Packers RB Aaron Jones Drops Powerful Response to Racial Tensions in New Players' Tribune Article

Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones reminisced this week about conversations he had with his father about how he would have to "work just a little bit harder, and be just a little bit nicer, to be treated like a human being." As unbelievable as it is that African-American men in the new millennium still have to have these conversations, it is an ever-present reality that Black America has to deal with.

And Jones has finally had enough of it.

Jones penned a column in "The Players' Tribune" in which he dreams of a country in which he doesn't need to harbor the same fears his father had for him and his brother.

Jones, who totaled 1,558 yards from scrimmage and an NFL-best 19 touchdowns last season, hopes that the killing of George Floyd and the recent wave of protests across the country can gradually begin to chip away at the concepts of racism and bigotry in this country.

Jones' fears are shared by many other prominent athletes, and he is not alone in hoping that these protests cause substantial change down the road rather than just a few minor things here and there to placate the aggrieved parties in the short-term.

Jones laments the fact that as an African-American man, he and his family had to have conversations about how to behave that white families simply are not forced to. Given the recent wave of societal reforms on both larger and smaller scales across the country in the name of racial equality and justice, Jones' vision of an America in which he does not have to have these same talks with his children is at least a little closer to being realized.