LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles Clippers Coach Doc Rivers delivered an impassioned statement Tuesday night regarding both the shooting of Jacob Blake, an unarmed black man by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and the tone and messaging of the 2020 Republican National Convention.
“It's just so sad. What stands out to me is just watching the Republican convention, viewing this fear. All you hear is Donald Trump and all of them talking about fear,” said Rivers, whose team had just beat the Dallas Mavericks 154 to 111 in Game 5 of the first round of the NBA playoffs.
“We're the ones getting killed. We're the ones getting shot. We're the ones that were denied to live in certain communities,” said Rivers, holding back tears. “We've been hung. We've been shot. All you do is keep hearing about fear.”
“It's amazing why we keep loving this country, and this country does not love us back. It's really so sad,” he added.
Rivers was asked about the shooting of Mr. Blake before Tuesday's game, on the second night of an RNC that’s been largely focused around a message of suburban fear and perceived lawlessness and violence in urban centers and among communities of color. Branding himself the president of “law and order,” President Donald Trump has made repeated pleas to “suburban housewives,” warning of the impending end of suburbia amid an influx of "low-income housing" should Democratic contender Joe Biden end up in the White House.
The RNC, and the election as a whole, have played out against a backdrop of civil and racial unrest spurred on by the death of George Floyd under the knee of a now former Minneapolis police officer back in May. The situation of ongoing unrest has most recently been exacerbated by the shooting of Blake, who is currently paralyzed from the waist down after being shot seven times in the back by police.
Coach Rivers, who reserved his remarks until after the game, made note of the disparity between the way protesters affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement have been treated, compared to groups of armed, predominantly white, protesters who occupied the Michigan state capitol earlier this year.
“It's funny, we protest, they send riot guards. They send people in riot outfits,” said Rivers. “They go up to Michigan with guns. They're spitting on cops. Nothing happens."
In the three months since George Floyd’s killing, there have been a number of other high-profile incidents involving police and people of color. Locally, there was the shooting of Andres Guardado, an 18-year-old Hispanic man who was shot in the back and killed by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy.
Rivers, whose father was a police officer, addressed the need to reform policing, while stopping short of joining in calls to “defund the police.”
“The training has to change in the police force,” he said. “The unions have to be taken down in the police force. My dad was a cop. I believe in good cops. We're not trying to defund the police and take all their money away. We're trying to get them to protect us, just like they protect everybody else.”
Coach Rivers was unsparing in taking the RNC to task for its tone in seeming to stoke fear over the nationwide protests that have sprung up in the wake of Floyd’s killing.
“How dare the Republicans talk about fear. We're the ones that need to be scared. We're the ones having to talk to every black child,” he said.
“What white father has to give his son a talk about being careful if you get pulled over? It's just ridiculous," he added. "It just keeps going. There's no charges. Breonna Taylor, no charges, nothing. All we're asking is you live up to the Constitution. That's all we're asking for everybody, for everyone.”
The Clippers hold a 3-2 series lead going into the next meeting with the Mavericks in Game 6 on Thursday night. That same night, President Trump is expected to address the Republican National Convention to formally accept his party's nomination.