VIDEO: Lions safety Duron Harmon shares own experiences with racism, expresses hope for future

Detroit Lions safety Duron Harmon spoke for nearly 30 minutes with local reporters via a Zoom conference call on Friday morning. Much like team meetings this week, football was not on the docket in terms of conversation pieces.

Instead, Harmon talked about his reactions to the latest, senseless deaths of black Americans, his own experiences with racism in this country, including a horrible tale about an encounter with a police officer as a 17 year old, and his hope for the future.

He talks about the difficult conversations he’s now forced to have with his eight-year-old son, and the hurt he continues to endure from comments like that of Drew Brees earlier in the week.

He speaks about the initiatives he wants seen in local communities and the best ways to make sure this conversation doesn’t just end when the protests eventually end. He also expresses hope for the future, noting that awareness has certainly improved in recent years, and he believes “help is on the way.”

I could scatter this article with bits and pieces of the media session, but we’d all be better served to just sit, watch and listen to the entire conference.

Please watch:

Lions center Frank Ragnow also spoke with the media on Friday about being an ally, what he’s learned from team meetings this week and how he intends to help enact change going forward: