Weston McKennie says he will continue to pay tribute to George Floyd and other victims of excessive violence against black people.
“I thought it was my obligation and my duty, particularly as an American and with the crisis in America going on,” McKennie told Forbes.
McKennie, a player of the U.S. National Men’s Team, expressed his solidarity by writing on the armband of his captain over the weekend. He wrote “Justice with George Floyd” on his captain’s armband in Schalke’s 1-0 defeat to Werder Bremen, and indicated his help is not going to end there.
He talked further about the prevalence of racism in America: “And I thought it was the easiest and perhaps the biggest tool I could use to spread knowledge. Any people do not agree with it, of course, but that’s their view, so for me, I thought it was my obligation so my responsibility to go out and bring justice and George Floyd. This is a problem that has gone on for too long.
“Some of my colleagues have noticed it here and are disgusted too. In a particular context, that is something that affects you. It is so heavy, so priority has to be given to it. They ought to protect it.
“Some people claim ‘it’s a mistake,’ there are so many systemic injustices and so many cases of police violence. An incident occurs once or twice so it can no longer be ignored because it has occurred too many times as it has now.”
