Carolina Panther Cam Newton Speaks Out On Violent Riots In Charlotte: “We Can’t Be Hypocrites” [VIDEO]

22 Sep, 2016 by Cassy Fiano

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Some athletes have taken to pulling ridiculous stunts during games to show their solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. But not Cam Newton — the Carolina Panthers quarterback lives in Charlotte and is seeing firsthand the damage these “protests” are causing his community. The riots have caused widespread damage, multiple police officers have been injured and at least one person has been killed. And Newton has had enough.

He held a press conference to comment on the riots in Charlotte and criticized the black community’s response to the recent shooting of a black man by police, which is what spawned the riots. “I’m an African American. I’m not happy what or how justice has been dealt with over the years — the state of oppression in our community,” he said. “But we also as black people have to do right by ourselves, we can’t be hypocrites.” He also slammed the violence of the rioters. “When you get a person who does some unjust things or killing an innocent person, killing fathers, killing people who have actual families, that’s real,” he explained. “I have a son. And a daughter I’m responsible for. And how they feel if one day they come home and there’s no more daddy? We need people to be held accountable is that’s all.”

Newton also criticized the Black Lives Matter protesters for focusing too much on race. “It doesn’t matter the race,” he said. “I don’t see that through a black/white lens. I could look at you and be around you and I can tell if you’re a good person. There’s good people that doesn’t have a badge on, there’s good people that has a badge on.”

Police aren’t all bad, Newton also claimed, something that likely infuriated the Black Lives Matter protesters. “We all know people who are in the police department. And we also know bad people that’s civilians, and just bad people who are police officers. That’s just life as a whole,” he said. “We all have to as United States citizens, just have to [be] accountable for what we do.”

But it was what he said about the black community that likely truly infuriated the rioters. “When you look at the most dangerous cities in America. You know Atlanta, Birmingham, Chicago, Miami, Louisiana,” he explained, “I know from being a black person there’s a lot black people who don’t do right by black people, so you can’t be a hypocrite and say, ‘Oh well, a white man or a white police officer just killed a black man.'”

It’s the kind of common sense outlook that more people need to have.