Carmelo Anthony Addresses The Presidential Election
Carmelo Anthony took over Wednesday night’s game in the third quarter, reeling off 14 consecutive points, leading the Knicks to a come-from-behind win over the Nets. After the game there was more interest in hearing Anthony’s political thoughts, however. Anthony, who has been more outspoken on social issues in recent times, said he wasn’t surprised that Donald Trump won the election over Hillary Clinton.
“I wasn’t honestly surprised, to be honest with you. I wasn’t surprised. The way that things are going now in this country, the educated and uneducated, the people that is out there who was voting, I wasn’t surprised at that,” he said.
“Now it’s our responsibility as men and women take it into our own hands, be role models and be our own leaders at this point, regardless of kind of who’s the commander in chief. I think we have more of a responsibility now, especially with the youth and kind of educating them. I’ve talked to youth, I’ve talked to kids today, this morning, my family. You could just hear kind of the nervousness. They’re afraid. They don’t know what to think. People don’t know what to do at this point. So I think it’s up to us as individuals to kind of just take that responsibility and lead, everybody got to lead in their own way. We can’t rely on a system or one person. We got to move on from that.”
When asked whether he had spoken with close friend LeBron James – who had publicly campaigned for Clinton, Anthony said he hadn’t. He spent election night watching events unfold with his family. He said he spoke to his son about what had happened.
“This morning him having questions, it’s a conversation we’re all going to have to have with our kids. What is that conversation?” Anthony said. “That’s the scary part for me. What is that conversation?”
As he wrapped up his post-game media commitments, Anthony said: “I’m a big believer in worrying about the things that you can control. And I think in this situation, we as people have to worry about the things that we can control. We can’t control what’s gonna happen, but that doesn’t mean that we have to stop… just because somebody’s in a position now that we might not agree with, might not like, we might not want in that position.
“The work has to start right now. It’s gonna be even harder. But we can’t stop working.”
Feature Image Credit Michael Reaves/Getty Images