Athletes and Politics

Whenever my mom would see an athlete or actor publicly speak out on politics or other large social issues/controversies, she always had something to say about it, like "they don't know what they're talking about. They're going to let some stupid, uninformed athlete/actor speak our just because they're famous." Whenever I heard this is made me extremely agitated. It sounds corny, but famous people are people too. Granted they may use their professional appeal to gain more coverage on their viewpoints, but they care about issues just as much or just as less as the rest of Americans. Not every athlete is going to speak out, but I feel that if they are going to all the trouble to speak out about a topic, it is important to listen. It is clearly important to them.. let's face, no one is going to go on national television being uninformed with the intention of pissing people off or making a complete embarrassment of themselves. I think it's important to listen to these people when they speak out. They are trying to use their nationally and possibly world-known appeal to reach out to people to get involved or take a stand on certain issues; maybe even to simply generate some emotion or thought on certain issues. I agree that people shouldn't speak out on topics they know very little about, but if they are informed and approach the situation in a non-threatening way they should have all the right to speak out on issues that matter to them, no matter how small or large the issue may be.