During a press conference with the media, interim head coach of the Golden State Warriors, Mike Brown, described his disturbing pre-game run in with the police. To sum up what happened, I highly recommend watching the clip:

Coach Brown was driving his truck behind the Spurs' team bus, following the flow of police traffic, as any coach would, in efforts to enter the arena in a safe & controlled manner. Sadly, that plan was derailed & went from 0-100 real quick.

After one cop told him to stop his vehicle, Coach Brown then pointed to his badge that signified he was the Warriors' head coach. But of course, none of that matters when you're a black man, and of course, more officers arrived on the scene. As Coach Brown went on to describe, "Then I got scared…I've got five cops around me."

The most disturbing part of this whole ordeal is not him getting stopped by police, but during the press conference, as he's describing what happened, he's laughing the whole time as if it was a funny "misunderstanding." As a black man watching that interview, I did not laugh. On the contrary, I begin to cringe inside because in a split second, Mike Brown, coach of the Golden State Warriors (arguably one of the greatest teams in NBA history), could have been Mike Brown from Ferguson, Missouri or Philando Castile from Minnesota. It doesn't matter if you're the head coach, owner, player, agent, etc., if you're black, you will always be that and only that.

Kalvinbanton

Writing since May 2017 · 1 story contributed