Sunday afternoon, ahead of a matchup between the San Antonio Spurs and Milwaukee Bucks that ended with the Bucks topping the Spurs with a score of 103-106, Gregg Popovich offered up some detailed words of wisdom when asked about his opinion on the March For Our Lives protests that took place all across the globe just the day before.
“Well, the future of the country is a pretty big thing. There's not one event that is going to signal what it's going to be like in the future. But I can tell you that I'm sure most everybody is going to be unbelievably proud and excited about those students and what they've done,” Popovich said. “Because our politicians have certainly sat on their thumbs and just hidden. To most, it's almost like a dereliction of duty to watch all these people get killed with guns—in so many different ways, whether it's nightclubs, or schools, or cities. And it seems that the power and the money are more important than the lives. So, to see these teenagers demand this, it takes you back.”
He went on to compare the visual element of these protests to that of the civil rights movement in the effect they have to make people aware of what’s going on in their own backyards.
You think about it, the civil rights movement didn't flip or change until people saw things on TV," he said. "They saw policemen with fire hoses and dogs biting old black men and women, people being beaten with sticks. Then you get to the Vietnam War, and we're in it forever, and then what happens? Film starts coming back with arms and legs blown off and coffins, and I can still remember the little girl who was napalmed running down the road. Things change when that happens. And in this one, in this situation, these students are the same way. Images are important. Obviously, you can't put an image on TV of what happened in that classroom, that would be pretty horrifying."
He went on to take those thoughts and channel them into a criticism of the Trump White House, referring to the president’s choice to post up at his Mar-a-Lago resort over the weekend while the March For Our Lives protest took place in D.C.
"But if you just sit for a moment and imagine those bullets going through those bodies, and what those bodies might have looked like afterwards, how can the president of the country talk about all the things he's going to do, and then go have lunch with the NRA and change it? It's just cowardice," he said. "A real leader would have been in Washington D.C. this weekend, not at his penthouse at Mar-a-Lago. He would have had the decency to meet with a group, to see what's going on, and how important it is, and how important our children should be to us. So, for all those politicians involved, it's just a dereliction of duty."
“They can talk about the age limit, and background checks and all that, but the real discussion is what kind of a country, what kind of a culture do we want? You go back and investigate the second amendment. What does it really mean today? What are we willing to give up for the safety of our children,” he added, throwing a direct challenge toward the president and legislators. “The people in power don't want to talk about that. The fact that our president left town, is a real indication of how much he really cares about anything other than feeding his insatiable ego.”
