And as we've seen tonight, America is a nation divided.

But football is a unifying passion.

Michael Bennett is an NFL star and Super Bowl champion in the wake of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Bennett decided that he would no longer stand during the national anthem.

He joined the protest made famous by black players like Colin Cabinet, who started a national conversation by taking the knee during the pre-game anthem.

Michael Bennett joined Michel Martin to discuss that and his new book, Things That Make White People Uncomfortable.

Obviously, the take a knee protests are the thing that makes some people deeply uncomfortable.

And so I wanted to ask you to sort of start by talking about how you decided to take to take.

I think a lot of times when you make a stance or making a protest about certain things are going to be certain people who are going to you're going to have a backlash.

You know, you but you got to be able to withstand the criticism.

I think the criticism a lot of people can't, you know, do when you play sports, you get criticized every single day.

Everything you do is by critics criticism.

And when you when you're taking a stance, people are going to criticize because they don't want to see change.

And I think take a knee was really about changing trajectory of life and should change the trajectory for our kids and changing it for everybody that we saw an issue.

It wasn't just about the police brutality maybe for some people, but overall it was about humanity.

It was about how can we change humanity and create a better place for our kids.

It was about being living ancestors and trying to find something that we can and our kids can look around and see that the people before them were really courageous and they wanted something different Talk to me about you.

The other part of it, because I think a lot of people are familiar with Colin Kaepernick and they're familiar with Eric Reed and they're familiar with how it started with them.

What made you Michael Bennet decide that you were going to participate?

I think it was a reaction to society, reaction to what was happening around me, the reaction to, you know, police brutality the reaction to women's rights, the reactions to the border, reactions to equality and what would water just pure equality for people.

I think for me, there was a lot of different issues, but the one that probably was more publicized was Charlotte.

You'd seen all that and you like, where do I play a place in that?

Where do what can I do with my platform?

How can I inspire young kids?

Just like we all look at things that happened in the past.

We look at, you know, Jim Crow, we look at Holocaust, we look at slavery, look at all these different things.

And we like, well, I would do that if I was there.

This is what I would do.

But this is this is the time where we're supposed to be doing the things that we said we would do, because then you will look back and be like, I have a lot of regrets because I saw something happen, but I didn't have the courage to speak.

What's your understanding of the people who are vehemently opposed to the the protests that the players were involved and the taking?

What do you where do you think they're coming from?

I think they come from a place where they see things as good as it can be for society, I think is good for them.

They think is good the way that America is it.

They don't really understand what it's like to be something other than themselves.

Like they haven't taken the time to really dig deep down inside their spirit and spend time with somebody in the opposite position.

I really don't want to make it like, oh, they don't know, they're this, that, but I just want to take this time to.

If they read the book or they get a chance to spend time with other people, really take their time and break down that barrier of like our, you know, what's happening.

Allow yourself to build a bridge to somebody else who's the opposite of you.

And that's what I really want the people who I think don't really understand what's happened with the protest, they just need to be able to build a bridge and then they'll have a better understanding of what it's like.

You were never afraid that you would get fired per the suggestion of the president.

There are things that you have to be able to stand up on in what you believe on, because at the end of the day, it's not just for for me, a just a community, also for my children, because my children are going to judge me on not me touchdowns or score, not what I do in football.

So they're going to judge me on what kind of man I was and did I stand for what I believe in.

And I can't never tell them to do things that I wasn't really do stand up.

And I think that's really what it is, is really the children.

And so for I lost my job for something that I believed in before them in society.

I think my kids will understand that and I think that's was the most important thing because you can't really take your trophies with you.

You can't really take that.

Or you can take as your legacy, the legacy.

What you leave behind is the only really thing that really matters.

And you know, which is interesting, too, because you have a whole menu of involvements in things that don't get as much attention.

I mean, you're involved in STEM education particularly for girls.

You've been involved in a lot of international, you know, relief and educational efforts.

Does that frustrate you that those kinds of activities don't get the same level of access?

Those are, to me, less well saying, like I'm doing things so I can get like a clap clap and like I've been in the stadium, I have been in the big games, I've been in things.

I understand it.

I think that data is not really about how people perceive it is really how you are willing to help people in what you really feel like when you somewhere and you hope somebody you kid doing stuff for people, you're not really doing it for yourself.

You're doing it for them.

And I think that's really ultimately the the the goal.

And I think for me, that's always been it.

So I understand that there are certain things that people are not going to want to talk about because people don't like my politics.

