Gregg Popovich Says The Country is an “Embarrassment to the World”

Once again, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich is speaking out against Donald Trump’s rude and divisive comments.

Popovich addressed Trump and the current state of the country under his ruling, as the celebrity-in-chief intertwined politics and sports in his most recent attack on NFL players who protest racial injustices during the national anthem.

“Each one of them has the right and ability to say what they’d like to say and act the way they like to act. They have our full support,” Popovich said per Melissa Rohlin. “I think these ppl have been enabled by an example we’ve been given, you’ve seen it in Charlottesville,” he continued, discussing the enabling of racism in America.

“Our country is an embarrassment to the world,” he added.

He then spoke about Trump’s decision to rescind Steph Curry’s invitation to the White House, in which Popovich thought the decision was “comical – because they weren’t going anyway.”

Popovich also divulged about white privilege, and how a discussion about race is necessary to make those that are comfortable – uncomfortable.

“Obviously, race is the elephant in the room, and we all understand that. Unless it is talked about constantly, it’s not going to get better. … ‘Oh, that again. They pulled the race card again. Why do we have to talk about that?’ Well, because it’s uncomfortable,” he said per Michael Lee. “There has to be an uncomfortable element in the discourse for anything to change, whether it’s the LGBT community or women’s suffrage, race, it doesn’t matter. People have to be made to feel uncomfortable, and especially white people, because we’re comfortable. We still have no clue of what being born white means. And if you read some of the recent literature, you realize there really is no such thing as whiteness. We kind of made it up. That’s not my original thought, but it’s true.

“It’s hard to sit down and decide that, yes, it’s like you’re at the 50-meter mark in a 100-meter dash. You’ve got that kind of a lead, yes, because you were born white. You have advantages that are systemically, culturally, psychologically there. And they have been built up and cemented for hundreds of years. But many people can’t look at it, it’s too difficult. It can’t be something that is on their plate on a daily basis. People want to hold their position, people want the status quo, people don’t want to give that up. Until it’s given up, it’s not going to be fixed.”