Maria Taylor has run out of patience.
Drew Brees apologized twice Thursday for the controversial comments he made regarding NFL players who kneel during the national anthem. Not everyone is accepting the New Orleans Saints quarterback’s apology, though, and Taylor delivered a passionate message Friday regarding the issue.
“I know what should reside in your heart is empathy, and I don’t believe that you have to be trolled and dragged through Twitter and Instagram in order to change your mind and realize that what you said was intolerant and/or could be considered insensitive later,” Taylor said on ESPN’s “First Take.” “If you had been educated and forced to confront the issues, and, like I said, had empathy in your heart, then you would have known the black experience is not easy, especially when 70 percent of your league is African American and these are the conversations that you should have had.”
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Brees made headlines Wednesday when he said during an interview with Yahoo! Finance that he’d “never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag,” pointing to his two grandfathers who fought for the United States during World War II.
Several athletes since have spoken out about Brees’ comments — which came at a time when protests are continuing across the country in wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department — and his apologies have been met with mixed reactions.
While multiple Saints teammates have publicly accepted Brees’ apologies, vowing to move forward, other critics can’t help but wonder whether the 41-year-old simply is responding to the backlash he’s received.
“My patience left my body when I watched George Floyd take his last breath,” Taylor said Friday. “So, if that didn’t affect you and make you want to reassess the way that you’re going to address a question that includes racial injustice in our country after you watched that man die in the middle of the street, something’s off. I don’t know if it’s your heart. I don’t know if it’s your mind. But I don’t accept either of them anymore. I will not tolerate it anymore.
“Drew Brees, I will accept your apology. But I don’t have to sit here and wonder what is wrong or what is right and guess if you’re a good or bad person. I am not the judge and/or the jury. All I can do is let you reveal yourself, and countless people are doing that right now. And for the first time ever, they are reaping some kind of consequence that does not have any retaliation for me or the people that are calling them out. For the first time, I feel like I can go on TV and say certain things. For the first time, people feel that they can tweet certain things, and people can be held accountable for the things that they are putting on display in the public. And I’m not going to apologize for that.”
While it’s unclear whether more NFL players will protest during the national anthem this season, recent events certainly have reignited the conversation about racial inequality and police brutality that Colin Kaepernick brought to the forefront nearly four years ago when he first took a knee.
