Michael Bennett wants you to take him seriously. Not just seriously in the way that offenses take him, an imposing defensive end who made the Pro Bowl in each of his last three seasons playing for the Seattle Seahawks. (He was traded to the Philadelphia Eagles this offseason.) But seriously in the way we've struggled to take athletes in the past, trying in vain to maintain the increasingly shaky separation between the Church of Sports and the State of Politics. If that wall was already crumbling before Colin Kaepernick and Donald Trump, it lay in ruins after. Sticking to sports is no longer a thing. Nor should it be. And if athletics and activism have drawn ever closer, guys like Bennett are a big reason why. He has also—perhaps not so unexpectedly given that outspokenness—become something of a lightning rod.

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He was one of the more vocal and visible defenders of Kaepernick. He was detained outside a Las Vegas nightclub during what police believed to be an active shooting, an incident in which he says the cops used excessive force and racially profiled him (after an internal investigation, the Las Vegas Police Department disagreed with his claims). He was indicted in an alleged assault of a 66-year-old woman while cheering on his brother at Super Bowl LI in Houston (“He just flat-out didn’t do it,” his lawyer has said). And just this summer, he released a book—Things That Make White People Uncomfortable—calling for more empathy, compassion, and humanity among us all.

In conversation, the 6-foot-4, 274-pounder speaks gently, making sure each word lands with its intended weight. Here, he sounds off on everything from childhood antics—breaking bunk beds and driving go-karts to Taco Bell—to whether or not a gay player might be accepted in an NFL locker room.

GQ: There’s a story in the book about you and Martellus breaking your bunk beds. How'd that happen?

Michael Bennett: We were too heavy, first of all. I don't know why we had bunk beds. We tried to ask my mom this question: "Why do you have two six-foot people on bunk beds? And why is Martellus, the heaviest, on top?" We loved WWF. We thought we were Owen Hart and Bret Hart, and Ultimate Warrior, jumping off the top rope. Then finally the bed just couldn't take it anymore.

What age were you when it broke?

Shamefully, thirteen.

And you used to drive to Taco Bell in your go-kart? Did you get in trouble for that?

We definitely got in trouble for that. My mom was like, "Why are y'all on the highway with a go-kart?" That go-kart was a sign of freedom for us—put 50 cents worth of gas and you can get a lot of places. So that go-kart was everything to me and my brother until: there was this old guy on the road, on his little bike track, and it was either run into this wall or run into this man. I chose to run into the wall and I broke the axle. I don't think my brother ever forgave me for that. That's how my parents found out that we were out on the highways with it.

Were people on the highway looking at you like "Why are these boys driving a go-kart on the highway?"

Everybody was looking at us. We didn't have blinkers so we were using our hands, signaling where we were going. Actually I think that was pretty dumb, now that I think about it. Like, seriously, Highway 6. And Highway 6 is a busy road.

You have a line in there where you talk about how your mom made you ask "why" all the time. One of the questions you had for her was, "Why is there hate in this world?" When did you first become conscious of that?

I think it was the James Byrd incident.* I think that's when I kinda realized: why do people hate people? That's when I started questioning: are we born evil and taught to be good? Why do people have so much hate for things that they don't understand? Why isn't there any compassion for people? I still don't understand it. I thought by 35 I would understand it, but the more and more that I live, the less and less that I understand it.

*Ed Note: James Byrd, a black man, was murdered in 1998 by three white supremacists, who dragged him, still conscious, behind their truck for nearly three miles.

If your daughters were to ask you those questions, how would you begin to try to explain it?

I would try to tell them that the world lacks empathy and vision. But that you have a choice to value people for being people. I can't tell you why everybody does that, but at least that you have a choice to have empathy for people, to be compassionate, to change everybody's world that you're involved in. And if you can take care of you, one person, and you keep talking to other people and helping them change their perspective, I think you'll have a big reach. But ultimately, all I can really say is the world lacks empathy. We don't really care about things that don't directly affect us.

What's the hardest part of raising three kids* right now?

How do you raise a child in a world that lacks empathy and compassion? With the Instagram, and the self-gratification and the selfishness, how do you teach a person to be selfless when the world is selfish? People who have the most, give the least. Also, teaching them that they matter, in a world that shows them that they don't matter.

*Ed Note: Bennett has three daughters, aged 11, 7, and 4.

In the book you talk about how people just want you to play football and not really be yourself. How did you come to a place where you became confident in being yourself?

