It’s refreshing.
New England Patriots Super Bowl winner Alan Branch turned down an invitation to the White House in order to stand up for his daughters, his son and because it was the right thing to do. The NFL player told CNN:
“It’s nothing about the politics; it’s about the person and what he said.”
Branch was so repulsed by what Trump said in the Access Hollywood tapes released last October, that he had no desire to even meet this president. Though Trump and his misogynist supporters deemed the tape of overtly abusive and disturbing discourse as “locker room” talk, Branch said during his 10 years of playing in the NFL and also playing college football, he never heard locker room talk so “aggressive and disrespectful.”
“What President Trump said on the bus really struck a nerve with me. I’m a father of three daughters and I have a son as well. I can’t see myself having any type of interest to go see a person who would say those things. I have a baby boy, not even a year old yet. I don’t want him to grow up thinking saying stuff like that is all right at any point in his life...
It's disgusting the way that he talks about women and I just can't deal with it and that's why I have no interest in going and shaking his hand. I've gotta go back home and look my daughters in the eye, and I don't want them to view me in a different light just because I did that.”
You can read/view the Branch’s interview here.
Who would believe we’d be living in a country where we’d have a man in the Oval Office that is so disgusting, so despicable and so repugnant that athletes would opt out of the honor of going to the White House just to avoid shaking his hand. Yet here we are. Welcome to Donald Trump’s “great” America.
Thank you to Alan Branch, and cheers to all who unabashedly stand up against misogyny, sexual harassment and sexual abuse of any kind—at any point in time.
Update: Friday, Apr 21, 2017 · 10:38:50 PM +00:00 · Leslie Salzillo
Carissa House-Dunphy with BiPartisanReport posted a new video by some of the other Super Bowl winners who skipped the White House visit. The video includes the support of some of their fans.
Sometimes, although certainly not always, powerful protests can be silent. Such was the case with the 34 brave New England Patriots who held to their principles of inclusion, diversity, kindness, and equality by refusing to participate in a visit to the White House after winning the Super Bowl while it’s most powerful resident is a racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic purveyor of hatred.
In a video featuring some of the New England Patriots football players who chose to sit the visit out as well as some beautifully supportive fans, the motivations behind their decision and their fans’ approval of those decisions were expressed. The sentiments were encouraging in a time when it seems that support of discrimination and exclusion has become the norm.
If you or someone you know is, or has ever been, a victim of rape/sexual assault, you are not alone and it’s never too late to seek help. You can find free support via the National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800.656.HOPE (4673) and/or by visiting the Rape, Abuse Incest National Network/online.RAINN.org. If you are in immediate danger, please call 911. You do not have to live with guilt and shame. You are not alone. And if you can hold on to one thing, remember this — it was not your fault.