Stills questions NFL-Jay-Z union
Stills harbors questions, concerns about NFL’s partnership with Jay-Z
DAVIE —Kenny Stills isn’t prepared to criticize the NFL’s new partnership with Jay-Z’s entertainment company Roc Nation, which has been hired to lead the NFL’s entertainment and social justice ventures.
But the Miami Dolphins receiver does think there’s plenty about the newly-formed relationship between the NFL and the rap mogul that makes him uncomfortable.
However, Stills, who remains one of the NFL’s few players who kneels during the playing of the national anthem before games, and has done so for the past three seasons to create awareness to social justice issues in America, is asking for patience to see how this partnership plays out.
Stills, a team captain for the past two seasons and a three time winner of the Dolphins’ Community Service Award, is hoping the NFL’s partnership with Jay-Z is more than a public relations stunt designed to shift attention from the league and it’s kneeling players to Jay-Z.
“Are they gonna do real work in these communities, or are they going to do what the NFL always does, which is check the box?” Stills asked, referring to the partnership possibly being a public relations stunt.
Stills openly questioned why Jay-Z didn’t speak to the protesting players before entering a lucrative partnership with the NFL, which has featured few details.
“I’ve seen a lot of people just going after each other on social media and I don’t feel like that gets us anywhere,” Stills said, referring to criticism surrounding Jay-Z and former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who start this crusade and
last year settled a lawsuit against the NFL for keeping him from playing in the league the past three seasons. “How is that helping this cause and situation?”
One of Jay-Z’s goals is to create a platform where statements of protest from players like Kaepernick, Stills and Carolina safety Eric Reid, who has been critical of the league’s partnership with Roc Nation, wouldn’t “have to take place on the field.”
“I’m black. That’s my world,” Jay-Z said during last week’s press conference announcing the partnership.
Jay-Z pointed out that plenty of his partnerships involve people whom he disagrees with politically.
“I can’t control, no one can control the world that we live in currently and people’s choice to vote self-interests,” he continued, referring to “very, very rich people.”
One statement of JayZ’s where he said that “I think we’re past kneeling” during the press conference, disappointed Stills.
“I felt like he really discredited Colin and myself and the work that’s being done in our communities. I think he could have handled the whole situation differently,” Stills said.
“If he said I see the work Colin and these guys are doing and I want to partner up with the league [to] further that work, it would have been totally different than the way he answered some of these questions.
Reid spoke to reporters after Carolina’s preseason game on Friday saying the TMZ report that Jay-Z is working to become a part owner of an NFL team is “kind of despicable” and Stills piggybacked Reid’s disappointment with JayZ’s comment that “we’ve moved past kneeling.”
“Talking about we’re moving past kneeling like he ever protested. He’s not an NFL player. He’s never been on a knee. Choosing to speak for the people like he had spoken to the people,” said Stills, who said he’d like to have a conversation with Jay-Z.
“I wonder how many common people he’s spoken to. I wonder if he’s read my Facebook comments, or my Instagram comments to see what people say to me. To be able to speak on it and say we’re moving past something, it didn’t seem very informed.”