I think I always had a sense of being myself. I grew up with a lot of people who if your breath stinks, they'd tell you your breath stinks. And I think the older you get, the less you start to care about the perception of what people think. In a world where everything is built on perception, you have to start slowly by pulling yourself off of it.

How much of the noise do you hear?

I don't think you can hear the noise, because there's so much noise. Three years ago, there was no noise. Four years ago, there was no noise. We won championships, we argued about coaches, we did all kinds of stuff, there was no noise. The noise only came when we started talking about political things. Before that it was just like, "These guys are joking." It wasn't 'til the world started to listen that it became a problem.

"If I was to do something stupid like take a shit on the goddamn McDonald's porch, everybody'd be like, 'Can you come on our show and tell us why you took a shit?' It's almost like you gotta do something so stupid so people can listen to you."

That's interesting, because I was rereading the Mina Kimes' story about you and your brother in ESPN, and it felt like that was a very different time and it was only two years ago. You guys were talking about other players in the league and having a little fun trash talking. Now, it feels like everywhere you go, people want to just be like, "What do you think about Kaepernick?"

I say that all the time. It's like you almost get put in a box. I try to be like, "It's not always about those things." I love to joke, I love to be fun, but it seems like because you have a voice and people want you to speak on all these things, but sometimes I want to talk about the latest Dave Chappelle and stuff like that.

Talking about Kaepernick does get old. Because that's where people want to keep it. Things have evolved since 2016. New things are happening, new people are moving, there's new young people who are doing things first. Not that there's discredit to the people in the past, but it's still people doing stuff that's relevant to now. And I do think a lot of times people try to keep you in a bubble like that.

It also feels like back then you could joke and also be serious. And now it feels like if you're joking, people will use that as a way to undermine your seriousness, right?

Exactly. The first thing when I sit down: "So what do you think about the new NFL policy?" I’m like, I just don't know what the fuck tell you. People say, "So would you go to the White House?" And I'm like, "Yeah, we'll go." And they're like, "Why? You love Trump." No, I don't love Trump. I love the opportunity to be able to change the world, to have dialogue with somebody. So it's like you are put into a box and that's the thing you got to be careful of.

I do feel like brands, or TV shows—like the Today Show or Jimmy Fallon or Seth Meyers, all these other people—they bring people on there to talk about some bullshit a lot of the times. And here I am with a book that's talking about intersectionality, something that's super important to the world—it's not just about blacks, it's not just about whites, it's about all people—and they don't want to listen. But if I was to do something stupid like take a shit on the goddamn McDonald's porch, everybody'd be like, "Can you come on our show and tell us why you took a shit?" It's almost like you gotta do something so stupid so people can listen to you. It's sad, but that's the way the world is going.

Why do you think that is?

People don't want to respect you as an intellectual. If I was not playing football and I was an intellectual, then people would want to have a conversation with me. But because I'm all those things, people can't understand, like, "Why is he compassionate? How does he play football and still be a father to his daughters?" So it's hard for people to understand how certain people are when a group of people have been a certain way for a long period of time.

The public's unwillingness to see you as intellectuals, how much of that do you think is rooted in a "dumb athlete" thing?

Trying to get people to accept us as intellectuals, I think that's a far reach. But to get people just to recognize us as human, I think that's the first step that we need to do. Because as an athlete you're always dehumanized. Guys who have never even played football or played basketball or played baseball, they'll tell you how easy the other person's job is. "He's not injured, he could play through this." The person doesn't have any value. They're not like, "Hey, Joseph Smith is a father, husband. What if he does have a concussion? Should he skip? Because he might want to play with his daughter when he's 35." Nobody gives a fuck. It's like, “Why give a fuck? I don't know him personally. He needs to get his hundred yards so I can get my ten [fantasy] points and be cool.”

Do you think it's worse in the NFL because it's such a violent sport, so it's sort of dehumanizing?

I think it's worse in the NFL because there aren't guaranteed contracts so guys don't have the same voices like the NBA when the eighth person on the bench has a five-year, $75 million contract. It's like "I pulled my hamstring and I'm not playing for three weeks." You don't have that choice in the NFL. You have no choice but to do it, or they're going to find someone else to do it. So it's like they have so much more power and I think the fans realize that, and they're just like "Just move on. Next guy."

I know you've been asked about it a ton, but I want to ask you about the Las Vegas incident.