They think I'm pro black, they think I'm this, I think I'm meant so automatically.

There's not going to be companies who want to work with somebody who has a voice like mine, who has an opinion like mine, because for me, I hold a certain amount of integrity and things that I believe in.

And so that they know when you talk to me, I'm not going to sway all of a sudden because you want to share a certain message.

I'm going to say what I said before, and I'm still going to stay stay willing.

If you want to work, we can work.

If not, then move on, because it's about the people is not about you know, it's about the individual person.

It's about the group is about the collective.

But one of the other interesting things about this book is how you talk about women and how important it is to you to not just stand up for and support women, but to be understood to be standing up and supporting women and their aspirations, women and girls in their aspirations.

And I you know, I think there are people who will find that surprising.

I think a lot of us are surprised.

And I think they don't really get it and they don't get it.

Like I think they will never get it because they weren't going to see me for one thing, and they're going to see me just playing football and not anything else.

They want to see me as a father, won't see me as all the other stuff.

But to me is really like it goes back to my daughters.

Just like there's a time in your life when I say being uncomfortable for me.

To be being comfortable with the way things have happened to women or this.

And it wasn't to I had my daughters and it really started to, like, really understand, like, oh, this is what okay, this is different.

Had me if I had a son, I think it wouldn't allow me to have the growth that I have I've had because it opens up another side of your brain to being able to, you know, listen, like, okay, let me listen because I really don't I mean, listen.

And I think that helps you grow.

And I think my daughters have done a great job.

They're also my wife.

My wife is a powerful being.

Our own and it's like it's so incredible to be around that much girl power all the time.

So it's not important that man speaker for women and show that women have as value as us and I think that's something that a lot of people are willing to do because they want to keep you that a certain way.

You are very candid about a lot of the things that players feel but don't often express.

And I want to go through a couple of those things.

One is you were you say in the book, particularly being a college player, you talk about being half guard half property, but whichever half they were dealing with, I was never fully human as my being nerdy of interest.

Do they celebrate things like that have happened in the life of my community?

You come to find out painfully that the answer is less know.

Then why should we care?

I found that sort of fascinating being like half god, half property.

Tell me about that.

Like, how did you come to that understanding?

It's funny.

I was really as it came, I was writing a poem one day and I was writing this poem about the great athletes and I was came and it was like half God.

And and I started thinking as I started the book and it's just have to have property because you are to some people, you are a god because the things that you do, the things that you could do with your body, but to other people, they see a sense of ownership in you.

And I think in college that happens a lot.

You know, they see you, but they also say, well, we pay for your scholarship.

We do this for you.

They don't see you as a human.

They never can connect to the humanity, the humanity in you.

We've got a child, you have family.

They just want you to perform.

There is a sense of people feel that they owe you and you even the worry when you talk about football and teams, they say owner, you owners like that, that word holds up a lot of weight.

You know, it's like the capacity to think that you're somebody owns you.

It just makes you feel less than, you know, saying so and so.

On the one hand, like the water part when you walk in.

Right.

But then and still you're told what to think.

You're told what to study, right?

You're told how to express yourself.

When did you start to think this is not right?

Like, how did you start to say, wait a minute, this is not right?

Because some people will say, well, so what?

I mean, that's the price you get for being famous.

You know, you get to be famous.

You get to have the big show and you get to put those.

But that's what the what they're forgetting is that that's really not fame.

It's it's you and your adolescence.

You're immature, you're immature, and you really try to figure out who you are in life and what you want to be and how you want to get there.

And all of a set of certain people don't see the value in your growth.

They don't see the value in you.

So it's don't you grow as a person because nobody sees the value in what you can be and how you can be that.

So it's like yet a part doors open to the part to see for you when is game time.

But when the season is over and everything goes down to all you have is you in the way that you look.

People are going to judge you when they're in college.

People get injured and they just kind of get washed away.

And if you've ever been a part of a tribe and, you know, human beings are tribal people and also you are part of a tribe, and then once you become injured, you get isolated, it starts to wear on you.

And it's a lot of people that happens to you.

Also talked about how suiting up every week, really not even every week, even at practice, you honestly consider death.

The death is a possibility.

Would you talk about that?

I don't know that a lot of fans really think about.

I don't think people I think is that, you know, and I talk about this like you, you love something and there's a deal with the devil almost because one wrong hit can leave you paralyzed.

So it's a lot of things that you have to deal with.

We don't like to think about those days because then the reality of what could happen to us won't allow us to play anymore.

