It makes absolutely no sense for players to be protesting during the anthem anymore (not sure if it ever did, but that’s another discussion). It's not only counterproductive to the supposed cause but downright harmful to both the sport and black communities who as a result are further alienated.
You know what else alienates the Black community? Seeing their sons, daughters, fathers and mothers, children and grandchildren killed by cops who are not punished for killing them. That alienates them a fuck ton more than seeing a brutha take a knee during a meaningless football game.
Even if Colin Kaepernick intended to protest against police brutality, players have to recognize that the conversation has been hijacked. It's now a matter of the anthem, the flag, the military and so forth. Whether they like it or not, future protests will not further the discussion about police brutality. That ship has sailed and any player who does not recognize it is, frankly, dumb or remarkably uninformed.
Eric Reid is neither dumb nor uniformed. Or are you assuming he is because he's a Black football player? Or was, before the NFL blackballed him the same way they did his former teammate. Reid is still Black, but no longer a professional football player.
In early 2016, I began paying attention to reports about the incredible number of unarmed black people being killed by the police. The posts on social media deeply disturbed me, but one in particular brought me to tears: the killing of Alton Sterling in my hometown Baton Rouge, La. This could have happened to any of my family members who still live in the area. I felt furious, hurt and hopeless. I wanted to do something, but didn’t know what or how to do it. All I knew for sure is that I wanted it to be as respectful as possible.
A few weeks later, during preseason, my teammate Colin Kaepernick chose to sit on the bench during the national anthem to protest police brutality. To be honest, I didn’t notice at the time, and neither did the news media. It wasn’t until after our third preseason game on Aug. 26, 2016, that his protest gained national attention, and the backlash against him began.
That’s when my faith moved me to take action. I looked to James 2:17, which states, “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” I knew I needed to stand up for what is right.
I approached Colin the Saturday before our next game to discuss how I could get involved with the cause but also how we could make a more powerful and positive impact on the social justice movement. We spoke at length about many of the issues that face our community, including systemic oppression against people of color, police brutality and the criminal justice system. We also discussed how we could use our platform, provided to us by being professional athletes in the N.F.L., to speak for those who are voiceless.
After hours of careful consideration, and even a visit from Nate Boyer, a retired Green Beret and former N.F.L. player, we came to the conclusion that
we should kneel, rather than sit, the next day during the anthem as a peaceful protest. We chose to kneel because it’s a respectful gesture. I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy.
It baffles me that our protest is still being misconstrued as disrespectful to the country, flag and military personnel. We chose it because it’s exactly the opposite. It has always been my understanding that the brave men and women who fought and died for our country did so to ensure that we could live in a fair and free society, which includes the right to speak out in protest.
It should go without saying that I love my country and I’m proud to be an American. But, to quote James Baldwin, “exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.”
I refuse to be one of those people who watches injustices yet does nothing. I want to be a man my children and children’s children can be proud of, someone who faced adversity and tried to make a positive impact on the world, a person who, 50 years from now, is remembered for standing for what was right, even though it was not the popular or easy choice.
As a 49ers fan, I loved what Reid and Kaepernick did for my team on the playing field. Now that the NFL has turned its back on them, I love even more the brave men they are by what they have done off the playing field.
Loading Bot said:
The NFL is a TV-show, it’s entertainment. As such the costumer/fans indirectly decide. The NFL feels like their product is being damaged by the protests, which it is according to polls, as such they have every right to cater to their customers. Players have a right to protest, but freedom is a two way street. If their employer feels like it goes against a mandatory code of conduct, then I'm sorry. No protesting. Players are free to create their own league where they make their own rules if they want to.
Polls that are not cited are polls that exist only in your imagination, LoadingBot. As a new participant to this forum, you should know, "because I say so" scores no points for you in these debates. Provide some evidence that the NFL feels like their product is being damaged by the protests, because I'm happy to provide evidence that is is not.
Additionally, the NFL had no rule about taking a knee or raising a fist during the national anthem. They tried to come up with a rule after the fact and without the players involved in the crafting of the rule. You seem to have this notion that the players need the owners and their teams so badly they should do nothing to adversely affect them. The fact is without the players, who's going to pay those obscene prices to watch Jerry Jones sit in his luxury private box and own the Cowboys? No teams, no jobs for the players. No players, no money for the owners. This is what is called a symbiotic relationship.
Freedom is a 2-way street? That's fascinating. How's that work? It exists when Black players please the White fans and it doesn't when they don't?
Loading Bot said:
I would argue that no industry has done so much for the black community as American football. Hip-hop, Hollywood etc. can’t hold a candle to the amounts of black millionaires created by the NFL. And that’s just money. James Harrison said as late as yesterday (on “speak for yourself”) that football basically saved him. It taught a troubled teenager from a rough neighborhood about hard work, accountability, the meaning of brotherhood etc. Why would players seek to damage that product? Right or wrong, they need to understand that every time they protest, the product is damaged as more and more people throw dirt at the NFL. Players are doing a disservice to not only themselves, but future players and their communities as well.
I call bullshit.
It is NOT a "disservice" to say "I have a problem with cops killing people like me and getting away with murder." The disservice would be to say, "I don't have a problem with cops killing players like me, future players, and communities as well."
Some things are much more important than making money. Many things are more important than worrying about than damaging the NFL (
psst...they're not and the NFL is fine) and simply protecting yourself, your friends and family, from being shot and killed strikes me as one of them.
Oh, and as far as other industries or industries that have done more for the Black community than football, I'd say the auto industry, manufacturing, U.S. military, medical, banking, life insurance, hair care, and even the freaking NBA has created more millionaires and billionaires than the NFL has. There are only three billionaires in the United States and Michael Jordan dunked basketballs, not sacked quarterbacks. Oprah Winfrey may have sacked a bag of potato chips, but that's as good as it gets.
