Actually, Steve Kerr is a renowned basketball coach in the National Basketball Association (NBA), actually a game of his Golden State Warriors is imminent – semifinals against the Dallas Mavericks. But when he sat down in front of the microphone on Tuesday, his first sentence was: “I’m not going to talk about basketball.” Visibly agitated but composed, the 56-year-old lists the most recent murders in the United States: “In the last ten days we’ve had older, black people killed in a supermarket in Buffalo, we’ve seen Asian churchgoers being killed in Southern California and now we have murdered children in a school.” At that moment he hits the table with his flat hand and shouts: “When are we going to do something?”
Kerr is considered one of the leading voices in the NBA when it comes to social issues. He lost his own father at gunpoint: he was shot dead in front of his office in Lebanon in 1984 when he was president of the American University of Beirut. Now – in the face of the horrific rampage at an elementary school in Texas with 20 dead – he calls into the microphone: “It’s enough!” He is tired. Tears are in his eyes, his face is red. He was tired of expressing condolences and enduring minutes of silence.
Kerr wants to see more than just words. He is angry at the “50 senators who refuse to vote on HR8”. This is a draft law that is intended to regulate the so-called background check, i.e. background checks for gun purchases. Kerr asks, “Do you want to put your own lust for power over the lives of our children, our elders, and our churchgoers? Because that’s the way it is.” He concludes with the words: “They don’t vote because they want to stay in power. It’s pathetic, I’ve had enough!” Then he gets up. The video of his speech immediately went viral, with stars such as Stephen Curry and LeBron James sharing the clip online. “Something has to change!” writes James.