It's like you have to think that it won't happen to you.

But every once in a while, you see that you are human.

When it happens to somebody and you think like, damn, that could have been me, you try to put that in the back of your mind because you want to be able to progress.

But sometimes you think about that and you think about when you get injured and you get somebody gets a concussion, you see how hard they get hit.

You worry like, Damn, that could have been me.

I was fascinated to read in the book how young people can be and show symptoms of CTE.

And I just wondered when you were starting your career as a as a as a high school player, did you think about the jury?

I don't think we ever thought about that.

I don't think nobody really thought about this to that time because it really wasn't at the forefront of, uh, of it.

I don't think there was a language for it wasn't that, you know, is now is their coding language.

They say concussion instead of Sam bruise in the brain, all these different issues that are happening that are traumatic to your head.

And I think before there was and really we can really explain or maybe they didn't know they nobody really said it.

But what about now?

Is that is that something that you all talk about?

Do you not even allow yourself to talk?

I think there's there's definitely that line between where people don't want to talk about because they don't they want to live in a fantasy that things can happen to them.

But because of fear, they because every player has a fear of what could happen to their body after they play, because every player has that fear that they don't know it.

They can be the person who has an injury.

So because of that fear, I wouldn't say it's most lack of courage or they think it's the fear of the people who are depending on them to think that after all the work that they've done, there's still a possibility that they can let their family down.

So that's a lot to weigh on your brain when you think about it.

So I think a lot of times guys don't really want to to really talk about it because of that.

What about you are you ever afraid?

I'm always afraid.

I think anybody can look in your eyes and tell you that you they are fearful.

They'd be lying to the young, to the youth.

I think everybody should have a small bit of fear if something if you do something like this, because then it keeps to reality.

And and you could weigh in the options of it.

And you can really feel the pain when you have it.

Because when you have that, we don't have that fear.

You you just think you you you start to believe in the own your own mistaking in your own fables, and you start to become your own fairy tale.

And it's not till you realize that when a doctor is there and you like this is this is reality and I think it's important that keep that fear and to to keep the humanity in your own self.

I take it you would not let your own son if you had a son play football probably not.

Probably not.

Probably not.

And I think also, too, I think football and a lot of times it's a way to get out of your situation.

And I think right now, when you are in a certain place, you can put your kids in a space where they can compete and have the opportunity to do something outside.

And I think that's the greatest thing about being able to be with my daughters is that I don't feel that force need to force them to be something that they don't have to.

They can be equal and better than me to just their own job or whatever they want to do.

I think that's important for a parent to understand that, that just because you created something doesn't mean you had to force your kids to be great at it.

And you have to be able to support them what they want to do.

And I think that for me has been a whole full circle.

Wow.

That's really deep.

I mean, to realize that you created this opportunity for your family through the sacrifice of your body.

Yeah, that's a that's a that's a a sports or a hard thing.

It's like is so it's a lot of portraying and like I say, this is I feel like sometimes like I feel like it's like Romeo and Juliet, like you love something so much, but it can still cause death, you know, or it can cause harm.

Like, they loved each other so much.

But at the end of it, they both died and left and left the world.

The world still kept going and I think that's something that we don't really talk about a lot.

And I think we talk about a lot of great people when you talk about a lot of great things that a lot of people have done.

We love to glorify the and honor the things that we see fit.

We love that honor, like seeing John Carlos take a fish.

We love honor all these people when Michael Sam took his stance.

But then you look at, you know, the other part of it, the sorrow part of it.

And that's what a portrait of love comes in, because nobody ever really talks about this side of it.

We all just glorify the part that we see that we can't give people hope.

But I think when you give you somebody hope, you got to give them the whole spectrum of a person's life.

And I think a lot of times we don't really dig that deep.

And I think when you look at the whole spectrum of it, sometimes it is really sad.

So why do it?

Why do I keep playing?

That's that's that's the that's the contradiction of that's the imperfect of me, the imbalance of it.

Well, that's the thing about it.

Just like you love love being competitiveness.

And also thank you for me.

I just always love the group of guys that I play with is getting to that point where it's almost in, you know, where it's like you love it and you live in it.

But at the same time, you don't really know why you why you love this thing so much.

When it's, you know, the pain of it.

But I think it's kind of like I think love is like that sometimes.

You know, love is like ups and down the pain.

It's irrational, it's irrational.

And it's irrational when it comes to playing something like this.

Well, it's nice to meet you.

It's not so bad.

And thank you so much for talking to us.