In an recent interview, US Attorney General Eric Holder expressed his pleasure at Chicago Bulls player Derrick Rose for wearing a t-shirt with the phrase “I Can’t Breathe” emblazoned across it on the court last week.
Rose was joined by Cleveland Cavaliers’ small forward LeBron James in wearing the shirt sporting the phrase that was said to be the last words of Eric Garner, a New York man who died during an attempt by city police to arrest him in July of this year.
The Attny Gen praised the NBA players saying in and interview with the Chicago Sun-Times that they were “role models” for kids “whether they want to be or not.”
“For them to get out there and to express in that way a social conscience, I think goes back to maybe people that these guys don’t even know or my son has a vague awareness of, to Jackie Robinson, who is seen as not only a great athlete, but as an involved, thinking, caring black man,” Holder told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Holder was pleased to see the players using their celebrity status to express a “social political point.”
The AG was in Chicago on Saturday for meetings to facilitate his announced plans to “target racial profiling.” Holder has been crisscrossing the country holding meetings with community leaders to discuss the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and New York City.
Early next year Holder plans to step down as chief of the Department of Justice after serving in the Obama administration for six years.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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