LOS ANGELES -- Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and DeMarcus Cousins carries Dr. King's legacy with him closely. The Warriors center has MLK, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali tattooed on his right leg.
Cousins grew up in Alabama. That’s where four little girls were murdered by the KKK in a church bombing. That’s where Dr. King wrote his Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
“I appreciate what he preaches," Cousins said Sunday. "I’m not really a guy that gets caught up in color or race or anything like that. At the end of the day, we’re all the human beings race. I don’t think there’s any superior color. There’s no reason we can’t all get along.
"That’s basically what (MLK) was preaching. It’s not about black, white, blue, green. ... Just finding that peace and happiness from one another and getting along. We’re all born the same, and we all die the same.”
Cousins added this “getting along” idea must come with accountability and reconciling with racism in America.
“People want to move on ... but you also have to recognize the damage that’s already been done and the damage that’s been put in place now, the generations it’s affecting,” he explained. “Everyone wants to move on, but there’s some groundwork that needs to be done.”
Golden State Warriors
“We get a month,” Cousins half-laughed about Black History Month in February. “We’re still the minority race. We’re still struggling. There are still a lot of odds against us coming up. I don’t think there’s been a lot of accountability so far.”