NFL policy crushes players underfoot
“Winning,” tweeted U.S. vicepresident Mike Pence on Wednesday, with an emoji of the American flag, soon after the National Football League owners stooped just low enough to brown their noses. “STILL NOT SICK OF #WINNING!!!!” crowed Donald Trump Jr. in all caps.
“Maybe they shouldn’t be in this country,” said his father, exposing very quickly during a Thursday morning interview with Fox & Friends the real reasoning underlining the NFL’s new policy.
In two previous seasons, a handful of NFL players had protested silently during the national anthem. They hadn’t broken any rules. So the NFL changed the rules. Oh, it’s not an outright ban, but kneeling during the anthem now earns an outright penalty. Players can stay in the locker room during the anthem, but should they choose to kneel on the field, the commissioner can fine their teams. The commissioner can also punish league personnel who do not stand.
Where are all those people who rail about free speech when white supremacists are de-platformed? Predictably silent. All hail white supremacy that once again ensures its own survival. How many ways could we count the anti-Blackness of NFL’s new rules?
Almost two-thirds of the league players are Black. Most of them were not protesting. The ruling attempts to forcefully silence those brave enough to oppose violence against their bodies and against people like them.
The league of mostly white club owners offer a platform to Black talent only as long as they profit off of it. Dare the Black talent use that platform and it will be yanked away.
The NFL can wade into politics — support veterans, back the Vietnam War — but Black players? No such freedom for them.
It’s irrelevant that New York Jets’ owner Christopher Johnson said he would pay any fines handed down by the NFL. The NFL has just created systemic barriers to players’ ability to speak up for others, making them dependent on the lar- gesse of powerful individuals.
Players threatened to challenge the policy. The NFL Players’ Association said in a statement that the league and its owners betrayed an understanding they established with players about the principles, values and patriotism of the league.
What a horrible, gutless lot of people the NFL owners are. When a lone player decided to sit out the national anthem before a game in 2016, they didn’t cut him right away.
At that time, the NFL said it recognizes “the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.”
They looked this way and that, not quite meeting anyone’s eye.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of colour,” San Francisco 49ers then-quarterback Colin Kaepernick said in a statement. He then tweaked his stance to an infinitely re- spectful gesture, and began to kneel during the anthem. Eventually #TakeAKnee ignited a movement, and as a small but growing number of players followed suit, the powerful began to quake.
Soon enough the country’s uncouth bully-in-chief began to wail and flail.
“Get that son of a b---h out of the field, right now. Out. He’s fired. He’s fired,” Donald Trump yelled at an Alabama rally in September 2017 as a challenge to league owners.
Weigh this balderdash against the quiet courage it took for Kaepernick to kneel, for Muhammad Ali to become a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War in 1967, for Tommie Smith and John Carlos to raise their fists on the Olympic podium a year later.
White Donald Trump faces no penalties for his many indiscretions, but the Black players faced costly consequences: ejection from the sport they dedicated their lives to, white American hostility, death threats.
How easy for Trump and his acolytes to hold the keys to the kingdom and crush its people underfoot.
The NFL players’ statement showed they didn’t see kneeling as a protest against the anthem.
Trump, Pence and their base made it about the anthem, even dragging in veterans — who cared if some spoke up to say they fought precisely so their countrymen would have the right to protest.
“Two dozen NFL players continue to kneel during the National Anthem, showing total disrespect to our Flag & Country. No leadership in NFL!” Trump tweeted in October.
Last year, when Beyoncé handed Kaepernick the Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, she said, “It’s been said that racism is so American, that when we protest racism, some assume we are protesting America.”
Kaepernick’s words then stand even taller today. “I accept this award not for myself, but on behalf of the people … With or without the NFL’s platform, I will continue to work for the people because my platform is the people.”