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By Melissa RohlinFOX Sports NBA reporter

There was an ease about Gregg Popovich.

A joy about Steve Kerr.

It was only fitting that the San Antonio Spurs played the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday, giving the two most outspoken coaches in the NBA-- who also happen to be very close friends -- an opportunity to celebrate following the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris earlier that morning.

Popovich called Biden "a decent man," adding that he "really genuinely cares about people." Kerr called it "a great day," adding that the Warriorsdecided to wear their Oakland jerseys to honor Harris, who grew up in the East Bay.

There was only one thing souring the day.

"I think one of the things I miss most about this pandemic is not being able to go out to dinner with Pop, either here or San Antonio," Kerr said.

They weren't able to honor the moment by breaking bread, but Wednesday marked a momentous day for both coaches after they devoted a breathless four years to speaking out against Donald Trump, a president they both saw as unfit to lead the country.

Before Trump was electedin 2016, Popovich kept his views on politics in-house. Coaches of major sports leagues in America don't often speak out on such issues, especially Democratic-leaning ones who live in red states.

That changed four years ago.

It didn't matter that the Holt family, whichown the Spurs, made significant donations to the Trump campaign. It didn't matter that Popovich would alienate some of his fan base. It didn't matter that some would view him as unpatriotic, even though he graduated from the Air Force Academy and went on to become an active-duty officer.

Popovich thought Trump was encouraging racism.

He saw it as his duty as an American to call it out.

It happened unexpectedly.

"I don't think there was one moment when I decided to speak out," Popovich said Wednesday. "I've always done it kind of privately with my team, whether it's been about race or equal justice or the war in Iraq, a variety of situations. But I've always kept it pretty private. So somewhere along the line, I probably just said something in a more public sense during the last administration, and that's all I can really point to."

Once the floodgates were open, there was no holding back.

Popovich regularly denounced Trump's rhetoric and approach, most recently calling him "deranged" and "dangerous" after the violent incident at theU.S. Capitol two weeks ago.

Popovich's outspokenness had wide-reaching effects across the league.

If Popovich, a 71-year-old white man, was willing to speak out on politics and social injustice, others could, too. Hegave permission to many coaches and players who otherwise might have bottled up their thoughts and emotions for fear of reprisal.

"I dont think I ever would have felt comfortable speaking out until Pops example," Kerr said. "I think he gave me and a lot of people the courage to speak when we felt we had something to say, and it might be helpful or important.

"I dont remember many coaches speaking out on political issues or social issues during my playing career. I think part of this movement weve seen for the last decade, in particular in sports, I think Pop is one of the key figures in helping that happen."

Kerr, who played under Popovich on the Spurs from 1998 to '01 and 2002-03, went on to become a vocal adversary of Trump. The Warriors refused to go to the White House after winning a championship in 2017, and they weren't invited after winning another title the following season.

In October, one month ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Kerr encouraged people to think before they voted, tweeting all the reasons he thought Trump was unqualified for the job.

For Kerr, there was a specific moment when he decided to break his silence on political issues.

It happened after the shooting at the Pulse nightclubin Orlando, Florida, in June 2016, whichleft 49 people dead and 53 wounded.

The massacre hit close to home for Kerr, whose father, Malcolm, was assassinated in 1984 by two gunmen outside of the American University of Beirut, where he worked as its president.

"I had been pretty active behind the scenes in terms of gun safety and supporting gun-control groups,and when that murder rampage happened, it was during The Finals, I think, in 2016, and I just had enough," Kerr said last week. "It just seemed like there were mass shootings every week, and that's when I finally decided to speak publicly on an issue. That was probably the first time."

Popovich's and Kerr's advocacy dovetailed with Lakerssuperstar LeBron James' outspokenness, making the NBA a political force from top to bottom.

James first decided to take a stand in 2012, after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot by neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. In his first public showing of activism, James posted onInstagram a photo of himself wearing a hooded sweatshirt alongside his Miami Heat teammates in honor of Martin.

As a father, that incident deeply terrified him.

"Just thinking about that story, having two sons of my own and thinking if I send my kids out to the store and they never return," James said. "And if the information that I got back was the information I heard in the Trayvon Martin case, how heartbroken, how mad, how disappointed I would have been. Not only with my community at that point and time, but with the police, the policing, either if they had a badge or not, the neighborhood watch or whatever the case may be during that point and time. That was the moment where I knew that it was much bigger than just basketball."

Since then, James has used his massive platform of a combined 126.6 million followers on Twitter and Instagram to denounce social injustice, in addition to publicly speaking against the killings of Black men and women in incidents involvingpolice. Also, in June, he helped found More Than A Vote to fight Black voter suppression.

