraged by the number of people who want to get involved and do what they can to help.
“At the end of the day, when you want to change and you want things to move in a different direction, you have to make noise,” said McCourty. “I see a future and I hope things will change in this country.”
Friday’s discussion also included the following Patriots players, coaches and scouts: Justin Bethel, Brandon Bolden, Brandon Copeland, DeMarcus Covington, Brian Hoyer, Jakob Johnson, Jerod Mayo, Devin McCourty, Derek Rivers, Matthew Slater, Ben Watson and James White.
