Newton’s interview not just fun and games

Cam Newton talked free agency, leaving Carolina and taking over for Tom Brady during a one-hour video that dropped on Odell Beckham Jr.’s YouTube page Monday.

If you skipped around for the soundbites, you missed a better conversation.

The football talk was wonderful to hear for anyone hoping to have sports back. Newton, speaking as part of "The Bigger Picture with OBJ, Cam Newton, Todd Gurley and Vic Cruz," spoke about much more. He talked about inequality – [...]

Cam Newton talked free agency, leaving Carolina and taking over for Tom Brady during a one-hour video that dropped on Odell Beckham Jr.’s YouTube page Monday.

If you skipped around for the soundbites, you missed a better conversation.

The football talk was wonderful to hear for anyone hoping to have sports back. Newton, speaking as part of "The Bigger Picture with OBJ, Cam Newton, Todd Gurley and Vic Cruz," spoke about much more. He talked about inequality – both in the country and the NFL – the Black Lives Matter movement and raising his children in the current social climate.

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Conversation between the three current NFL stars and former Super Bowl winner Cruz – who served as host - was candid and Newton shared some very personal feelings.

"My biggest issue in America right now is inequality," Newton said. "If you’re right for this job, you need to get this job. If you’re right for this position, you need to get this position no matter what. You are owed that as a human. I think that’s the part that makes me angry.

"You’ve got people who have to provide for their families," he continued. "Police brutality is an absurd, disgusting, distasteful issue that just happens and people kind of turn their heads, people that still haven’t recognized the issue of police brutality.

"But at the same time it hit home for me because it’s inequality, especially in our sport. You see 32 teams. We probably got five coaches that may not be Black but have some type of ethnicity. It’s not even that. What about other roles of influence? What about OCs? What about defensive coordinators?"

He was also frank with his stance on George Floyd’s death and Derek Chauvin, Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao, the four Minneapolis police officers who were charged in his death.

"Let’s just call it what it is," Newton said. "If what they did, if you take the badge off, if you take the gun off, if you take everything off that doesn’t say he’s a police officer and you put him in civilian clothes and he’s a regular person, and he does what he does, that’s murder."

Newton spoke about things he saw growing up outside of Atlanta and said the only time he’d see a Caucasian was in positions of power, like a police officer, teacher or principal. Newton said this was all he knew, even when he got to college to play football at Florida and then at Auburn.

"Your question now is we don’t have no articulate coaches that know the game of football that’s Black, you know what I’m saying?" Newton said. "We don’t got no rich dudes that can own the team that’s Black, you know what I’m saying? It’s like OK, now how much of this is people have been getting boycotted or blackballed behind the scenes to avoid that happening?"

Newton talked about raising his children and instilling beliefs, including that any –ism is a learned trait, not one you’re born with. He talked about how Black history was taught at his daughter’s elite private school and how it didn’t necessarily tell the whole truth.

He also spoke about the killing of Black men by police and how it’s covered by the media, but not necessarily put into context by people who can’t relate to why these things happen. He then transitioned into how the Black criminals are penalized for crimes vs. white criminals.

"In our lane – I’m not going to go into depth of who I know and how I know them – but we have people in our lives who may not make the right decision with how they make money," Newton said. "But when they get caught up in the web of now you get banged up and you now you have a court date, you get slammed with 25 years and you got a pedophile who takes five years, it’s like hold on? What’s really going on.

"The only reason why he was forced to do that – and listen to me when I tell you, I’m not saying do but or illegal things, but I am saying when you’re a convicted felon off in our society as Black men, people getting felony charges on their record for the rest of their lives at the age of 15. They don’t even know themselves yet."

Newton is thankful for what the Black Lives Matters movement is doing and how it’s helping – or at least trying to – change race relations in the country.

"The thing that makes this so impactful is it’s exposing a lot. That’s all we wanted. You can’t hide no more," Newton said. "Even the little slick sneak, ‘this player may have said,’ ‘people may have said’ and the Karens are coming out more than ever now. It’s almost to say we just want our due and [what’s] right."

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