A reporter begins to ask Marcus Peters why he raised his first during the National Anthem before the Chiefs-Chargers gam.e
“What are you asking me?” Peters cut to the point around a group of reporters.
The Chiefs cornerback locked arms with the rest of his teammates and raised one first in the air during the anthem. Reporters gathered around his locker after the game to ask him why he was doing that.
Q: What statement were you making?
Peters: I’m just stating that I’m black and I love being black. I’m supporting Colin (Kaepernick) and what he’s doing as far as raising awareness with the justice system. I didn’t mean anything by it. I locked arms with my teammates. I talked with coach and coach said it was OK if I wanted to express my thoughts and so I just expressed it.
Q: How did you come up with the idea to lock arms?
Peters: Coach let us sit down as a team and we talked about it. We’re trying to help this cause as a team. Everybody is going to play their part and we’re going to try to work together to help the justice system in Kansas City and around the world.
Q: You knew you would get a lot of attention for this.
Peters: It’s not about attention for me. I’m more so don’t talk about it, be about it. I come from a majority black community from Oakland, California. I grew up around my people a lot. The struggle I see, I got family members still struggling. We want to educate the youth that is coming up. If we keep educating the kids we’ll eliminate these problems.
Q: I assume you know who John Carlos is? The 1968 Olympics?
Peters: Yeah they did that at the Coliseum. It’s a unique thing. I didn’t do it for any attention I did it because I wanted to do it.
Q: What do you do after today? What’s the next step?
Peters: We continue to meet as a team. I continue to do some things on my own back at home and we try to further help this power. It’s not going to do any good if you keep rushing us talking about the same thing over and over. Who’s going to help us do this? Are you all going to help us when we’re out there helping these kids and educating them so we can eliminate this problem? Thank you.