Does this make you hate Dwight Howard a little less?

A few days ago, Dwight Howard did an interview with Booker T (yes, the wrestler) on Sports Radio 610 in Houston. It was pretty interesting:

Booker T: So much stuff is in the news... the Trayvon Martin incident, Michael Brown, and Eric Garner in NY. My thing is we have so many we don't hear about as well. So it's something we definetly need to touch on.


Dwight: Yeah, as a society we need to have new life. That's why I came up with the shirts "Breathe Again". And not to say anything bad about other movements people have had, but I felt like those movements put things in a box. Like the "I can't breathe" or "hands up don't shoot" movements, it's like they're taking sides. I wanted to do something that would bring the people together.

And it's interesting because a lot of people hate cops. And I've had problems dealing with cops sometimes, but on the other hand, my dad was a cop. So I got to see both sides. And I've come home to my dad telling me stories about how he was held at gunpoint, and so I can understand both sides. It's not about the cops being wrong or us being wrong, but we have to find the solution.


Booker T: It's about kids not putting themselves in position for something to happen to them.


Dwight: I think the biggest thing is understanding authority. In our society today, there are a lot of kids who grow up with single moms and don't have that father figure that they have to respect who shows them authority. When they see those cops or when they're at school they don't understand that those authority figures are only trying to make them better. In different situations.. you know it doesn't have to be the Michael Brown or Chris Garner situation... but when a kid or an adult sees a cop, they think about what we're taught in the streets. You know.. F the police. Or at school, we always want to reject that authority and do what we want to do. 9 times out of 10, that's what gets us in trouble. And we have to teach the younger generation to respect authority and respect their elders.

I like some of the programs like the NAACP are doing where they have cops going into the different communities and show what it's like to be a cop. Show them how they actually have to get out of the car and go to the window and you never know what's going to happen. And I think it has to be the flip side where we can show how we grow up and what we deal with, so people can understand. And I think that's why a lot of things happen in our society.. it's because we don't understand each other. That's why there's hate and fear, because there is no understanding.