Popovich said James' efforts have made a huge difference.

"I think he's going to be an iconic figure," Popovich said two weeks ago. "Nobody can be what Muhammad Ali was, as far as sport is concerned. But in that same genre. I'm so proud of this guy and so pleased for him that from the time he came in as a teenager to see his development now -- basketball, sure, fine, but as a human being, as a citizen, as someone who looks at the social issues at our time and is willing to speak out about them.

"He doesn't do it with hate. He just tells the truth. And he lays it out there and enables everybody else to feel good about understanding that they do have a First Amendment right, and they can do these things."

The NBA has been at the forefront of social change, and it's largely because of these three men.

Two of them were in the same arena Wednesday, able to enjoy ahistoric day.

Popovich and Kerr are two of the most respected coaches in the league.Popovich led the Spurs to 22 consecutiveplayoff appearances, winning five championships, and Kerr led the Warriors to five straight NBA Finals appearances from 2015 to '19, winning three championships.

But according to their players, they're going to be remembered for so much more.

They put themselves on the line, risking public blowback, and they encouraged many people around them to also take that risk.

"It's just leadership at the highest form," Warriors guard Stephen Curry said.

Melissa Rohlin is an NBA reporter for FOX Sports. She has previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News.

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Why Pop and Kerr Spoke Out - FOXSports.com

Over the past few months, Ive been editing a book about soulful beliefs, practices and feelings that overflow from their religious and spiritual origins into secular and profane spaces. Ive also been wondering what Joe Biden means when he talks about restoring the soul of America.

In a country fatigued by COVID-19, Zoom calls and a president who thought he was entitled to grab the bodies and attention of his fellow Americans, it appears that Biden wants to offer us some solace. A politics of kindness that permits intentional listening and introspection. Or at least a news cycle that is less taxing, chaotic and demanding.

Such discussions of the American soul are often interpreted through the prism of Bidens Catholicism and Irish ancestry. On occasion, they are also read as a sign that we will be returning to the tone and texture of the Barack Obama years and the calm authority of no-drama Obama. Yet they are rarely connected to what the African American intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois called the souls of Black folk.

It remains difficult for Americans who live in a racially segregated country to consider how African American social and political thought might have informed the thinking of an average Irish guy about soul.

Even though Biden was a moderate Irish American who was psychically distant from the activist fervour of the 1960s, he participated in an American culture transfixed by Martin Luther King Jr.s soulful call for people to be judged on the content of their character rather than the colour of their skin.

He also lived through a period in which Black artists in music, performance, dance, fashion, food, film, literature and visual culture advanced a thrilling vision of soul power.

Obama and Kamala Harris are too young to have participated in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and are, in age or temperament, part of a post-soul generation. Yet, because of their skin colour and Bidens ability to work with segregationist senators in the 1970s and 80s, the American media remains more likely to associate them with the soulful, redemptive humanism of the 1960s than Biden.

The outcry over one of Bidens gaffes during the 2008 presidential campaign is one revealing example of what Obama might call the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races. After describing Obama as the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy, Biden was thought to have perpetuated antiquated stereotypes about African American intelligence and cleanliness. Or, at the very least, was portrayed as a political dinosaur surprised by the existence of an African American candidate who appeared articulate, bright and clean to mainstream America.

While Biden was criticized for his ham-fisted attempts to make it clear that he did not think all Blacks look alike, a younger generation of post-soul politicians were praised for strategically using the phrase people who look like me.

After George Zimmerman deemed Trayvon Martin a suspicious young man wearing a hoodie and fatally shot him in 2012, Obama didnt point out that Martin was vulnerable to such violence because of racialized ways of seeing and stereotypes about young Black men wearing hoodies. Instead, he chose to acknowledge the power of family metaphors in American popular culture and noted that, if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin.

When Harris became Vice-President-elect, we were similarly bombarded with articles about how she sent a message of hope to young women of colour who looked like her. Harris is also featured on the front cover of Leadership Looks Like Me, a colouring book containing affirmations meant to inspire children and adults alike.

For my book about the history of soulful resistance, I interviewed African Americans who participated in a civil rights movement or produced work that was deeply inspired by a 1960s protest ethic. Many noted their discomfort with the contemporary discourse of people who look like me.

Some associated it with an image-based and superficial culture. Others connected it to profiteers and schemers who appropriate collective struggles for personal or career advancement. All were convinced that getting individual people of colour into powerful positions was a means to tackle structural inequalities, not a goal in and of itself.

