In the hours before Dominic Smith wept on national television, he failed on national television. His train of thought sped from station to station: Four hundred years of injustice … the pain of the family of Jacob Blake, shot seven times in the back by a police officer in Kenosha, Wis. … the pain of the families of all the other victims of brutality at the hands of a racist system … the violent deaths of so many people who looked like him … his own encounters with law enforcement, which always left him unscathed but terrified … the fact that white people still didn’t seem to care … the way NBA and WNBA players had insisted on the postponement of their games that night in protest of oppression … the way most MLB players had not done the same … his role as the most prominent Black player on the Mets … the unknown fallout of his spur-of-the-moment decision that night to take a knee during the national anthem … and wait, was that a slider?
After the Worst Night of His Season, Dominic Smith Used His Voice
