Kenny Stills, who has been on the front line of the NFL player protest movement since 2016, expressed his feelings about how hip-hop mogul Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter went about forming a social justice partnership with the NFL.
Stills specifically mentioned the role kneeling during the national anthem still plays in this movement, as a way to bring awareness to social justice issues.
When discussing NFL player protests while seated beside commissioner Roger Goodell at a news conference last week in New York, Carter said, “We’ve moved past kneeling and I think it’s time to go into actionable items.”
Stills said he wishes Carter would have reached out to him or Colin Kaepernick, the leader of the player protest movement, to be better informed.
“Some of the ways he answered his questions, talking about we’re moving past kneeling, like he ever protested. He’s not a NFL player. He’s never been on a knee,” Stills said. “Choosing to speak for the people like he had spoken to the people. … I wonder how many common people that he knows or has spoken to. I wonder if he’s read my Facebook comments or my Instagram comments or some of the things people say to me. To say we’re moving past something, it didn’t seem very informed.”