They were concerned that a smattering of new faces in slick, official forms of multiculturalism may distract or co-opt campaigns to challenge racial hierarchy and neo-colonialism wherever it may be in the world.

If we are to include the substantive contributions of African Americans in our discussion of an American soul, we cannot presume that this is limited to the mere inclusion of African Americans in a Biden cabinet that looks like America. After all, such visual diversity may divert people away from a Black political identity that is defined by mental attitude and consciousness rather than skin tone.

We may feel too fatigued to question who benefits from the discourse of people who look like us. But if we are to deepen and develop our understanding of the American soul, we cant ignore the seriously soulful campaigns in the 1960s that talked about building solidarity with people who feel like us and participate in the struggle for freedom and justice with us.

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Post-inauguration, restoring the soul of Bidens America must be truly inclusive - The Conversation CA

History teaches us that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was an African American Baptist minister who was the leader of the civil rights movement. He was known for advancing civil rights by conducting non-violent marches and protests not only for the advancement of African American people, but for all people. Due to the blatant inequalities related to blacks right to vote, desegregation, labor rights, and basic civil rights, King felt that peaceful, non-violent protests, movements, marches, etc. would be an effective way to get legislation passed, laws changed, and accomplishments recognized for those who had been oppressed for years. His 1963 I Have A Dream speech spoke volumes because in summary, he wanted freedom, justice, and equality for all.

Now lets move forward to the 21st century. It appears that the United States of America is experiencing and witnessing the same inequalities and injustices that Dr. King did. In 2013, the Black Lives Matter Movement surfaced after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African American Trayvon Martin. Since that time, Americans have witnessed the disproportionate death rate of black lives more than any other race. Over the past 5+ years, every time a group of African Americans decide to protest or rally behind a social injustice, they are met with guns, tear gas, shields, etc., and this is coming from those who are tasked to protect and serve us. The protests are meant to be peaceful, without violence, as Dr. King would have wanted. For the most part, the protesters are carrying signs and banners, which does not compare to the damage that can be caused by guns, bullets, or a billy club, which in most instances, is being carried out by law enforcement officials. Due to the number of African Americans (both males/females) that have lost their lives, the families are tired and dont know what else to do besides to march peacefully and protest to try to get laws changed and legislation enacted that will hold those responsible and accountable when they cause the death of someone, particularly someone who is not armed.

Civils Rights Movement. Black Lives Matter Movement. Two Different Centuries. Same Inequalities and Injustices.

Gamma Lambda Omega Chapter Reporter, Grace Thompson, Follow us next week for more information on Dr. Kings life. The Man, The Movement, The Message.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. The Man, The Movement, The Message - Brunswicktimes Gazette

The Punisher should challenge audiences.

Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) seems like he should have been a much better fit on the Netflix streaming shows than in the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. After all, the first seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones had demonstrated that Netflix could commit to a level of violence and a moral ambiguity befitting the complicated and controversial comic book character. Unfortunately, the characters appearances in Daredevil and The Punisher demonstrated a curious lack of commitment.

The Punisher has a complicated legacy. American military and police units unironically appropriate his iconography. This is unsettling as those organizations should exist to uphold the very values that Frank Castle has rejected. The Punisher is often the story of an angry man with a gun imposing his order on a world he believes to be broken subtext impossible to escape given his Netflix show premiered just a month and a half after the deadliest mass shooting in recent American history.

As with most comic book characters, Frank Castle was the product of a particular time and place. That time and place was New York in the 1970s. The antihero first appeared in an issue of The Amazing Spider-Man written by Gerry Conway and illustrated by John Romita Sr. and Ross Andru. The issue was cover-dated February 1974, arriving five months before the Manhattan-set vigilante thriller Death Wish hit cinemas. There was something in the consciousness.

The 1970s were a turbulent decade in America, following the end of the Vietnam War, the scandal of Watergate, and an economic recession. The decade was particularly turbulent for New York City. The city faced a fiscal crisis. Between 1969 and 1974, 500,000 manufacturing jobs disappeared. In October 1975, President Gerald Ford ruled out any federal bailout for the near-bankrupt city, prompting the New York Daily News to run the infamous headline, Ford to City: Drop Dead.

The New York of the mid-1970s was viewed as a city in a state of collapse. By 1974, murder and manslaughter rates were more than twice what theyd been in 1964. In 1975, a coalition of public-sector unions calling themselves the Council for Public Safety published a pamphlet distributed to tourists, titled Welcome to Fear City. There was a surge in civilian anti-crime activities, from civilian patrols to volunteer block watchers. Vigilantes like the Guardian Angels worked to keep the city safe.

