Former Raven Ray Lewis took to his social media channels over the weekend, posting emotional videos on Facebook and Twitter calling for an end to black-on-black crime.
Lewis spoke out on the escalating murder rate in Chicago, asking why the Black Lives Matter movement wasn't protesting that.
"I'm trying to figure out if black lives really matter. I'm trying to ask the question to the organization of black lives, if they really mattered, then why not riot now?" Lewis asked. "Every day, we have black on black crime, killing each other."
We Must Change What We Are Doingmy heart is hurting - we must do better
Posted by Ray Lewis on Saturday, April 2, 2016
As of Thursday, Lewis' Facebook video had been viewed 3.7 million times and shared more than 80,000 times.
The ex-football player posted an abbreviated video on Twitter, asking the same questions.
"I know black lives matter because I'm a black man," Lewis said. "But man, stop killing each other."
#putThesegunsdownChicago pic.twitter.com/Esq9opX7Kk
— Ray Lewis (@raylewis) April 2, 2016
Not everyone agreed with the nature of his message. David Steele, an NFL writer for Sporting News and a former Baltimore Sun reporter, called Lewis "tragically misinformed."
"If Lewis ... really thinks "nobody" is trying to stop crime in cities like Baltimore and Chicago, somebody has been lying to him," Steele wrote in a piece posted online Wednesday.
In the days after the riots last year, Lewis took to social media to admonish teens who participated in the violence.
“Young kids you got to understand something – get off the streets!” Lewis said then. “Violence is not the answer. Violence has never been the answer. … Freddie Gray, we don’t nothing for him doing this. We know there is a deeper issue. We know what the jungle looks like.”
RELATED: Ray Lewis tells kids to get off the streets, end rioting in Baltimore
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