CINCINNATI -- Amir Garrett appreciates that fans like his work as a baseball player. With the issue of racism in the forefront of the nation’s focus, Garrett is hoping the same people will like him even more as a human being who shows his feelings and emotions away from the field.

As an African American, Garrett is dismayed by recent events that include -- but are not limited to -- the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks, and the murder of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. On a Twitter message posted Tuesday, Garrett shared his feelings.

“I’ve been getting a lot of backlash because people just want me to get out there and play baseball and keep what is going on in the world out of the sport,” Garrett wrote. “They value me as an athlete but not as a person. This is where the problem starts. As an athlete, we must have a platform. We have a voice that a lot of others don’t. And at this time, I will use my voice. I will use my platform in sports to bring awareness to what is going wrong with our country.

“If I were to just sit back and continue to just ‘play,’ I’d be a part of the problem. I want to be a part of the solution.”

The message received a lot of shares and traction throughout the social media platform.

On June 19, during the Juneteenth holiday, Garrett was part of a panel of current and former Reds who participated in an online forum series about racism, social justice and police reform called “Share the Truth: Reds talk to Youth about Race.”

“After I watched the video of George Floyd, I think that really put me over the top as far as what’s been going on for so long,” Garrett said during the forum. “At that moment I realized we can’t do this anymore. We just can’t turn our shoulders and sweep it under the rug.

“It’s definitely been hard for me. I know it’s hard for a lot of African Americans. I just want change in this world. It comes down to being a human being. George Floyd was a human being. The cop that did that to him didn’t look at him as a human being.”

The panel also featured Hall of Famer Barry Larkin, former outfielder Eric Davis, first-base coach Delino DeShields and outfielder Jesse Winker. The program was hosted by Brian Giesenschlag from Fox Sports Ohio and can be found on reds.com/Unity.

“We’re definitely not pointing fingers at anybody,” DeShields said. “There are good cops out here, just like there’s a lot of bad cops. That’s first and foremost. I’m not attacking anyone. But my main thing through all of this, this isn’t a new conversation. Especially in the African American community, we’ve been dealing with this way, way too long. For me, it all comes back to education. The more a person is educated, it will allow them to make better decisions. That’s going to allow them to value human life and look at people in a way that makes sense.”

Larkin, who grew up in Cincinnati and played 19 seasons for his hometown team, has experienced racism often. The most infamous experiences were the bigoted public and private comments made by the team’s owner during his playing days, the late Marge Schott.

During her tenure, Schott used slurs against African Americans as well as Jewish and Japanese people. She also made statements of support for Nazism, which resulted in a two-year suspension by Major League Baseball (1996-98). She was forced to sell the Reds in 1999.

The Reds’ former team captain, Larkin often was forced to publicly react to Schott’s comments, and he felt African Americans were on their own to combat racism. Now he feels the beginning of a real change.

“We’ve been protesting against social injustice for many, many years. But it was us who was protesting,” Larkin said. “It was Black folk that were protesting. Now it’s a united front. It’s all ethnicities. It’s women. It’s men. It’s the LGBTQ community. I’m encouraged about what I’m seeing. We’re even seeing some political movement as well.”