>> On the North Dakota hockey team, assistant captains Jasper Weatherby
and Jacob Bernard Docker took a knee prior to puck drop against Miami, Ohio.
Weatherby for the broadcast as college hockey's representative on the Diversity Task Force.
The pair are also on the school's student athlete and inclusion diversity group.
College hockey writer and reporter for the Grand Forks Herald,
Brad Elliot Schloffman noted Weatherby and Bernard Docker
were the lone duo to protest racial injustice and police brutality. They've seen the countless
lives lost at the hands of police, how black people are treated by those who work forces.
And the grave statistics for those who are not white in the country and the lack of charges
brought against officers who, in essence, get away with it at nearly a 100% success rate.
Quite a far cry from MAGA-land where two high school students ran out onto
the football field back in September with a thin blue line flag and a thin red line flag,
both symbols of hatred and a rallying cry against the Black Lives Matter movement.
>> Not only did they get a rousing ovation. >> For liberty and justice for all.
>> They were honored by Donald Trump, and fellow bigots at his hood off rallies.
In the NHL, Matt Dumba, Tyler Seguin and a few others took a knee to open the season,
they received imminent backlash from fans.
As we have seen Bill Peters and other coaches outed for their racism,
hockey is slowly catching up. We believe racial injustices and the treatment of minorities and
people of color in this country needs to stop, Weatherby told the Grand Forks North
Dakota Herald. It needs to be improved all over America and all over the world.
The players seen here via the Grand Forks Herald put out their message of why they would kneel
prior to the game so others don't try to distort it. At the end of the day, we want UND to be a
safe place. As athletes who do have a platform, we stand with our brothers and sisters of color.
As the Coronavirus surges on in this country with more than 200,000 new cases as of Wednesday and
over 100,000 hospitalizations, the NCAA continues to permit fans entry. Thus you saw the empty
seats. I think change is uncomfortable for a lot of people, Weatherby said. If this demonstration
is uncomfortable for you, it's a great opportunity to educate yourself and look
inside and ask yourself, why does that upset me and why is someone from my hometown doing this?
We hope the hockey community knows that we stand with people of color and we
are not okay with the way people are being treated in this country. Jasper Weatherby,
a 2018 draftee of the San Jose Sharks was in the thick of the George Floyd
protests this summer. Bernard Docker and one other teammate also attended.
For Weatherby, activism runs deep. >> It would be detrimental to your safety to
continue this march and I'm an unlawful assembly. >> Recall the March on Selma in 1965.
Many minds will immediately reflect back to John Lewis and others being
pummeled by Alabama police just for demanding equal voting rights.
>> Guess who marched alongside them. His grandmother,
Ann Macrory, she recalled to family members being yelled at by racist locals during the march.
Meanwhile Weatherby's grandfather Ralph Temple fled the Nazis as a 7 year old Jewish boy growing
up in London. In America, he became a civil rights lawyer, who fought Jim Crow in the courtroom.
Became a member of the NAACP Board of Directors, worked underneath Thurgood Marshall at the Legal
Defense Fund and alongside Martin Luther King Jr on a couple of cases. And the thing is, it doesn't
stop there. His mother, Lucinda, grew up in DC, protested apartheid at the South African embassy
and successfully lobbied her high school to divest from any companies that had South African ties.
And then there's his brother Kevin, who the family adopted at age eight from Costa Rica.
Through DNA and ancestry research, they determined that Kevin is the descendant of an enslaved
African from Nigeria who was taken to Jamaica. >> They have to respect our flag and they
have to respect our country.
>> There is no doubt this will surface, the mantra of disrespecting the troops and disrespecting the
flag. I have the utmost respect for the military and people who have served, Bernard-Docker said.
I have no disrespect to veterans. I have two grandpas who fought in World Wars.
They have passed away now but I've no doubt they would support what I'm fighting for,
which is the right to be treated equally.
People fought for our country so citizens could have fundamental rights.
This is what the military fought for. If you'd like to hear more thought provoking content like
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