Texas Rangers manager Chris Woodward speaks on the conversations that led to the Rangers players and coaches kneeling before the national anthem and standing during it.
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00:00 >> Yeah, the thing is there's been so many conversations within our clubhouse.
00:05 With so many different, not only as a group, but
00:08 personal conversations with each of these guys.
00:12 It's a deep issue.
00:13 It's a very, very deep issue.
00:15 So I just get frustrated when people look at it from the peripheral and
00:18 just say, okay, you made this decision.
00:20 This is what you stand for.
00:21 It's like there's so many thoughts and emotions and
00:23 feelings that go into every decision you make like that.
00:26 It was pretty powerful for me.
00:28 There's something I have a lot of very, very,
00:32 very close friends of mine that are African American.
00:36 And have had many conversations about the injustices that they've had to deal with.
00:41 The experiences, I'm not basing this on any kind of numbers or
00:45 any political party or anything like that.
00:47 These are just experiences that I personally heard from these people.
00:51 They're powerful.
00:53 They're very, very powerful to me.
00:55 And the empathy that I have for them and
00:56 what they've had to go through, I haven't had to go through.
00:59 So I just felt, you know what, if our players are willing to put themselves on
01:04 the line like that, we were standing for the anthem.
01:07 That's one thing I wanna make clear.
01:09 A lot of people didn't understand what was happening at that point.
01:12 And I don't read social media or do anything too often.
01:16 But I heard some comments that made me angry.
01:19 We all stood for the anthem.
01:20 So people don't see that, and they're not willing to look and
01:24 read into the details of what happened last night.
01:27 We did not disrespect our flag.
01:29 We did not disrespect our country.
01:30 We were kneeling for racial equality in support of that,
01:36 in the fight against social injustice.
01:38 That was it.
01:39 That was it for me.
01:40 And I stood alongside our guys, and I felt that that was important.
01:43 So it was a pretty powerful moment for me.
01:45 And I know that I wanted to make sure I had my players and my staff members back.
01:49 And everybody in our organization and everybody in our country, for
01:51 that matter, that are African American.
01:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]