This New York created the Punisher, a city that would almost tear itself apart towards the end of the decade. As Gerry Conway has acknowledged, the Punisher spoke to something in the zeitgeist. He contextualized his creation, You had Dirty Harry. Death Wish had come out as a book I think. There was a series of novels called The Executioner. The notion of the lone vigilante doing things that society couldnt do was kind of in the air. Frank Castle could be judge, jury, and executioner.

When Frank Castle first appeared in Netflixs Daredevil, the show initially seemed to understand this. He materializes in the second season premiere of Daredevil. The episode seems to take place in an odd time warp to the New York City of 1977, with news reports of a heat wave with no end in sight recalling the rising temperatures of that turbulent summer. A character remarks that the city is about to explode, recalling the unrest of that year.

Of course, times change. Crime rates in New York City are now closer to the 1950s than to the 1970s. Times Square has been reinvented as a tourist haven where the biggest crimes are the prices. These days, the suggestion of a gun-toting urban vigilante is less likely to conjure up Charles Bronson working his way through a series of increasingly depressing Death Wish sequels than it is to suggest controversial real-life cases like Bernie Goetz or George Zimmerman.

This is the push and pull of the Punisher. Many of the best creators to work with the character have understood the inherent paradox of Frank Castle the simultaneous revulsion and intrigue around the man who brutally murders criminals with no recourse to due process. Writers like Frank Miller, Garth Ennis, Jason Aaron, and Greg Rucka understand that Frank Castle should horrify audiences as much as he appeals to them: Frank Castle might kill monsters, but he also is a monster.

However, Daredevil and The Punisher are wary of the baggage that comes with the character. The shows are reluctant to let Frank Castle become the vigilante figure from the comics. The show tries to humanize Castle, to present him as less absolute and less ruthless. When Frank catches Turk (Rob Morgan) selling guns, he declines to execute the criminal. This is obviously because Turk is a character who recurs across the Netflix shows, but it also makes Frank less of a killing machine.

Daredevil and The Punisher push Frank Castle away from the urban crime that had defined the character for so much of his existence. In Daredevil, the murder of Franks family is reworked from a botched mob hit into a military conspiracy involving his former commanding officer, Colonel Ray Schoonover (Clancy Brown). In The Punisher, Billy Russo (Ben Barnes) is reimagined, transformed from a pulp mobster into a former brother in arms who served with Frank in Force Recon.

This shift narrows the scope of Franks rules of engagement, but it also misunderstands the horror of that origin. In the comics, the death of Frank Castles family was a freak accident, like the death of the Waynes. The world is arbitrary; it is impossible to impose order on the chaos. The world is so random that Frank could lose everything in a moment. In contrast, a conspiracy proves the opposite: Everything makes sense, everything fits together, everything is ordered.

In the comics, Franks origin story is a detail that perhaps explains the characters unending war on crime. Frank kills criminals in general, not just those tied to the murder of his family. As reimagined in Daredevil and The Punisher, Frank Castles traumatic origin becomes a singular drive. Frank isnt interested in criminals in general. Frank is driven to avenge his family, exposing a convoluted conspiracy that spans both the second season of Daredevil and the first season of The Punisher.

As a result, Franks arc in Daredevil and The Punisher feels much closer to the conspiracy thrills of 24 than it does to the brutal violence of Death Wish. It is a calculated move designed to make Frank more palatable to modern audiences. After all, viewers might balk at a brutal and unapologetic killing machine murdering his way through a city of strangers, but its easier to root for a character directly avenging the loss of his family.

The Netflix Marvel Universe consciously attempts to de-problematize Frank Castle. In doing so, it turns the character into a much more generic protagonist. However, Frank Castle should be problematic. The character should make audiences uncomfortable. He should challenge viewers, by asking them what they are comfortable with and why. The Punisher should be a bitter little pill that forces audiences to consider their attitude towards violence and whom they deem acceptable targets.

Many superhero stories are power fantasies. It is interesting to compare those fantasies against an angry man with a gun and to ask why that fantasy has such staying power when contrasted with billionaire industrialists, gods of thunder, and teenagers with the proportionate strength of an arachnid. The first season of Daredevil asked probing questions about masculinity, and Jessica Jones grappled with hefty themes of its own. This should have been the perfect forum to explore the Punisher.

Instead, Daredevil and The Punisher coated that bitter little pill in sugar and never looked inside.

