Eagles news: Chris Long believes protest outweighs actions

Eagles defensive end Chris Long has backed up his support of teammate Malcolm Jenkins with a statement.

Is it accurate to state protests outweigh words and actions? Philadelphia Eagles defensive end Chris Long seems to think so. Less than one week ago, his teammate, Malcolm Jenkins, raised  a fist during the National Anthem. Long placed his arm around his comrade, and as two men, one black and one white, stood together, the world went bananas.

Long, who also created a GoFundMe account to assist the families and victims in Charlottesville, Virginia, heads his very own Chris Long Foundation. Still, with all of his charity work, most people have spent the majority of their time talking about protests. With that being said, is Long correct in his statement?

Here’s what he had to say:

"No one gave a (expletive), frankly, until I put my hand around Malcolm. That just goes to show you the power of symbolic protests. All of a sudden, everyone cares about my protest, but they never cared about my actions — which kind of proves, well, why do you need (to protest during the anthem)? If guys were just like, ‘Hey, I’m over here! I want to talk about social issues,’ the reporters would be like, ‘We don’t care."

The moment, charged by Jenkins’ position on social injustice and police brutality, has been making waves for quite some time. Now, with other white players joining black teammates in their stance, Justin Britt of the Seattle Seahawks for instance, this story may be just the beginning of something special. Maybe a few football players can help lead the charge of turning things around.

We’ve seen men of different races show support to one another, do so peacefully and take the time to understand one another. If the racial climate in this country, arguably the worst it’s been for quite some time, is to calm down, it will begin with moments like we saw on Thursday, August 17th at Lincoln Financial Field.

Here’s more of what Long had to say:

"Guys love each other, man. We’re lucky that we get to interact with each other. And we just know the reality is there’s some pockets of America where you might go to work every day, you wake up every day and only see people that look like you. You never get a chance to interact or really hear people out…. (“Colin should have a job,” Long said. “Point blank.”) But the impact of Kaepernick’s actions continue to be felt, with more players participating in some form of national anthem demonstration already this preseason than all of last season combined…. Although I’d never take a knee, we’re having these conversations….. Now, does it mean that I agree with everything Colin does? No. But because you disagree on one or two things, don’t strike down all the good points he’s making."

Enough said.