Yeah. I’m tired of talking about that.

I don't want to rehash it. But we talked about the culture and the climate today, how things blow up. And it did sort of go viral. So I’m more curious what it was like for the first few days after that. Obviously, I imagine it was unbelievably personally traumatic—

It was super traumatic. It was a form of PTSD. It was hard to sleep, it was so real. A lot of people don't connect to the black experience when it comes to that. Nobody connected to me as a human, nobody connected to me as a father or a son.

How do you explain something like that to your daughters?

It was an emotional thing for my daughter, because she was trying to understand. "What does that mean? I don't get it.” Trying to break down the world to your child, and basically tell her that Santa Claus isn't real or Christmas isn't real. There's a real world out there and you try to shield your kids from it, but sometimes you can't shield them from the truth.

How did you explain it to her?

Exactly like that, over dinner. Everybody was crying.

How did she respond?

She cried. First thing she sees is her father. She just sees a person who cares about her that could be taken away. For her, that's a lot. I think for her it's like, "Why? My dad does so much for everybody." Or, "My family does so much for the community." That was her thought process. "We could work with kids, and work with people, and do all this stuff, and we still can be touched by that?"

For her, it was the realization of something. I think it was almost like her eyes were awakened to the world. I wasn't ready for that to happen to her. I wanted to keep her a young, innocent adolescent for as long as I could.

What's a way that the NFL could go about helping their players be seen as more human?

I don't know. When somebody posts something wearing a jersey you might get 60,000 likes. If somebody posts something about their family it's like, “Move on.” People don't recognize those parts of people. They only associate them for being one thing, but everybody is multiple things. Why do athletes only get seen for one compartment of their life? When we take chances and risks to be human and share ourselves and our vulnerability, people shouldn't judge.

That's the real reason why I think that a player hasn't came out as gay or something like that. Especially in the NFL, people see these players as a certain way and as soon as that person comes out they're gonna be like, "Well, he's weak." But people don't look at the strength that person has to share to the world who they are, how they had to hide it.

But, why should we care about somebody's sexual orientation? As long as that person is a great teammate. We talked about Kaepernick. We see what happened to Kaepernick, but it's almost like what happened to Michael Sam? It just kind of went away. People weren't ready for it. As much as people say they say they were progressive, I don't feel like people were progressive enough. Everybody supported it for a day, but then it was like, nobody fought for him to survive in the NFL. But, I do think if people are allowed to be seen as human, people will take bigger steps to share themselves.

How do you think a gay player would be received in the locker room?

For me, personally, I don't think it would be an issue for me. I think a lot of guys don't care. At the same time, it’s like: Can he run the ball? We accept people for whatever they do. I accept people who have had police records. We accept all types of things that we feel are social norms, but the things that people disagree with it's like, why is this the one thing that we can't let go? There’s players who rape people and they're still in the NFL. I mean, they’ve been accused.

To your point about not accepting that people are multiple things: someone like LeBron, I feel like he is a little bit more accepted as occupying different roles.

It's not that he's accepted. He's forcing that. He's forcing you to accept him as a person. He's forcing you, because he's breaking down so many barriers that at some point you can't get away from him. Other than Michael Jordan, he was the only person who was getting equity in every single thing that he started to do.

Jordan was never big into activism. How much of an obligation do you think people who do have a platform now have to speak out?

For people to say that athletes are the ones who have to talk about things, I feel like it's unfair. I feel like we all have to talk about issues. If we all talk about it, that's when things change. If LeBron James brings up immigration, that's not gonna be the reason why it changes. If a football player brings up police brutality, that's not gonna be the reason why it changes. Until everybody comes together and says, "Hey, I want to make this change." That's when it starts to happen.

How much would it help if Tom Brady started coming out and saying these things?

Well, obviously if Tom Brady or anybody else of his status started to say anything—I feel like Aaron Rodgers was trying to articulate his message this year. He's walking in a place where it was uncomfortable, but he was still trying.

How much of it is a status thing and how much is a race thing? Would it help a lot if white people players chimed in?

Obviously. Yeah. Of course, but there's a lot of white players who are doing great things. They are breaking down barriers when talking about race and finding ways to talk about issues that are happening, but it takes a collective group of players as a team. Not just taking the field as a team for winning a championship, but taking the field together to change the world regardless of our color. I think it's important that we have the other players come in and talk about issues too.

This interview has been edited and condensed.