Seattle Seahawks wide Receiver Doug Baldwin continued his quest for justice Tuesday afternoon when he sent a letter that was cosigned by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman and three other senators in support of the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2017.
Baldwin has been a proponent for societal change long before Colin Kapernicks one knee action brought attention many societal injustices Baldwin’s father was a Pensacola, Florida policeman for 35 years. In 2016 Baldwin traveled to Olympia, Washington to address Washing State Use of Deadly Force in Community Policing Joint Legislative Task Force. For Baldwin society has made some progress but nowhere close to where its need to be for everyone to feel equal and be treated equally.
“I think I said this last year around this time. I just felt compelled in my heart. There is a lot of things that have gone on in our society that have shown the ability for us to progress the way that we have, if you go back to the 50s and the 60s and the Civil Rights movement and the great progress that we have made since then.
I think the problem that I have had and that many of my fellow players have had is the lack of progress. The complacency that has set in. I think that is what you see, is just the rumbling of the opposition to that complacency. So for me, personally, just diving into who I am as a man, if I have the ability to say something and use my platform to seek progress for the greater good then I am going to do that. I feel compelled to do that.”
While players speaking for injustices has awakened the consciousness of football and non football fans and but having the Commissioners office back the call for justice can make a big difference.
“It was organic. Honestly. If you look at the players, we are utilizing the largest platform we have. So now in a search for using the largest source of resource that we have which is the NFL. The NFL has a government affairs office that does a lot of work, so being able to utilize that resource to make changes that we want to see, obviously as players and the causes that we care so passionately about, I thought that was a step in the right direction of us unifying the NFL community and going in the right direction toward progress.”
The full text of Baldwin’s letter can be found below.
