Should Football Be Banned? Former NFL Player Donté Stallworth & Sports Reporter Bill Rhoden Weigh In

This is an excellent interview and deeply important question. To me, football is yet one more reflection of our violent American culture and how it is that violence is normalized. It is my deep belief that there has long been a profound need for us both as individuals and collectively to do the hard work of recognizing violence for what it is, lowering our tolerance for violence, and working to dismantle all of the faces of violence and trauma in our culture - of which the NFL is but one among many. — Molly

Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest on Monday during an NFL game. He remains in critical condition. After making a routine tackle against an opposing Cincinnati Bengals player, the 24-year-old safety collapsed on the field. Stunned players from both teams cried, prayed and hugged as Hamlin received CPR from medical personnel before being taken to the hospital. In recent years, the NFL has faced increased controversy over player safety, as more research links the full-contact sport with concussion-related traumatic brain injury and other negative health outcomes. Hamlin’s injury came just minutes after Bills defensive back Taron Johnson left the game with a head injury, and just days after Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered his third head injury of the season — following a concussion that left him hospitalized in September. “[Y]ou never know when your last day could be that you get to experience something like this. I’m cherishing it every moment that I can,” Hamlin said in an interview just weeks earlier. We speak to Donté Stallworth, a sports commentator and former NFL player who spent 10 years in the league, and William C. Rhoden, a longtime sports journalist and author of “Forty Million Dollar Slaves: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete,” about Hamlin’s injury and the NFL’s response.

Please go here for the original video and transcript: https://www.democracynow.org/2023/1/4/damar_hamlin_buffalo_bills_nfl_safety