NFL & NBA Players and Owners are Clueless
The View from the Middle
The first NFL game was finally played in Kansas City between the Chiefs and the Texans on Sept. 10th. Before the game even started, the 17,000 fans that were allowed to attend the game booed a moment of silence as the two teams joined arms across the field in what they suggested was a moment of unity. JJ Watt, all-pro defensive end of the Texans, and many other players just couldn’t understand this demonstration of rejection. What they obviously don’t understand is that the NFL and the NBA are sending out many messages to their fan bases as they try to politicize the games that I love. What the players and owners can’t seem to grasp is that it isn’t messages like “It Takes All of Us” or “End Racism” or even the locking of arms that the fans are rejecting. It is all the other racist (yes racist), Marxist and anti-police messages that the fans hate. And the fans are forced to accept and support all of these messages or reject them all. If a person buys a ticket to a game, or watches it on TV, they can’t separate which messages they support and which they reject. It’s all or none. And, as I suggested, there are a lot of unacceptable messages that these teams are spewing.
You may ask, what could be wrong about putting the names of young black men whose lives were ended during a police arrests on the helmets of NFL players? Weren’t their deaths tragic? Certainly. But as Candace Owens points out, many of these men are not exactly role models for the black community. Michael Brown was a thug who had just robbed a drug store and roughed up its frail, aged owner. George Floyd was a repeat felon with a long criminal history. He was a drug addict and dealer who had methamphetamine, cannabinoids and fentanyl in his system at the time of his arrest. In addition, the trial of officer Derek Chauvin, who held Mr. Floyd down with his knee, hasn’t even started yet. What if the courts find that Mr. Floyd died of fentanyl poisoning? The NFL must accept that some people might object to these names being glorified and these men being canonized while other names are forgotten.
For example, for every George Floyd there are five David Dorns, the retired, black police captain who was murdered as he protected private businesses during the riots in Saint Louis. For every Michael Brown, there are (unfortunately) many Secoriea Turners, the eight-year-old girl who was killed by a rioter in Atlanta. Why isn’t the NFL or the NBA honoring their names on their helmets and jerseys? If the players and owners can’t understand the disappointment that many of their fans might experience from this misplaced focus, then their support will continue to shrink.
Another message that the NFL and NBA are sending to their audiences is that white people are inherently racists and bigots, just because of the color of their skin. They also suggest that we (white people) should be ashamed of ourselves for sins committed by other people 150+ years ago. They also suggest that we don’t deserve anything we have or have accomplished because it is only a result of “white privilege”. By the way, JJ, that includes you. Isn’t that the absolute definition of racism? Isn’t that what we have been fighting to abolish for the last 200 years?
While 70% of your players may be black, 87% of your audience is not, and 60% of your potential viewers are white, according to the Census Bureau. Does it make any sense to spit in the fact of 60% of our audience and then to ask them to support you?
And just for the record, I and many white Americans are not only NOT ashamed of our skin color or our country, but we are proud of both.
Get your history straight. The establishment of The United States of America was not the beginning of slavery in North America. It was the beginning of the end. As the 1619 project points out, slavery in North America began more than 150 years before The United States existed.
I’m proud of Thomas Jefferson who knowingly inserted the phase, “all men are created equal” into the Declaration of Independence. He and all 56 signers of that document, all white, knew exactly where that would lead. That phrase was included intentionally and I’m proud of them for injecting it.
I’m proud of the many white Americans who risked their lives and acted as conductors on the Underground Railroad. I’m proud of Abraham Lincoln who signed the Emancipation Proclamation. I’m proud of the entirely white congress who passed the 13th Amendment to the Constitution with mostly Republican support. I’m proud of the 350,000 Northern soldiers who died in the Civil War to eradicate slavery. I’m proud of the virtually all white Congress that passed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and I’m even proud of the 23 million white people (45% of the white vote) who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, although, to be truthful, I was not one of them. If professional sports owners and players are looking for me to be ashamed of my race or my country, that is not going to happen. Consequently, you risk losing me as a customer. If Pete Carroll is ashamed of his race and his accomplishments, he can step down as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks and give that job to a black man (or woman) and he can give ALL of his money to Al Sharpton. Maybe then Al will be able to pay his taxes.
And finally, there is the support for Black Lives Matter. Or is it black lives matter? I’ve already written an entire article about the confusion between the organization and the concept. Do black lives matter? Of course they do, and virtually all of America agrees with that. However, the BLM organization is a Marxist, anti-police, anti-nuclear family, anti-America coalition. They'll never put this in writing, but I suspect they are also anti-God (as Karl Marx was) and racist (again, as Marx was). No one in the NFL or the NBA has ever clarified their position on this. Do they support the idea that black lives matter, or the organization that is called Black Lives Matter? If they are supporting the anti-family, anti-America, Marxist group called BLM, then they should expect even more fan desertions. And the abandonment will only get worse as fans discover just who this group is and as BLM approval ratings continues to plummet.
How can these players and owners be so oblivious to their own mixed messaging? Actually, that’s easy. They are all multi-millionaires who live in a bubble of pampered narcissism. If they don’t wake up, they could permanently damage two brands that I have long enjoyed (the NFL and the NBA) and will destroy two sports that I have forever loved. To all of them, I have but one message. Take two smart pills and call me in the morning. Seriously! Wake up, you idiots!
