Heat players discuss racism in town hall

The Miami Heat held a town hall with players on Juneteenth to discuss recent unrest in the country surrounding racism and police brutality.

Jimmy Butler recounted an experience when he was 16 years old. He and his brother walked out of a Walmart in suburban Houston and saw a white man and his son, he said. The son, who Butler said was no more than six years old, said, “Hey Dad, those are those [n-words] you are telling me about.”

Goran Dragic, who is Slovenian, said that, “Right now, if I’m honest, I’m not comfortable with this meeting because I don’t know what to say because I’m coming from a different part of the world.”

Another Heat player, Solomon Hill, said that people would come up and try to touch his hair as a kid “like I’m some dog that is being walked.”

“I never could have imagined myself walking up to a little white girl and just touching her hair randomly in a shopping center,” he added.