Bears OLB Robert Quinn: What’s taken so long for America to address racial inequality?

When the Bears signed outside linebacker Robert Quinn a few months ago, they landed not only one of the best pass rushers of his era, but also one of the NFL’s most socially conscious and outspoken players.

And while he’s glad to see that racial inequality and police brutality are dominating discussions around the country and within his team, he’s dumbfounded that it took this long.

The latest wave of the movement was ignited when George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer last month, but there were similar killings around the time Colin Kaepernick started protesting in 2016 and countless injustices against black people throughout history.

“We’re still protesting and arguing about the same thing,” Quinn said Thursday. “I look at myself in the mirror every day, and I see people like me being harassed for absolutely no reason. So the simple fact that now for whatever reason the message is trying to be, I guess, more pushed, it’s very frustrating because there have been so many lives lost through the years that people have just swept under the rug.

“When [Kaepernick’s protest] first started, it’s still the same message that we’re protesting today. I’m so confused on why it has taken so long. If you want to be honest with American history, it shouldn’t surprise me, either. It’s something we’ve been doing since America started, been trying to fight for our rights and our equality.”

Quinn was one of many players to join Kaepernick by demonstrating during the national anthem the last few years.

He did not kneel like Kaepernick but raised a fist while playing for the Rams and Dolphins before being traded to the Cowboys a year ago. He explained in 2018 that his message was “unity” and to “bring heaven on earth,” meaning equality.

He stopped demonstrating last season because he “came to peace of mind” and didn’t want to jeopardize his career. He said Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’ stance against protests during the anthem wasn’t a factor.

Quinn is still contemplating what he’ll do this season. Several other Bears said the same thing over the last two weeks, and coach Matt Nagy hopes the players will agree on something to do in unison. New safety Jordan Lucas is the only one who has said for certain he will kneel, which would make him the franchise’s first player to do so.

The whole conversation seemed discouraging to Quinn for several reasons. It hurt him that he had to choose between taking a stand and protecting his income, it’s maddening that player protests continue to be misrepresented as unpatriotic and he hasn’t seen much change in the last four years.

“Kaepernick lost his job, and people said he was disrespecting the flag and completely ignored the message of police brutality and people being mistreated,” Quinn said. “We’re here today having the same discussion. . . . Shouldn’t that be just a slap in the face? Were people just purposely ignoring it or don’t want to accept it or just realized it’s not affecting them, so they don’t really care?

“Everyone can look at the same picture, but it’s all going to be through a different lens, and everyone’s going to see it differently. Kaepernick started his kneeling [to protest] police brutality, which is still going on today. And he lost his job back then. And now, they’re saying he should have his job back because there’s still police brutality.

“Do you see how crazy that sounds? Either I’m going crazy or I’m just misreading the whole situation.”

Quinn, 30, figures to be one of the team’s most prominent players on and off the field this season. Football-wise, he’s coming off a bounce-back season of 11½ sacks with the Cowboys, and the Bears are hoping he, Khalil Mack and Akiem Hicks can re-establish their pass rush as the best in the league.