Last Saturday, as the Star Spangled banner echoed across the basketball court, one man stood on the end of the line, two feed behind all the other players, in protest.

This is David West, a Golden State Warriors player, he isn’t the latest athlete to join a movement, he has been protesting the Anthem for years, years before Colin Kaepernick made headlines and exploded the movement.

West’s silent protest has gone unnoticed over the years and he continues despite growing older, wiser and wearier. Now, Kaepernick’s stance has brought a small spotlight on West and the protest he says goes “a lot deeper” than just racial injustice.

Talking with TheUndefeated.com West explained,

“What about education? What about infant mortality? How about how we die younger and our babies die sooner?” power forward West told The Undefeated after the Warriors’ 97-93 preseason loss to the Toronto Raptors in Vancouver, British Columbia. “We die. [Black men] have the shortest life expectancy. C’mon, man. The health care system? There are so many [issues]. It’s like, whatever …

“I can’t start talking about civic issues. I can’t start talking about civility and being a citizen if m—–f—— don’t even think I’m a human being. How can you talk about progress and how humans interrelate with one another when you don’t even recognize our humanity? We got to somehow get that straight first so we’re on the same playing field. And that’s how I feel. There is just a lot of stuff, man.”

He went onto say,

“What he is doing is great, but I think it’s going to pass, too,” West said. “I’m not as optimistic about everything as everyone always seems to be. I don’t wear it on my sleeve like I used to. I’ve gotten older and a little bit more mature in terms of my thinking. But I understand human rights issues.

“Until you handle humanity, how do you get to talking about mass incarceration? How do you get to talk about our undereducated kids? How do we get to the health care system? How do we get to all that and you don’t even think I’m a human?”

West continues his protest but says that he concentrates more on communituy action, he regularly goes to juvenile detention centers to talk with the troubled kids and also spends his hard earned wages going to Africa.

He says he is,

“a part of grassroots organizations. I’m about getting outside of this celebrity. Letting people get a real perspective. It’s not just about the corrupt police inside what is supposed to be a serve and protect system. That’s only a small piece of it.”

You have to have respect for this, personally I think there is a lot to gain from Colin’s focus but what West is doing has an absolutely equal and long lasting place in bettering the world.

Respect to West.

Read more in The Undefeated here.