In the wake of the July 7 sniper attack in Dallas in which an Army veteran killed five police officers during a protest over police violence against African Americans, New York Knicks star Carmelo Anthony admitted that he toiled over what to say and do.

That shooting came after men in Louisiana and Minnesota were shot and killed by cops earlier in the week. On July 8, Anthony posted this to his Instagram account:

Anthony is still not sure what role he has in a national epidemic, but the 32-year-old Brooklyn native and former Baltimore resident believes that athletes have influence and therefore some responsibility to stand up.

In an essay published on Wednesday in The Guardian,Anthony writes, “Hashtags won’t solve the endless cycle of violence that’s engulfed America.” As for what to do going forward:

In three weeks I’ll travel to Rio with the United States’ Olympic team to perform on a global stage. I haven’t spoken with my teammates yet about the opportunity before us and how we can take advantage of it, because at the end of the day I want it to be genuine. If you don’t feel like you want to make a statement or make a stand, then don’t do it. You shouldn’t feel forced to do it. You have to want to do that. For me, I do feel like this is a platform where we should – we as athletes, we as Americans – use it for something. Whether we make a statement out there or send a message, we can show the world that we’re united. Whatever way we want to do it, this is a chance to do something meaningful before an audience of billions. I don’t know what that something is yet, but we still have time to figure it out.

But how can we make a change back home? You can start off small. If everybody just focuses on their own community, then we’re making progress. We can’t try to solve all the issues at once. We’ve just got to zero in on our own individual communities and once we build that up and that becomes stronger, then I think everything will settle down and be cool again. There needs to be a mutual respect from both sides: between the police officers and the people in the streets. We have to reintroduce that respect factor into our local communities because there’s no respect from either side anymore.

Last April Anthony marched in protests in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray, who died as a result of spinal injuries suffered while in police custody.

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