(The Hill) – San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich called out the Tennessee GOP lawmakers who voted to expel two of their Black colleagues last week for leading protests against gun violence after a mass shooting killed three students and three adults at a private elementary school.
“Well, since you asked, what would it take to budge those people? What would it take?” Popovich said to reporters, referring to GOP politicians standing in the way of greater gun control and other efforts to stem gun violence across the United States.
“I mean, we’ve got two young Black guys in Tennessee who just got railroaded by a bunch of people that I would bet down deep in their soul want to go back to Jim Crow,” Popovich added ahead before a game on Sunday, according to ESPN.
“And what they just did is a good start. It’s beyond comprehension. And what were they guilty of? They actually protested?”
“Those [Tennessee Republican] legislators called those kids that were protesting insurrectionists. That’s hard to believe in America. But America ain’t what we thought America was. It’s changed,” he continued.
“So if those kids are insurrectionists, what were the people on January 6th? What do we call them? What’s the next step or word or level of violence after insurrectionists? I don’t know what it is. What will it take?”
Popovich, a hall-of-fame coach and executive, also called out Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and state Gov. Bob Lee (R) for their initial responses to the mass shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School on March 27.
“I mean, I couldn’t believe it, so I wrote this thing down, but Senator Marsha Blackburn, her comment after was, after the massacre, ‘My office is in contact with federal, state and local officials and we stand ready to assist,'” Popovich said.
“In what?! They’re dead!” Popovich shouted. “What are you going to assist with — cleaning up their brains off the wall, wiping the blood off the schoolroom floor? What are you going to assist with?”
The GOP-controlled Tennessee House of Representatives on Thursday voted to expel Democrat state Reps. Justin Jones (Nashville) and Justin Pearson (Memphis), who are Black. State Rep. Gloria Johnson (D-Knoxville), who is White and joined Jones and Pearson in their protest, survived her expulsion vote.
The expulsion of Jones and Pearson has led prominent figures such as former President Barack Obama and Vice President Harris to call out Tennessee Republicans for their actions to remove their colleagues from their positions.
The two lawmakers could soon return to the statehouse if the county commissions reappoint them to the seats ahead of a special election, which they will also be eligible to run in.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said Sunday that the expulsions of the lawmakers was an “embarrassment” for the state, but argued it was “more of a control issue than racist.”
“I’ve had many people contact me through emails and phone calls saying how they never thought Tennessee was this type of state, that we were different,” Cohen said.
“Now they put us in the bottom rank of states and they find this to be objectionable, and it certainly has a racist appearance. I think it was more of a control issue than racist. But it was just too heavy handed,” he added.