Ameer Abdullah: NFL Has Responsibility To Stand For Racial Justice

Minnesota Vikings running back Ameer Abdullah says that players who take a knee next season can expect some pushback.

Despite this, Ameer Abdullah thinks that the NFL has the opportunity to push the Black Lives Matter movement forward.

A debate rages within the NBA about whether resuming the season will distract from BLM. Several high profile players including Kyrie Irving say it would be better to sit out.

Meanwhile, Ameer Abdullah is calling on the NFL to use it’s ‘great power’ to help bring forth meaningful change.

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“Every kid wants to be Kyle Rudolph. Every kid wants to be Eric Kendricks. Can’t say they all want to be Ameer Abdullah. I hope so, I hope so for sure. Just understanding that influence that we have on the youth and how malleable the youth are with picking up on things and understanding empathy as opposed to sympathy, like what Kyle spoke about, I feel like the league can really carry that torch. We can really spark a real psychological change in this nation.

“A great influencer or a great organization like the NFL, has a great opportunity to seize this and to push the movement forward through action. And obviously, listening to what Roger Goodell said about before he wasn’t listening to athletes’ voices enough, that’s great. Acknowledging that is the first step. But the next step I think is organizing with each individual team.

“I think we have a great responsibility that can really move this movement a lot further, a lot faster, if we seize that.”

Abdullah knelt in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick in 2017, and despite the pushback he got, he sees reasons for optimism in the current wave of protests.

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“I live in Atlanta, Georgia, I participated in a few protests down there. What I did see was, it was, there was a lot more diversity in those protests than in the past. Where before this was completely seen as a black issue, right, and people are starting to understand this is a human issue. 

When I protested back in 2017 during the national anthem, when Kaepernick first started taking a knee, I got a lot of push back, got a lot of push back. A lot of people who I thought were in my corner, kinda flipped on me. Of course, some fans were very harsh towards me because of that. I would say to the people who are intending to protest this year, expect a lot of the same.”