Draymond Green was just ignorant about this whole thing. Draymond apparently thought that Black Lives Matter was strictly an American thing. Chris Boucher called him out on this. The Toronto Raptors decided to speak up on the Black Lives Matter movement and spread awareness by putting “Black Lives Matter” on their team bus. In response, Draymond Green asked Raptors GM Masai Ujiri about it. Full quotes provided by NBC NBA:
You have on your bus Black Lives Matter. As a Canadian team, it doesn’t directly impact your team, because you’re in an entire different country. What made you guys take the stand and put it on your bus? I think one of 22 teams that actually went through with it. Where did that idea come from, and why did you guys feel the need to push that through?
First of all, Black Lives Matter affects any black man that is oppressed by systematic racism or racism of any kind in any country. To only think that racism happens in the United States, where the Black Lives Matter movement started, is incredibly ignorant. The BLM movement is for any black men discriminated for the color of his skin. Masai Ujiri responded about the idea of using buses to spread awareness:
Thanks, Draymond. You’ve been unbelieve on this and what you’re speaking on, and I think the league is proud of you. For us, we said we were going to use the bubble as a statement, right? We said we’re going to use this place as a platform. And we thought that, coming in here, you have to make a statement. You have to, for me, you have to create awareness. What you guys are doing over there is creating awareness. You’re talking about this. And we have to continue to do that. And we thought, what greater way than to ride through Florida for three hours and show people? We know what’s going on in the country, and we’re heading to the bubble. And what is going on here, what Adam Silver has done here to get the league back, we’re excited about that. But there’s something on our minds, too. And we wanted to show people that, as we come in – not just the Toronto Raptors, we represent the NBA – that there’s something that’s on the minds of all the players and all the teams
That’s a reasonable and rather straightforward answer to the idea. However, he didn’t really address Draymond Green ignorance about it only affecting Americans. Chris Boucher did, his quote on Twitter:
Although coming off confrontational, Chris Boucher insisted it was for the purpose of Draymond Green being informed.
Overall, this was just ignorant of Draymond Green. As sad as it is, racism happens all over the world for black men. Draymond should have been more aware of how other black people feel in the world, especially your neighboring country like Canada. Masai Ujiri could have commented on how racism is also in Canada, and some might think he’s slightly ignorant for not saying that. However, Chris Boucher let Draymond know that racism is all over the world.
Black Lives Matter today, tomorrow, and forever.
