Dear Sauce Gardner, Black people can’t afford to be apolitical

Editor’s note: Sauce Gardner is a cornerback for the New York Jets. On July 13, he wrote several posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, about the assassination attempt against former president Donald Trump and his thoughts about politics and voting.

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Dear Sauce,

Before I get to your recent posts about politics, I want to share a quote you may not have heard. No, it’s not from Amber Rose, whose appearance at the Republican National Convention felt like a cynical attempt to court young Black voters. But during the opening night of the gathering on Monday, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina — the only Black Republican in the Senate — said this:

“America is not a racist country.”

He’s been pushing this rhetoric for years now. Massive applause from the overwhelmingly white crowd co-signed the statement — not because it was historically accurate, but because it appeased their senses. But Scott was selling Black people short to win the approval of those who are actively working to limit our rights (just Google Project 2025). While Scott’s statement is easy to debunk, it’s also extremely disrespectful, given how much blood has soaked American soil because of racism. Without turning this into a full-fledged Tim Scott roasting session, it does present the perfect entry point for why I’m writing to you in the first place, Sauce.

In life, it’s great to be right. It’s understandable to be wrong — as long as we learn from the mistakes we will inevitably make. But what’s completely unacceptable is being willfully ignorant. Scott is willfully ignorant. Or maybe he’s just calculating. Or maybe it’s a combination of both. But your tweets resonated with me. Not because I believe you lack reason, logic or intellectual curiosity. It’s the exact opposite, actually. You’re young. You’re still finding your way in the world, much like myself, and you don’t know what you don’t know. But feigning ignorance is not enough when it comes to matters of life and death.

First, nothing said here is meant to come off as finger-wagging. And I’m not here to tell you how to do your job, because you’re already one of the best in the NFL at that. But as you requested in your tweets, this is my attempt to “fill you in.”

I’m not here to ask you to vote Democrat or Republican because even that comes with a long, complex and ridiculously complicated history of America’s political system. But it is necessary — even if you don’t vote — to familiarize yourself with politics, especially as a Black man in a country that didn’t intend for people who look like us to sniff the process to begin with. Awareness is a means of survival.

After the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, you tweeted the photo of the former president raising his fist moments after a gunman in Butler, Pennsylvania, tried to take his life. Your caption read, “ladies & gentlemen … President Donald Trump.” On the surface, you didn’t say anything wrong. He is a former POTUS who could return to the position in a matter of months. But Sauce, you must understand who Donald Trump is as a person and a politician.

At 23, you’re just a few years older than the Central Park Five, now the Exonerated Five, a group of teens who were wrongfully convicted and served several years in prison in the brutal assault and rape of Trisha Meili. Trump called for their execution in 1989 and, as of 2019, refused to apologize. He’s also a man whose ties to racism, sexism, xenophobia, a seemingly endless list of sexual assault and rape accusations, and outright egregious policies date back years before you or I were born.

This isn’t to say President Joe Biden is perfect, because he is not. He’s old (so is Trump), and he’s gaffe-prone. The 1986 and 1994 crime bills, which Biden championed, helped ravage Black communities by exploding the incarceration rate. He eventually apologized, calling the laws “a big mistake” that “trapped an entire generation,” but the damage lingers. His administration’s handling of Israel’s ongoing bombing campaign in Gaza is another misstep. My point is this: Politicians are people, and people are inherently flawed no matter how genuine their actions may be. You acknowledged a similar sentiment. But politics and politicians are two completely different conversations.

In my eyes, politicians are the messengers. Politics and policies are what really move the proverbial needle and have a legitimate impact on our lives. So when you tweeted, “I do think it’s odd to judge people based on who they vote for,” that resonated with me. It seems reasonable, especially for someone who admitted to being “unfamiliar with politics.” Yet, people vote for politicians based on the policies they support, and not all those policies are good or helpful, especially to Black folks.

Second, politics isn’t only a conversation that’s had every four years when it’s time to vote for who gets to live on 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Politics and its accompanying policies impact every waking second of our lives. It impacts the economic conditions in neighborhoods across the country. It affects everything from local school board policies to highway funding. Politics governs police departments — how they’re funded and how they function. You’re a Detroit native, so please believe issues such as the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, oversight of public schools, and your city’s role in determining the 2020 election are all rooted in politics.

Sports, believe it or not, are grounds for political discourse as well. As an athlete, you understand the value of your “prime.” Boxer Muhammad Ali lost the prime years of his career after taking on the government and refusing to participate in the Vietnam War. So much of what we know about the expansion of women’s sports traces back to a singular piece of legislation called Title IX. Swimming pools, and more importantly, who could use them, were once political. In 2020, WNBA players helped flip a U.S. Senate seat. More recently, the decision to allow college athletes to make money from their name, image, and likeness ties directly into economics, the labor movement, and, yes, politics.

In short, if it deals with Black life in America, politics are always involved.

Sauce, hopefully you’ll have a long, successful career that will result in you getting a gold jacket in Canton, Ohio, one day. But more of your life will be spent off the gridiron. And politics will play a role in your life, whether you ever step foot in a voting booth or not.

I don’t believe you need to be the next sports legend like NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Ali. You don’t need to be an activist. I’m not even saying you have to speak out on current issues. But what you (or any Black person) can’t afford to do is move as if these issues don’t impact you or the people you care about. We live in a country that had to pass legislation to prohibit discrimination in all walks of life, including at the ballot box just 60 years ago. What we have now is what we were never intended to have.

I revisit a quote from a man who has had more of an impact on my life than I can genuinely articulate. In April 1964, Malcolm X delivered a speech — perhaps the most famous of his lifetime — titled The Ballot or the Bullet. I suggest you check it out when you have the time. Of the political philosophy of Black nationalism, Malcolm X said, “… [it] only means that the Black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community. The time when white people can come in our community and get us to vote for them so that they can be our political leaders and tell us what to do and what not to do is long gone.”

Sadly, that time is still very much here. 

Sauce, you can be whatever you want in life, and I’m rooting for you to ball out this season. I’m not expecting you to be like former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who became a civil rights activist, or become the next great outspoken athlete. I’m just asking you to be aware of the world we live in. Being apolitical isn’t an option. You can’t be willfully ignorant of the history of political power, political suppression and political violence in America as it pertains to Black men, Black women and Black babies.

Most importantly, you certainly cannot be someone like Tim Scott — a Black man who’d much rather live a lie than ever acknowledge the truth. I don’t want that to be part of your legacy, Sauce. And you sure shouldn’t either.

Best,

Justin Tinsley