Cari Champion is hurting amid the ongoing protests in the U.S., stemming from the death of George Floyd, which has since restarted the Black Lives Matter movement fighting back against systemic racism and police brutality. The former ESPN personality and host of NBC‘s The Titan Games watched the death of Floyd in footage that has since gone viral, admitting her upset to PopCulture.com in an exclusive interview. Speaking out about Floyd’s murder, Champion revealed how there have been days where she would simply cry, but remains hopeful changes will be made so that police brutality and racial injustice are a thing of the past.
“My heart is heavy,” Champion told PopCulture. “For the first time in a long time, my people have the attention of the entire world. It’s now time to start making legitimate plans so we can change a system that has been in place for so long. I feel as if my brown-bodied, my white-bodied brothers and sisters are here with me and they’re in the struggle as well. I have been so overwhelmed by the moral empathy. We are all empathizing right now and we can all feel the pain.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
Floyd died while in the custody of Minneapolis police officers. One of the officers had his knee on Floyd’s neck while two officers were holding him down on the ground. Another officer was on the scene, and all four have been arrested a charged. The incident has led to thousands of protests and riots across the country and world, which Champion explains most succinctly sparked such significant outrage in today’s day and age.
“In a world before, we were so busy, you couldn’t follow each police brutality case,” she said. “You can only get bits and pieces about the information, you couldn’t get all of the information. Right now, we are sitting at home in front of our computers and can’t help but look at it and can’t help but know that it exists and it has existed for a long time. People will protest and people will want to do better.”
Champion knows this country has a long way to go but is confident things will get improve. “It’s time for us to vote,” Champion added. “It’s time for us to have an action plan. It’s time for us to talk about it and not feel uncomfortable. We have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. For so long, we tiptoed around it, and this is the end result of the exhaustion and frustration. People who are tired of silencing themselves are making races feel comfortable about racism. We should all be able to talk about it because, at the end of the day, we’re all good humans.”
