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Seattle Seahawks LB Wright: Native Mississippi headed in 'right direction' with changing state flag

By Ben Arthur, SeattlePI

|Updated

Watch the video above for SeattlePI reporter Ben Arthur’s full discussion with Seahawks linebacker K.J. Wright. 

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Being from Mississippi, the big news was a relief to Seattle Seahawks linebacker K.J. Wright.

That flag — that symbol on it — represented everything that was wrong with his beloved state. Its stubbornness. Its desire to cling on to what’s morally unacceptable, and justifying it on grounds of pride and tradition. Its alignment with racism. An ignorance toward Black pain.

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With that flag and its nod to the Confederacy finally being retired, Wright said, his native Mississippi has finally sided with progress.

“My first reaction was, ‘Finally,” Wright said in a video interview with SeattlePI. “'Thank you for realizing what that flag means to Black people, what that flag means to people like myself, what it stood for.’ I personally thought everybody understood the context behind it, what the flag represented. It represented hatred, it represented supremacy, it represented pro-Slavery. That’s how I interpreted it. And it made a lot of people uncomfortable.”

Lawmakers in Mississippi voted late last month to remove and replace the state’s controversial flag, which had flown for 126 years. The flag was officially retired with legislation signed into law by Governor Tate Reeves. It was the last U.S. state flag to feature the Confederate army’s battle emblem.

The swift action to change the flag followed mounting public pressure stemming from weeks of conversations and protests about systemic racism, in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody.

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Wright said he’s excited to see what Mississippi’s new flag will look like.

A fresh flag design will be developed and voted on by state voters later this year.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” Wright said. “It’s a step to making everything better for everyone .. My Grandma’s grandma was a slave, and growing up, you hear those stories … My grandma, she went through segregation. She went through the Civil Rights Movement. That was some serious stuff .. This stuff isn’t brand new. Like, this stuff just recently happened ... So to see simple steps made in the right direction is really big for the state of Mississippi.

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - JANUARY 05: K.J. Wright #50 of the Seattle Seahawks looks on takes the field prior to the NFC Wild Card Playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field on January 05, 2020 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Steven Ryan/Getty Images)

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA - JANUARY 05: K.J. Wright #50 of the Seattle Seahawks looks on takes the field prior to the NFC Wild Card Playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field on January 05, 2020 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Steven Ryan/Getty Images)

Steven Ryan/Getty Images

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“Whatever comes out (of this), I'm going to be proud to say I’m from Mississippi. Because right now, it’s kind of been tough. People ask, ‘Where you from?’ And I say, 'Mississippi.’ And they be like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go there.’ And it shouldn't be like that. It shouldn't be that sad. It shouldn't be that pitiful. So we’re definitely headed in the right direction as a state.”

Wright, who was born and raised in Olive Branch, Miss. and starred at Mississippi State University, said it was “extremely uncomfortable” being a Black man in a state that aligned itself with a symbol of the Confederacy, which fought for the continuation of slavery during the Civil War.

Growing up, Wright regularly saw White people with the flag hanging out of their pick-up trucks. In neighborhoods, there were homes that proudly displayed it. 
 
A divisive and contentious symbol to many Americans, Mississippi’s now former flag meant one thing to Wright: hate.

Maybe the flag symbolizes pride to some. But it’s history was also inescapably linked to racial oppression and White supremacy.

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“It’s extremely uncomfortable and extremely sad that people would represent that because you know what (the Confederate symbol) means,” Wright explained. “There’s no getting around it. There’s absolutely no getting around it. You'd see Klan members with their white hoodies on waving that flag. You saw the Confederate soldiers had that when they were fighting the Union soldiers for slavery. It’s pretty blatant, and there’s no getting around it. So it was extremely uncomfortable as a Black man (being around that). When you see that, you definitely steer clear of those people.

“It wasn’t just race wars where I was from, but there was just certain mindsets that have been passed down from generation to generation. It was just sad. It’s time to stop it. It’s time to stop putting poison into kids’ minds about Black people, Gay people, Hispanic people, Muslim people. It’s time to cut it out.”

Mississippi’s story about a changing flag and discovering a new identity isn't just about Mississippi. It’s the story of all of America the last several weeks: a reckoning with a racist past, what has long been swept under the rug. It has re-ignited conversations about racial injustice in every aspect of American life. Sports are not spared from the debate.

Wright last month voiced his support on social media for Mississippi State star running back Kylin Hill, who said he wouldn’t play any more football for the school until the state changed its flag. Hill was one of the bigger dominoes in the sports world applying economic pressure on the state.

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The SEC and the NCAA had also announced that they would ban championship events in Mississippi until the flag was changed.

“This is something a lot of those young men are passionate about.,” Wright said. “You can’t just be quiet about it and be like, ‘OK, just go out there and play your sport.’ You have to support your athletes because they’re a part of your university, they’re a part of your organization. They bring a lot of money into the school. I’m glad (Hill and others) stood up for what’s right.

“That’s what it’s going to take. It’s going to take everybody. It’s going to take small voices, it’s going to take large voices to get the ball rolling … We still have a lot more work to do. We just gotta keep chipping away at it.”

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Building positive momentum for the country in regards to racial injustice, Wright said, starts in the classroom with youth.

“The next step is education,”Wright said. “We have to teach our kids about our history and how it ties into 2020. Systemic racism, oppression, it started when (Black people) first came here and it just transformed into what it is now, you know what I mean? Like obviously, we’re not on plantations picking cotton. But there’s certain policies, certain laws that do not favor (Black people) … How can we change and educate these young kids about what they can do to improve it?

“We have to teach Black and White kids, ‘How can we improve? What laws can we change? How can we expose White people to what Black people have gone through and are going through to this day?’ So it starts in the books. It starts in the school systems. We have to rip it up and create a whole new system.”

For a better America.

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For progress.

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Ben Arthur covers sports for SeattlePI. He can be reached by email at benjaminarthur@seattlepi.com. Follow him on twitter at @benyarthur

Ben Arthur covers the Seattle Seahawks, the Mariners, and other Seattle-area sports for the SeattlePI