Eric Holder approves of athletes outwardly showing support in the case of Eric Garner.
The Chicago Bulls’ Derrick Rose was the first NBA player to wear a “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt to show support for those protesting the Eric Garner grand jury decision, something the attorney general expressed no problems with.
Other NBA players, including Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James, have followed in Rose’s footsteps since he first wore the shirt while warming up for a Dec. 6 game.
“For them to get out there and to express in that way a social conscience, I think goes back to maybe people that these guys don’t even know or my son has a vague awareness of, to Jackie Robinson, who is seen as not only a great athlete, but as an involved, thinking, caring black man,” Holder said in an interview with the Chicago Sun Times.
The athletes wearing the T-shirts “shows a depth to them beyond just being great ballplayers,” Holder said.
“And it’s all about our democracy, and who we are as a country that our celebrities, our athletic celebrities, can use their status to express I think what I call a social and political point. I think that’s a good thing,” he said.
Holder was in Chicago over the weekend for the last stop of his nationwide tour, in which he met with with local law enforcement, government and other community leaders to discuss the Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y., cases.
Protestors around the country have been wearing “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirts, representing Eric Garner’s last words before his death as the result of a chokehold by an NYPD officer. The officer was not indicted by a grand jury.
“There is just no need for that anymore,” Holder said, when asked if it was a good idea for Chicago’s City Council to ban chokeholds.
Chokeholds are currently considered illegal by the NYPD.
