This past weekend in sports will go down as arguably the craziest we had ever witnessed.
A sitting president of the greatest country in the world tweeted a “you can’t break up with me, because I just broke up with you” message to Stephen Curry after the NBA baller said he wasn’t going to the White House to celebrate his Golden State Warriors’ championship. I thought to myself, it can’t get any worse than this.
But if that wasn’t crazy enough, that same president turned his crosshairs to the National Football League. I wish I didn’t have to rehash what he said about the (mostly black) players who knelt. But for those of you who reside under various rocks, he called them “sons of bitches” for kneeling during the national anthem.
As y’all perhaps have surmised by now, that made me angry – VERY angry. And this is coming from a guy, as I’ve said once before, who wouldn’t have done any sort of anthem protest a la Colin Kaepernick. In fact, I don’t know how I would have protested, but I am focused on WHY he chose to protest instead of HOW he protest. Therefore, I do not have a problem with how players (and fans) choose to protest for racial injustice and inequalities.
Which brings us to what happened yesterday.
Yes, I was moved by the players moxie to increase their protest in numbers. And I was even more moved by the coaches’, and more importantly the owners’ response to our president. In fact, I couldn’t be prouder.
I only had one small problem: I wish the latter would have acted SOONER.
You see, when Kaepernick first began his protest, he was seen as a pariah. People all over this country were questioning his patriotism.
“How dare he be so disrespectful to our flag!”
“If he hates it here, get out!”
All while ignoring WHY he did it and choosing instead to focus on WHAT he did.
Owners responded in kind by not choosing to sign him during the summer’s free agency period. They and general managers claimed it was because of his play, all while signing lesser QBs to backup roles – or in the case of the 49ers, Jets, and Dolphins, to STARTING roles.
And none of the owners took umbrage to the president’s actions until he went after their league, telling them to fire those protesting “sons of bitches” while encouraging fans to stay home if players continued to protest.
There are two things you cannot do to billionaires: tell them what to do, and adversely affect their wallets. So it didn’t surprise me to see them respond in kind to the president.
Again, I loved seeing the players, coaches and owners come together as they yesterday. After all, better late than never.
Let’s just see if the protests last long enough to invoke a change or two.
Categories: NFL
Leave a Reply