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So now, the athletes can either stand to attention
during the playing of the national anthem or they can remain
inside the locker room or the stadium tunnel hallway and,
then, when the anthem has finished playing, they can come
onto the playing field.
First of all, this bumbling attempt to equate the
American flag with sports, or visa versa, is a sham. When
professional sports first started playing public games, it
was never about honoring the flag when they were trying to
knock the stuffings out of their opponents.
The artificial blending of teary-eyed ticket holders
yelling and screaming for a basketball, baseball, hockey or
football team was a concocted in order to sell more tickets
and make people feel good about attending a paid
professional sporting event.
It was only when white America was called on the carpet
about their deliberate and systemic racism by the act of
black athletes (and a few white players) protesting that the
powers-that-be took action.
The action that they undertook, aided and abetted by a
racist president, was to ban kneeling and other forms of
protest at NFL games.
If you have reading comprehension beyond the third
grade level, you would have determined that the kneeling NFL
players were protesting the cheapness of black lives as
expressed by the outrageous deadly gun violence against
black males by white cops.
President Trump took the protest message and stripped
it of its original intent and goal and made it an expression
of black people disrespecting the flag, the country, the
military or the first responders.
Herr Trump, even with his short-term attention span and
limited learning abilities, knew that his base would gladly
howl to the moon if he slapped black people and kicked the
black male. So he did and he did it gladly.
He called the kneeling black NFL players, "SOB's!" or
in everyday parlance, they were birthed by female dogs.
That is how Herr Trump views black males...they are dogs to
him just as he called many immigrants not humans but
animals.
Remember when white NFL quarterback Tim Tebow took a
knee at a football game in 2012 to protest abortion? When he
took that knee, he was called a "model American" and was
feted as a good guy.
But when black ballers kneel to protest racism and
police killings, they are seen as being "un-American"
because they used their First Amendment rights to tell white
America that all is not well in the kingdom.
White America did not and does not want a mirror set
before them and especially at a game of gladiators providing
them sport and relief from their daily lives.
Can you imagine the invectives that Herr Trump would
have thrown against Rosa Parks when she "kneeled" and
refused to give up her paid bus seat to a white male during
an act of protest that kicked off the famed Montgomery Bus
Boycott?
Now remember, Jehovah Witnesses do not salute the
American flag and the Amish do not stand up for the national
anthem but do you see any national outcry against their
practices?
It is akin to national conservative media host, Laura
Ingraham telling LeBron James to shut up and just dribble
the basketball when LeBron took a stance regarding Black
Lives Matter!
Many white people simply do not like anyone darker than
a snow flake to get into their grill and say that they are
wrong and that they need to change.
It is astounding for Herr Trump to give aid and comfort
to the Neo Nazis marching in Charlottesville and calling
them good people but he utters profanity when he sees black
men also exercising that same freedom of speech and
assembly.
The NFL commissioner may have opened a smelly can of
worms when he capitulated to Herr Trump and the fat cat NFL
owners (who pay his sky high salary to be their mouthpiece)
to shut down any protest by black players.
Once again we see where Herr Trump has used the bully
pulpit power of the White House to inflame public passion
against people of color who are peacefully protesting the
ongoing killing of black men.
President Trump lied about the original meaning behind
the NFL kneeling protests and shaped and shaved the truth to
fit his own demagogic narrative...and it worked.
Contact Lafe Tolliver at
tolliver@juno.com
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