Players should stand for the anthem now
There’s symbolism in the Cardinals-Rams game Sunday in London: One team helped start a movement; the other helped seek closure; and a simple kneeling protest has spread across the nation and beyond U.S. borders.
I never thought I’d say this, but it’s time for everybody to stand: Socially conscious players won.
They demanded, peacefully, to be heard, and they were. There has been a thorough debate over the definition of patriotism and how it can be displayed. There has been a comprehensive discussion about power and privilege and a redirection of the conversation back to systematic racism and police brutality.
It’s time to move to the next round of this fight.
Rams players in 2014, before the franchise left St. Louis, took the field with their hands up, showing solidarity with those protesting the shooting death of Mike Brown, an unarmed young, black man killed in a confrontation with a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.
The names piled up. Eric Garner. Dontre Hamilton. Freddie Gray. Jamar Clark. Alton Sterling. John Crawford. Tanisha Anderson. Philando Castile. Rumain Brisbon.
So did the protests. Tanks rolled through Ferguson. Baltimore burned. And five police officers were killed in Dallas.
The Justice Department issued report after report detailing racially biased policing. Local authorities came under federal receivership. Body cameras were issued.
By now there was a movement and clear pushback.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio ignored a judge’s order to end discriminatory patrols targeting Latinos. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke became famous as a conservative black man calling Black Lives Matter a hate group. Both supported Donald Trump for president.
Colin Kaepernick started kneeling during the national anthem to bring attention to systematic racism and heavyhanded police tactics in minority communities. Opponents ignored his point and said he was disrespecting the flag. This season, he hasn’t been able to land a job even as lesser quarterbacks are signed.
Supporters said he had been blackballed. More players took a knee. Trump called on team owners to punish players who demonstrated, touching off a wave of protests that consumed the league on the weekend before the Cowboys came to Arizona for a Monday night game.
Dallas owner Jerry Jones, who opposes the protests, decided, in a compromise, to kneel with his players before the anthem then stand during the song.
Cardinals President Michael Bidwill, meanwhile, locked arms with his players, as the PA announcer at University of Phoenix Stadium encouraged fans do the same.
From there it grew. Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers asks fans to come together in Green Bay. Vice President Mike Pence left a game early. Kaepernick filed a lawsuit. Trump released a petition.
Protests, meanwhile, spread across
ROBERT HANASHIRO/USA TODAY SPORTS
U.S. high schools to the WNBA to Germany. “Hertha Berlin stands for tolerance and responsibility!” the soccer club said on Twitter.
Charles Barkley, during a discussion over whether NBA players should do the same, said enough. “It's time for us to push some action.”
Players, including former Cardinals receiver Anquan Boldin, and owners, including Bidwill, met in New York and agreed to work together seeking bipartisan legislation to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
49ers safety Eric Reid, who took a knee alongside Kaepernick, called it a starting point and said he’ll continue to protest.
I respect his right and his decision. But I think that when NFL teams, including the Cardinals and Rams, take the field, he and others should stand with their heads high.
Black athletes have led the push, and white athletes — including soccer star Megan Rapinoe and Eagles defensive lineman Chris Long — have emerged as vocal allies.
Rapinoe wants “ultimately, equality in every sense of the word, but just for the conversation to keep being open, and for people to come to it openly and honestly and realize that it’s not unAmerican to call out your country and demand better for it.”
Cyrus Mehri, a labor lawyer who helped craft the NFL’s “Rooney Rule,” the hiring policy that demands minority head coaching candidates be interviewed, applauds the cooperation between players and owners, but thinks he could have made it better.
The NBA players’ union and the league “have worked to put together kind of an activist coalition … what’s emerging in the NFL is something similar, but the NFLPA is a bystander,” said Mehri, campaigning for control of the union.
“If I were running the NFLPA, it’d be a different story,” he said. “Let’s focus less on protests and focus more on community impacts and helping these young guys become leaders in this country.”
For his part, NFLPA head DeMaurice Smith was at the meeting between the players’ coalition and owners’ group. Those involved in the meetings, including Boldin and Bidwill, have declined to discuss specifics. Smith was recently unanimously re-elected as NFLPA executive director.
Phoenix Suns President and CEO Jason Rowley, meanwhile, said he wouldn’t comment on how another league should operate. He believes “everybody has a voice. Athletes are no different. Their voices should be heard. I think our league has done a very good job trying to work with the players to make sure that there is that action. … It’s not just a protest, it’s ‘OK, now what are we going to do to go out and address problems.’
“I have an interesting viewpoint,” he added, “I’m a lawyer, so I’m very strong on civil liberties; I’m also a (Navy) veteran, so I’m very strong on standing for the flag and having a lot of what you call patriotism, but patriotism has a lot of different forms.”
Barkley, meanwhile, wants to see NFL owners set aside funding to support education and economic empowerment initiatives.
“The school system in our country is so bogus, right now,” he said.
Also, “we’ve got to help more black people start businesses,” Barkley added. “We need economic opportunity.”
I asked him whether it would be possible for players to pool money to help fund minority business ventures.
“Absolutely, that’s possible,” he said.
Barkley, who said he donated $3 million to historically black colleges and universities last year, said he has advised players to secure funding from team owners to work on specific initiatives.
“Give us something that we can take and make our communities better,” he said.
To that end, owners reportedly have agreed to pay for a social activism boot camp at Morehouse College.
The players can stand now. There's work to be done.