Slate: The NFL has now sided with Donald Trump's campaign against black political power.

[gollygee]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/nfl-anthem-policy-league-sides-with-donald-trumps-campaign-against-black-political-power.html

It was the silence and simplicity of Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality that make the response now so striking. Kaepernick’s decision to quietly take a knee during the anthem, to recognize those who still struggle for equality before the law, has caused him to be all but blacklisted from the NFL, blasted by right-wing commentators for perceived disrespect, and condemned by Republican politicians, including the president of the United States.

For Donald Trump, who ran on a platform of stoking white racial resentment, the attacks were predictable. What’s more striking is that the NFL has decided to oblige. On Wednesday, team owners voted to fine teams whose players do not stand for the anthem. Those who want to kneel can stay in the locker room during pregame ceremonies. If the league can’t persuade Kaepernick and others like him to give up their protests, then it will try to compel them into standing, or at least, hide them away from view and relieve the pressure placed by the president.


This entire spectacle—of a white, racially demagogic president demanding punishment of protesting black players—is part of a history of rebuke and outrage against black athletes who challenged American racism, like Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith. It also echoes an even older dynamic in American life: the country’s fraught relationship to black political activity. From his attacks on Barack Obama to his broadsides against Kaepernick, Donald Trump has always been on the side of those who see a threat in black advocacy and power.

Trump built his whole political brand on attacking prominent black Americans as illegitimate holders of status and influence, so Kaepernick was a natural target. To attack him—and other kneeling players—was to play the old hits, priming and harnessing the anger of those who view these vocal blacks as ungrateful and presumptuous—in other words, uppity. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired,’ ” Trump told a sea of white supporters at a campaign-style rally in Alabama last September.

[MichMan]

1. There is one way that will get the attention of the whole country

I think at this point the most effective form of protest would be for the players on both teams to simply sit down while lined up for scrimmage on the 1st play of the game and just stay there until the game is called. Let the stands full of fans and the TV cameras show them for as long as it takes before the league cancels the game.

If all 26 teams agree to do the same thing, forfeiting the games will be meaningless.

[BannonsLiver]

5. You presume all of the players are united on this one

That’s not the case. We saw that last season Also, there are 32 teams.

[cilla4progress]

2. Fucked

UP!!!!!!

[lamp_shade]

3. Thanks. Great article.

[Garrett78]

4. No more NFL for me.