Hundreds of National Football League players took part in symbolic protest actions against police violence Sunday, kneeling or sitting during the playing of the US national anthem before professional football games, or locking arms with those who did. Dozens of players have been taking part in such protests since the beginning of the season, angered by the continuing police shootings[Read More...]
President Trump has picked the right argument in America’s Cultural War, but his BDS Movement against America’s protesting NFL, NBA, MLB athletes First Amendment ‘Freedom of Speech’ rights is totally wrong-headed. Henceforth, whenever any American athlete decides to protest during the playing of the national anthem to call attention to the nauseating extent of racism, prejudice, jingoism, sexism and xenophobia[Read More...]
Friday evening, Eric Ebron, Detroit Lions tight end, tweeted a question: "Does anyone tell Trump to stick to politics, like they tell us to stick to sports?" Trump had been busy attacking Stephen Curry and Colin Kaepernick and the NFL.
Civil libertarians, racial justice advocates, and NFL players from across the league expressed outrage overnight after President Donald Trump called on owners of professional football teams to fire players who express their political views.
The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep.
— Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle
To watch America’s structural racism at work, one need look no further than the National Football League (NFL) and its treatment of nonviolent unorthodoxy as expressed by Colin Kaepernick going to one knee during the national anthem in support of the unacceptable thought that black lives should matter as much as anyone else’s. Of course, that’s still a relatively new idea in the United States, dating from 1863 in law and still not fully accepted in much of the country.
-by NoahLast year, when NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, then of the San Francisco 49ers franchise, famously took a knee during a pre-game playing of the National Anthem, he did it to call attention to racial and economic injustice.
Colin Kaepernick took a courageous and principled stand last season by kneeling during the national anthem before NFL games. This was done in response to a society that continues to systematically, culturally, and institutionally devalue Black lives. This devaluation is played out in many areas, including politics, economics, housing, employment, and perhaps most notably, within the criminal punishment system. Black lives are routinely extinguished by police in the streets without recourse, in the courts without pause, and in the prisons without hesitation.
At every turn in American culture, be it politics, sports or the corporate world, the citizenry is constantly taught, some would argue brainwashed, to believe in the Cult of the Uniform & The Flag, be it that of the armed forces, local law enforcement, or sports. It’s a veritable religion that one ever dares to criticize at their peril. Political[Read More...]
