Yes, Steve Kerr has the right to speak up. So do other business leaders.
by J. Jennings Moss
Originally published May 22, 2022 in the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
I am fed up. I’ve had enough,” a tearful Steve Kerr, the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, told reporters Tuesday. He spoke as a Texas elementary school tragedy unfolded a few hundred miles away from Dallas where the Warriors were getting ready to face the Mavericks in an NBA playoff game.
When Kerr spoke, the death toll at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was 14 students and a teacher. When the final casualty count came in, the number of kids who who died rose to 19 with the faculty death count going to two.
“When are we going to do something? I’m tired. I’m so tired of getting up here and offering condolences to the devastated families that are out there … I’m tired of the moments of silence. Enough,” Kerr said as he slammed U.S. senators who were opposed to enacting background checks and had blocked a vote on the measure.
The horror in Texas, where a bullied and troubled 18-year-old walked into the elementary school and nearly created the most deadly school shooting in U.S. history, came just 10 days after another horrific episode. Then, at a supermarket in a Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, another 18 years old — this one a white supremacist who had documented is hatred — shot and killed 10 people.
These are not one-off incidents. In fact, so far in 2022, the Gun Violence Archive has tracked more than 200 mass shootings. And the year has only had less than 150 days.
These very recent mass-casualty events will hit the emotional psyche of Silicon Valley at a sensitive time. This region was counting down to the one-year anniversary of the May 26, 2021 workplace shooting at a Valley Transportation Authority rail maintenance yard in San Jose. Ten people died in that attack, which was caused by an angry VTA employee who killed himself at the scene.
In the aftermath of that shooting, the VTA stopped running light rail trains for more than three months. Earlier this May, the transit agency demolished Building B at its Guadalupe Light Rail Yard.
And, politically, San Jose officials have tried to take a stand. Mayor Sam Liccardo got the City Council to approve requiring gun owners to purchase liability insurance for their weapons and mandating that retailers video record people making firearm purchases.
It’s natural of course for a mayor or other government official to call for such a measure. It’s to be expected that advocates for gun owners to protest against any challenge to the Constitution’s Second Amendment.
But what you don’t hear too often is a business leader make the kind of impassioned statement that Steve Kerr made. Kerr has personally felt the pain of gun violence. His father Malcolm, who was the president of the American University of Beirut, was assassinated in 1984.
Kerr was a freshman at the University of Arizona then. I, too, was a student at the UA, but didn’t know the future Warriors coach except to cheer his prowess on the basketball court and to feel the pain of his loss when his dad died.
Kerr’s words this week will stay with me. And I’m left to wonder who else among the business elite will stand up and join him with his cry for some kind of movement. It’s never easy to mix business and politics, and the political class is doing its best to shame or belittle companies that have the audacity to jump into the fray.
Take what’s happening in Florida with the Walt Disney Company. After first staying quiet about the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill that was moving through the Florida Legislature, Disney finally said it opposed the measure and hoped lawmakers would reverse course. One understandable reason the company gave was because it was acting on behalf of its employees.
Not only did Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis accuse Disney of betrayal, he rammed through a measure to radically change Disney’s operating rules in Florida. Republicans fell in line with DeSantis and the party is on a quest to stamp out any kind of “woke” behavior by corporations.
That’s inappropriate, an affront to our free-market model and, frankly, anti-American. Corporations — and this certainly includes pro sports teams — have not just a right to speak up, but an obligation to shake the political class when appropriate on behalf of their employees, their shareholders and their own corporate values. To echo what Kerr said, we are all fed up.