Commentary: Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren's anti-hate and anti-racism mission inspires the question — what can we do?

What can we do?

It's what I'm asking myself after being inspired by the message from ESPN analyst and former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho, who asked those who look like me to "let down your guard and listen."

Tuesday started with "Blackout Tuesday" compelling us to post a black square on Instagram in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I posted mine with a quote from former President Barack Obama: "Change happens typically not because somebody on high decides that it's going to happen, but rather because at a grassroots level enough people come together that they force the system to change."

Then I spoke with Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren, the most substantive man I know. He told me of a harrowing traffic stop near the Wisconsin-Minnesota border while he and fellow Vikings executives Steve Poppen and Trish Huizinga were en route to a funeral for the father of a colleague in 2014.

Poppen and Huizinga are white. Warren is the first African American commissioner of a Power Five conference. Poppen was driving. Warren sat in the back doing paperwork, a pile of legal documents on his lap. All were formally dressed.

A Wisconsin trooper pulled them over for "allegedly speeding," Warren said. "One officer came to the driver's side, to Steve. Another came to the passenger side and stared at me in the back seat with his hand on his gun. This young officer was shaking with one hand on the holster. The car was registered to me, and he couldn't understand that we work together and why Steve was driving a black man's car."

All three were asked to produce their driver's licenses. When those "15 minutes of fear" ended, Warren told his colleagues, "Now you understand."

"I said, 'Had one of you made a quick move, dropped your cellphone or screamed an utterance, even accidentally, we all could have died,' " Warren said. "As a people we need to recognize this is happening every day. We are fighting for the survival of our country."

What can we do?

The Warren family is donating $100,000 to a civil rights organization in Washington. And as Big Ten commissioner, Warren is creating an Anti-Hate and Anti-Racism Coalition because, as he stated in an open letter, "our children and future generations deserve better."

Its wide-ranging goals include increasing voter registration, providing opportunities to write legislation that combats racism and hate and bridging the divide between the African American community and law enforcement.

"I'm so respectful of our law enforcement," Warren said, "because they have incredibly difficult jobs."

Warren tries to make their jobs easier _ and save his own life _ with this protocol: He leaves his briefcase and wallet in the trunk before entering his car. When stopped by police, he responds politely while leaving his hands on the steering wheel. If officers ask for his license and registration, he offers to retrieve them, rather than having to reach in the glove compartment. If he does that, he might get shot.

This is America in 2020.

I asked Warren if he was surprised by the video of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, hand in pocket, knee on neck, preventing George Floyd from breathing. He was not.

"Issues with law enforcement have been going on for hundreds of years," he said.

I asked Warren if he recalled what transpired on Sept. 24, 2016, when three Nebraska football players kneeled during the national anthem before a game at Northwestern's Ryan Field. Warren did.

Afterward one of the players, Michael Rose-Ivey, explained his motivation: "We must have accountability, we must have understanding, we must have love, but we must also have genuine dialogue that finds genuine solutions and demands genuine actions."

Wow. You might imagine white people would have heard that and responded: Thank you for those powerful words and for bringing this to our attention. How can we help?

Instead some responded on social media that the players should be lynched. The governor of Nebraska called the players' silent protest "disgraceful and disrespectful."

The governor in 2016 is the governor in 2020. His name is Pete Ricketts.

He is disgraceful. Disrespectful too.

Ricketts again revealed who he is during a meeting Monday with black pastors and other community leaders to discuss the weekend shooting death of James Spurlock, a 22-year-old black man, by a white bar owner in Omaha during protests over the Floyd killing.

The attorney general of Douglas County has decided not to pursue charges in Spurlock's killing.

Pastor Jarrod Parker of St. Mark's Baptist Church met with Ricketts and reported this: "Pete Ricketts said, 'The problem I have with you people ...' Did you hear what I just said? Gov. Ricketts said, 'The problem I have with you people.' And ladies and gentlemen, I walked out of the police chief's office. ... He called black pastors and black leaders in Omaha 'you people,' and I walked out on him.

"That's why the city is going to go up in flames, Mrs. Mayor and Mr. (police) chief. You're not listening, and you can't listen because at the top of the state is a racist governor."

Pete Ricketts, who apologized after Parker's video was released, is the oldest son of Joe Ricketts, whose racist and Islamophobic emails were exposed in 2019. He is the older brother of Tom Ricketts, the well-meaning chairman of the Cubs; Laura Ricketts, an attorney and LGBTQ activist in Chicago; and Todd Ricketts, a Cubs co-owner.

Todd is also an adviser to President Donald Trump and the finance chair of the Republican National Committee. Last summer he used Wrigley Field during a two-day retreat to help fund Trump's re-election campaign.

Cubs President Theo Epstein, in an interview on WSCR-AM 670, excused it because "I've hosted events here, too, on the other side of the political spectrum."

Maybe that's enough to satisfy you. It's not enough for me.

Todd Ricketts is raising money to re-elect a president with a 47-year history of racism, including calling for the execution of five young black men who eventually were exonerated in the rape of a white woman in Central Park. Watch the Netflix series "When They See Us" to understand what transpired and how the mothers of those five felt when Trump called for the state to kill their innocent sons.

I ask again: What can we do?

Here's one thing: Vote.

Vote with your ballot on Election Day. And when Wrigley Field reopens, consider voting with your pocketbook, as some Cubs fans have.

"I'm a die hard Cubs fan but I only go to Milwaukee to see them," @IKare1 tweeted Tuesday. "I refuse to give my $$ to Ricketts."

Golf writer Alex Miceli has been going to Cubs games, as he put it, since the Don Kessinger/Glenn Beckert era. His Twitter header is a photoshopped picture he took of Wrigley Field. His profile picture is an image of the Wrigley marquee. No one loves the Cubs more than Miceli, who lives in Virginia but flies in to watch about 20 games a season.

The Ricketts family tie-in to Trump, he said, gives him "pause" in regard to returning to the ballpark.

"People like the Rickettses have a lot of pull," he said. "I'd ask them: What are you doing? Who are you supporting? I'm a Democrat, but I admire Mitt Romney. That is the same thing I'd want to see from the owner of my favorite team."

So I ask: What will you do?