LoaderBot said:
Players need to stand for the anthem for five minutes, sixteen times a year. Every free moment can be spent utilizing their considerably resources, by virtue of the NFL, for the furthering of specific causes. A gesture during an anthem does nothing. A meeting at their local city hall might bring actual change. Police brutality is a serious problem and should be addressed, but this is not the right way as made evident.
If a gesture during the national anthem does nothing, then why are we still discussing those gestures two years after the original event? Seems to me that's doing something.
You don't have to stand for the flag on your job and neither do I. Why should professional athletes?
LoaderBot said:
TLDR; Players need to recognize that the discussion has been hijacked to be about patriotism rather than police brutality. Further protest will only hurt the product that has made them, and countless other disadvantaged young males, millionaires and, more often than not, men with admirable characters.
Where did you get this fanciful and sadly inaccurate these young brothers wouldn't have achieved success in life without pro football? Football is a means to an end, not the end itself. If you are a fool, all money does is make you a fool with money. If you are smart, you have goals and the determination to achieve those goals, you're going to be a success in life even you're not throwing your body around like a wrecking ball for three hours on Sundays in the fall.
Of course they could have been great men regardless (don't scew my words please), but football BUILDS character, The military BUILDS character. Those who have physically fought next to their brothers will develop a brotherhood and code of conduct that the outside world never do. Unless you have been in such a situation I'd argue that you can't understand it. It goes beyond the sport or the war. Those few who have been part of such a group are a special bunch of people.
When you live in a area where "education" is a joke, where there is no jobs, sanitation is lackluster etc... there is only so much you can do. Some exceptional people make it out, but most don't. The game is rigged against you. Why would you then damage one of the only ways out? Football is a way out for a lot young men. I'm not saying that players should not do everything they can to help their causes, I'm saying that in this case , in this anthem-situation, they can't win. It's now about patriotism, not police brutality.
Nope. Wrong. It's not now about patriotism and it never has been. Race-baiting opportunistic scumbags like *45 have made it about patriotism. Greedy owners who regard their predominantly Black players as showhorses they can make money off of while they're young and healthy and cut them loose when they're not made this about patriotism. Stupid fans and even stupider non-fans made this about patriotism.
And why is that? Because *45 is White, the owners are White and most of the fans and non-fans are White and all those White people would rather yak and yammer about the fucking flag than cops killing a Tamir Rice or Rekia Boyd any day of the weekend and twice on Sunday.
White America
does not want an honest, open and no bullshit discussion about police brutality. It never has and it never willingly will.
As regards your insistence,
"in this case , in this anthem-situation, they can't win," you could not be more wrong. Your presence in a thread nearly two years old where the original poster no longer even posts on this board is the proof this is
still a hot topic. Why wouldn't it be?
It's certainly not as though there haven't been many more Black bodies dropped by cops since Colin Kaepernick began his protest on August 16, 2016.
Many who were not paying attention before are paying attention now. Even the cops are paying more attention because they know they're being watched and if not always being held accountable, they aren't being given a complete free pass (but they mostly still do). More cop shops are requiring the use of body cameras and when everyone is walking around who can film these fatal encounters between the Black community and the police, they have lost some of their ability to act with impunity and immunity.
The NFL is chasing their tails. They reacted slowly and poorly to Kaepernick's protest. They totally crapped the sheets when Trump seized upon the issue to his own political advantage and now he won't stop biting the hand of the billionaires like Jerry Jones and Bob Kraft who poured money into getting this idiot elected. No good deed goes unpunished and that occasionally holds true for bad deeds too.
But to even suggest the players can't win this is absurd. They started something here and it's not going away, it's not going to stop and there remains young Black men in the NFL who insist they will continue
to take a stand by taking a knee.
The national anthem policy put in place by the NFL this offseason says that players may stay in the locker room during the playing of the song, but that those on the field must “stand and show respect” and that teams with players who don’t will be fined by the league.
A teams is permitted to “develop its own work rules” for players who do not stand and show respect and it appears Titans defensive tackle
Jurrell Casey plans to see how his team will be addressing that possibility. Casey raised his fist during the playing of the anthem the last two years and suggested on Wednesday that he is prepared to take any discipline that may come from continuing to do so this season.
“I’m going
to take my fine,” Casey said from a promotional event in London, via CNN. “It is what it is, I ain’t going to let them stop me from doing what I want to do. If they want to have these battles between players and organizations, this is the way it’s going to be. … There is always going to be blowback, that is what America is about. They always like to go on social media and go hard. It is what it is, at the end of the day, I don’t pay no mind to it. I’m going to do what I do that’s going to bring light to my community. At the end of the day we got to do a job. But I will continue to use my platform to keep on speaking up.”
Most players won't speak up. Most players won't take a stand. Most players simply want to play and let the checks keep rolling in. But most is not all. So, if the NFL and teams like the Dolphins, Cowboys and Texans want to fine and suspend, I'm sure there will be players who say in reply, "GO RIGHT AHEAD. DO WHAT YOU GOTTA DO BECAUSE I'M GONNA DO WHAT I GOTTA DO."
Colin Kaepernick isn't even playing in the NFL anymore and he never will. Not because his skills have diminished so much but because his consciousness has been raised so high and once you wake up it's hard to go back to sleep. Once a man realizes he has power, he'll never willingly give it up again.
The players can't win, you say? Stuff and nonsense, I say. They have already won.
)! It has no place in a modern society, or an ancient for for that matter. But the whole situation has been more divisive than anything else, I have a hard time believing that the cause as been furthered. 