'It makes me sick': Saquon Barkley outraged by Jacob Blake shooting
Giants running back Saquon Barkley walks across the practice field between drills during training camp at the Quest Diagnostics Training Center in East Rutherford, N.J., on Aug. 18. Credit: Brad Penner
As he watched the video of Jacob Blake being shot several times in the back by a Kenosha, Wisconsin police officer, Saquon Barkley was horrified.
“Words really can’t describe how you feel,” the Giants’ third-year running back said Thursday. “It makes you sick, especially being a Black man.”
But there was more to Barkley’s outrage, especially when he started thinking about how it could easily have been someone close to him. Or even himself.
“You have to put yourself, what if I was in that situation?” he said. “What if it was your brother? What if it was your cousin? What if it was Shep [teammate Sterling Shepard]? What if it was Golden [Tate]? All those guys.”
Or what if it was his father?
“I know my father went through a similar situation when I was in college,” Barkley said of his dad, Alibay. “In that little situation right there, you can lose someone you really care about.”
Barkley remembers it as if it were yesterday.
“I’ll never forget it,” Barkley said. “I remember that phone call I got from my mom that my dad was basically mishandled and mistreated. I was walking to the Lasch Building at Penn State and my mom called me and was really worried and concerned. My dad had a heart condition and got tased in the heart. I remember how I felt in that moment. It hurt me. It hurt me.”
Alibay Barkley claimed in a civil rights lawsuit filed in 2017 that Allentown, Pennsylvania police used excessive force in arresting him on a bus over a dispute about his ticket. Barkley was on his way to a doctor’s appointment on Aug. 18, 2016 at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest. The suit alleged two police officers forcibly removed Barkley from the bus and used a Taser to stun him repeatedly. Alibay had been sitting in a seat dedicated to civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who inspired the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 when she refused to give up her seat to a white man.
The case was settled in 2018, after Allentown and the Lehigh Northampton Transportation Authority agreed to pay Barkley $45,000 to discontinue the lawsuit.
Saquon Barkley believes he is now uniquely equipped to expand his already established leadership role in the locker room in the situation now impacting the country and how it has reverberated throughout the sports world. Several leagues, including the NBA, WNBA, NHL, Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer have either canceled or postponed games since Sunday’s shooting of Blake. Barkley also appeared in a video featuring several NFL stars demanding action after George Floyd was killed while in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25.
“I understand that God put me in a position to be able to have a platform and to be able to use my voice,” he said. “I’ve been big on knowing my history, especially with the athletes and the Bill Russells of the world, Colin Kaepernicks of the world. How they were able to handle those situations using their voice. It creates a conversation that you have to have yourself. What can you do? You have to start those conversations and then take action. Find ways you can [help], and that’s what we’re trying to do with our team. We can continue to find the right things to do.”
He knows the answers won’t come overnight.
“Obviously, there’s a situation going on in this world that needs to be fixed,” he said. “It’s not just going to be solved in one day. We try to find ways how we can impact our community so we can spark a change.”
Barkley will continue to do his part – on and off the field.
“Every single day, I try to go out, work, push myself and show my work ethic,” he said. “Show my talent and just try to be an inspiration for others. Hopefully, I can continue to do that throughout my play.”
And his words.
Bob Glauber retired in 2022 after covering the NFL for nearly 40 years. He was selected in 2021 for the Bill Nunn Career Achievement Award by the Pro Football Writers of America, and is a three-time winner of the New York State Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. President of the PFWA for the 2018-20 seasons, he is the author of “The Forgotten First” and “Guts and Genius.”
