By Allan Wall, September 21, 2020
The NFL, the National Football League, wants the public to know it is now completely woke for racial equality and against police brutality against African-Americans.
Since it’s 2020, that appears to place the NFL on the same side as the so-called “Black Lives Matter” movement, which, despite its name, is a revolutionary Marxist movement to whom only some black lives matter. (See Not Your Grandparents’ Civil Rights Movement.)
The civil rights movement of the Martin Luther King Jr. era, was based on the U.S. citizenship of American blacks – that they should have the same rights as other Americans. In contrast, the “Black Lives Matter” movement is, according to a recently-scrubbed page of its website “part of the global Black family.” Thus their emphasis is not solely on the rights of black Americans as American citizens. BLM also supports “the 60,000 undocumented black immigrants in the U.S.”
The NFL’s transformation began in 2016 as a one-man movement, with quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem to protest the supposed persecution of blacks in 21st century America.
For NFL players, games are their work. How many of us are allowed to protest while at work? And doesn’t the American flag belong to all of us?
Today, Kaepernick is no longer in the NFL, but his movement has taken it over. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is totally on board with the agenda.
The anthem kneeling is fully accepted. The NFL is staging woke virtue signaling at the stadiums and is allowing players to have the name of slain African-Americans (from a carefully selected list, of course) on the backs of their helmets.
This season ought to tell us how it’s going to fly with the fans. The opening game of the season was September 10th at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri pitting the Kansas City Chiefs against the Houston Texans.
As reported by the Associated Press: The NFL’s new stance encouraging players to take a stand against racial injustice got its first test as some fans of the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs booed during a moment of silence to promote the cause, touching off a fresh debate on how players should use their voice … After the Houston Texans remained in the locker room during the national anthem, fans booed them when they emerged from the tunnel at its conclusion. The booing continued as the two teams walked to midfield and shook hands, their interlocked arms stretched from one end zone to the other during what was supposed to be a moment of silence.
While this show of unity was going on, Black Lives Matter-style slogans were running on the stadium’s Jumbotron.
Predictably, in the mainstream media and on social media, the booing was presented as something horrible.
In the Twitterverse, the nameless booers were called “classless trash” and various other epithets. (See examples here.)
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri tweeted out another perspective: “ ‘Classless trash’? The left showing their usual contempt for middle America. Missouri has the best fans in the country. Don’t blame them for being tired of NFL/corporate woke politics jammed down their throats.”
Consider how Jason Whitlock, a black sports journalist, described it, “The booing you heard at Arrowhead Stadium Thursday night isn’t hard to understand. Black Lives Matter is toxic and divisive … Social media and the athletes addicted to Twitter and Instagram define BLM as a long-overdue fight for racial equality. Many Americans see BLM for exactly what it is — a clever disguise for Marxists and anarchists who seek to destroy American freedoms — and those citizens are growing more comfortable expressing their disdain for the BLM movement.”
The second NFL weekend saw more kneeling and more teams staying off the field during the anthem, but some teams were accidentally caught scrambling during the national anthem when they didn’t expect it.
And guess what? Kaepernick, who started this whole thing, is still not happy with the NFL’s promotion of his own cause.
On September 13th, Kaepernick tweeted: “While the NFL runs propaganda about how they care about Black Life, they are still actively blackballing Eric Reid for fighting for the Black community.”
Eric Reid, a San Francisco 49er teammate of Kaepernick, was the first other player to join in kneeling. Reid is also not currently in the League.
According to Kaepernick, since Reid isn’t playing, then the NFL’s wokeness is just “propaganda.” So if Reid and Kaepernick are again signed to play in the NFL, will America’s professional football league’s efforts be acceptable?
Colin Kaepernick’s net worth, by the way, is about 20 million dollars, so don’t expect to see him begging with a tin cup anytime soon.
Visit Allan Wall’s website to read more of his work.
