After New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees apologized twice for saying that he can never respect anyone who disrespects the American flag, his wife Brittany joined her husband in issuing an apology via a long and emotional Instagram post.
She began with an all caps statement that WE ARE THE PROBLEM, with the pronoun ‘we’ seem to referring to white Americans based on the rest of the letter. She also mentioned that she wrote the post teary eyed and with overwhelming emotion.
Brees shared two quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. – “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends” along with “Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.
Saying that she has not only read but really tried to digest and understand those words along with the words in the bible, Brees also referred to Micah 6:8 which reads “The Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you.”.
She said that she was fully aware of the intense backlash her husband’s words have brought, including harsh criticism from Brees’ fellow teammates and NBA’s LeBron James. Brittany also shared how they have gotten death threats.
Brittany said that initially, she was sad and disappointed because everyone who knew their family personally would never think of them as racists. However, she went on by saying that she now understands that kind of complacency is what is at the root of all this tragedy.
As a mother of four children, Brittany said how it is easy for “white America” to feel like they are doing a passable, if not decent job by not being racists or providing preliminary understandings of the pains and struggles of African Americans.
Brittany said that the lesson her family learned the hard way in these recent days was that not being racist and feeling good was at the core of the problem because at no point in that self-soothing process does one really try to listen and communicate with those suffering right now.
She ended her post by saying that all of her family will try to be better in order to amend the deep pains they have brought upon to their friends and all others.
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Replaced!