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How Netflix Failed The Punisher - The Escapist

Freshly installed Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams will review his predecessors decision to not to prosecute a homicide case with facts that date back to 2013, when it received widespread local attention, an office spokesman said.More than seven years ago, New Orleans police arrested Marigny homeowner Merritt Landry after Landry allegedly shot 14-year-old Marshall Coulter in the head as Coulter trespassed on his property. The boy survived, and Landry was initially booked on a charge of attempted second-degree murder. Months later, then-DA Leon Cannizzaro declined to prosecute the case after a grand jury failed to reach a decision and Coulter faced new allegations of burglarizing homes. A development in the case came Feb. 27, 2020, when Coulter died at age 21. WDSU learned about his death after the NOPD recently provided its official list of homicides for last year. Coulter's case was included in the list.A spokesman for New Orleans Coroner Dwight McKennas office said the death was ruled a homicide in connection to the July 26, 2013, shooting. The coroners office lists the cause of death as complications of sinusitis and remote gunshot wound of the head, along with bacterial meningoencephalitis with subdural empyema.The NOPD also classified the death as a homicide and, according to DAs office spokesman Ken Daley, notified the Cannizzaro administration about the death during the fourth quarter of 2020, and submitted a report documenting the death on Dec. 14, 2020. Staff from Cannizzaros administration, including First Assistant District Attorney Graymond Martin and the homicide screening division, agreed the report provided no new evidence surrounding the 2013 shooting that warranted reopening the inquiry, Daley said in a statement on Thursday. The case against Mr. Landry was closed following a grand jurys decision not to indict Mr. Landry in connection with the shooting, and after Mr. Coulters subsequent 2014 arrests for additional burglary, attempted burglary and aggravated burglary accusations, Daley said. Landry's attorney, Roger Jordan, said Coulter's death should not trigger new charges. "This case was justifiable in 2013, its justifiable now. Facts dont change," Jordan told WDSU.The Marigny shooting involving a white homeowner and Black teenager occurred about seven months after George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. A jury acquitted Zimmerman for second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in July 2013.Martins death sparked the Black Lives Matter movement that gathered new momentum this past summer with the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and other Black people. Like the Martin shooting, the Coulter shooting tested the states stand-your-ground law and castle doctrine, which allow people to defend their homes and property.Daley said Williams administration will review Coulters homicide and the 2013 shooting file in the coming weeks. Should any different course of action be decided the public will be informed at the appropriate time, he said.

Freshly installed Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams will review his predecessors decision to not to prosecute a homicide case with facts that date back to 2013, when it received widespread local attention, an office spokesman said.

More than seven years ago, New Orleans police arrested Marigny homeowner Merritt Landry after Landry allegedly shot 14-year-old Marshall Coulter in the head as Coulter trespassed on his property. The boy survived, and Landry was initially booked on a charge of attempted second-degree murder.

Months later, then-DA Leon Cannizzaro declined to prosecute the case after a grand jury failed to reach a decision and Coulter faced new allegations of burglarizing homes.

A development in the case came Feb. 27, 2020, when Coulter died at age 21. WDSU learned about his death after the NOPD recently provided its official list of homicides for last year. Coulter's case was included in the list.

A spokesman for New Orleans Coroner Dwight McKennas office said the death was ruled a homicide in connection to the July 26, 2013, shooting. The coroners office lists the cause of death as complications of sinusitis and remote gunshot wound of the head, along with bacterial meningoencephalitis with subdural empyema.

The NOPD also classified the death as a homicide and, according to DAs office spokesman Ken Daley, notified the Cannizzaro administration about the death during the fourth quarter of 2020, and submitted a report documenting the death on Dec. 14, 2020. Staff from Cannizzaros administration, including First Assistant District Attorney Graymond Martin and the homicide screening division, agreed the report provided no new evidence surrounding the 2013 shooting that warranted reopening the inquiry, Daley said in a statement on Thursday.

The case against Mr. Landry was closed following a grand jurys decision not to indict Mr. Landry in connection with the shooting, and after Mr. Coulters subsequent 2014 arrests for additional burglary, attempted burglary and aggravated burglary accusations, Daley said.

Landry's attorney, Roger Jordan, said Coulter's death should not trigger new charges.

"This case was justifiable in 2013, its justifiable now. Facts dont change," Jordan told WDSU.

The Marigny shooting involving a white homeowner and Black teenager occurred about seven months after George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. A jury acquitted Zimmerman for second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in July 2013.

Martins death sparked the Black Lives Matter movement that gathered new momentum this past summer with the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and other Black people. Like the Martin shooting, the Coulter shooting tested the states stand-your-ground law and castle doctrine, which allow people to defend their homes and property.

Daley said Williams administration will review Coulters homicide and the 2013 shooting file in the coming weeks.

Should any different course of action be decided the public will be informed at the appropriate time, he said.

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New DA Jason Williams to review homicide in 2013 'stand your ground' case - WDSU New Orleans