Just to be clear, this article isn't an attack against Tampa Bay, U.S. National Football League (NFL) quarterback Jamis Winston. There are any number of NFL players I could use for this comparison. He is just the latest example of the hypocrisy. Winston was just suspended by the NFL for three games for the 2018 season because of pending charges against him for sexual assault. This isn't the first time around the block for Winston with this type of accusation. And, for a multi-millionaire star player like him, three games is certainly nothing more than a slap on the wrist. The issue is so many people were up in arms in this backward country when Colin Kaepernick protested against police terrorism. So many people criticized him and were turned off from watching football due to the protests he helped inspire, that football revenues plummeted enough for NFL brass to institute a seriously lame policy in 2018 of fining teams when players choose not to stand for the so-called U.S. national anthem.
These millions of people who oppose Kaepernick are not even required to address the legitimacy behind his protests and the NFL, concerned only about profits - not justice - has done absolutely nothing to attempt to educate its overwhelmingly ignorant European fan base about police terrorism in this country, and world. The most astute among this mass of white people (and that's using the term astute very loosely) act as if its a mic drop to point out that their issue with Kaepernick is his wearing "pig" socks or shirts with Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on them. Again, no one is demanding why these people are never required to discuss the core issue of police terrorism. If this were to happen, even a statue would understand why people would be inclined to dehumanize police by calling them the name of a cute, but sometimes disgusting animal. And, I would bet that the percentage of people in the U.S. who have read even one comprehensive book about Cuba and Fidel Castro is in the single digits so I'll just leave that right there.
Not that I'm at all surprised or upset at the masses of Europeans and the institutions representing them in this country. I would expect nothing less than institutional racism, no matter who the Europeans are. Or, as we used to jokingly say "left or right, still white!" So, that's not the point. What's worth indicating here is the millions of other people, particularly the African masses, who by their unwillingness to acknowledge the contradiction between how Winston is treated as opposed to Kaepernick, are quiet conspirators in this injustice.
Kaepernick hasn't worked in the NFL since 2016. And, don't try that weak argument about his skill level. Without question he is better than a number of quarterbacks currently working within the NFL. If he wasn't, he wouldn't even have been offered a meeting to discuss employment by teams like Seattle and Baltimore. Each team has acknowledged in public that they had no issue with Kaepernick's skill set and that the reason they didn't go further in hiring him was because of his unwillingness to commit to not protesting if offered a job. Yeah, my problem is with you African and other oppressed communities who will be watching football in 2018 and beyond as if none of this I'm writing about is even happening. I'm not saying you should be criticized for wanting to take a break and watch a game once a week. Lord knows we need some distractions to get through this vicious capitalist system we live in. I've decided I'm not watching, but that's an individual decision. What isn't individual is you cannot stand idly by and not do anything about this blatant contradiction against humanity. By pushing Kaepernick out like the NFL did (and now they apparently appear to be doing the same to Eric Reid, Kaepernick's 2016 teammate in San Francisco who also now suddenly cannot find a job), they are saying that a young man who had zero run ins with the law and was a great teammate according to all who played with him is such a problem because he took a principled stand for justice that they want nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, with people like Winston, what the NFL is saying is these guys can beat, kill, and abuse women and non-men all they want because all the NFL will do when that happens is slap them lightly on the wrist. And, the primary reason this contradiction has legs is because the NFL knows millions of people, including many women, don't give a damn about Winston beating and/or raping women, provided he throws that football with at least 60% accuracy. They know people couldn't care less about how bad of a person he or anyone else on the field is and that's the part you should have trouble digesting.
Kaepernick is standing up for something that is a serious problem and we should want to be inconvenienced for a cause like that. We should be talking about how we are going to respond to the NFL openly treating adverse issues against African people as a simple question of how discussing it impacts their revenues. As a community, we should be discussing this, but we aren't. We are discussing training camp and how good our teams are going to be. We have no respect for the dignity of our people and so why are we surprised that people outside our community don't respect us?
In a healthy way of living life, we would be making as much noise about women beaters and rapists as the European community (and some lost Africans) is making about Kaepernick. We aren't. We are so disorganized as a people that we have no response for this. For traitors like Clarence Thomas, Kanye West, Bill Cosby, R Kelly, etc. We should be talking about how we can deal with all of those fools, yet we aren't.
This issue isn't about Kaepernick getting another job in the NFL. Its about our dignity as African people. Its about us capitulating to a racist country of Europeans that cares more about their discomfort than our lives. Its about us sitting there every Sunday next to those vile human beings and us acting like we all have the same things in common. Again, I'm not saying you can't watch, but you damn well better be figuring out how you can do something to address this contradiction, but we probably won't. And, if not, it would be entirely appropriate if the police came into the sports bar where you watch your games and/or your house, and harassed and terrorized you right there during halftime. The Europeans sitting next to you aren't going to care when that happens. They don't like politics mixing with their sports. As long as the African athletes catch and run that ball, they don't care what happens to us, even if those players are the worse types of human beings, they'll still cheer them on the field. So, they won't help you when the police terrorize you. No one will help you because most of us watching are equally compliant. Hopefully nothing like that ever happens to you, but if it does, while its happening, think about how watching that game was so much more important to you than being uncomfortable enough to question why our struggle for dignity and justice is more offensive in this country than rapists and women abusers. And, then think about why you never had much of a problem with that contradiction yourself.
These millions of people who oppose Kaepernick are not even required to address the legitimacy behind his protests and the NFL, concerned only about profits - not justice - has done absolutely nothing to attempt to educate its overwhelmingly ignorant European fan base about police terrorism in this country, and world. The most astute among this mass of white people (and that's using the term astute very loosely) act as if its a mic drop to point out that their issue with Kaepernick is his wearing "pig" socks or shirts with Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on them. Again, no one is demanding why these people are never required to discuss the core issue of police terrorism. If this were to happen, even a statue would understand why people would be inclined to dehumanize police by calling them the name of a cute, but sometimes disgusting animal. And, I would bet that the percentage of people in the U.S. who have read even one comprehensive book about Cuba and Fidel Castro is in the single digits so I'll just leave that right there.
Not that I'm at all surprised or upset at the masses of Europeans and the institutions representing them in this country. I would expect nothing less than institutional racism, no matter who the Europeans are. Or, as we used to jokingly say "left or right, still white!" So, that's not the point. What's worth indicating here is the millions of other people, particularly the African masses, who by their unwillingness to acknowledge the contradiction between how Winston is treated as opposed to Kaepernick, are quiet conspirators in this injustice.
Kaepernick hasn't worked in the NFL since 2016. And, don't try that weak argument about his skill level. Without question he is better than a number of quarterbacks currently working within the NFL. If he wasn't, he wouldn't even have been offered a meeting to discuss employment by teams like Seattle and Baltimore. Each team has acknowledged in public that they had no issue with Kaepernick's skill set and that the reason they didn't go further in hiring him was because of his unwillingness to commit to not protesting if offered a job. Yeah, my problem is with you African and other oppressed communities who will be watching football in 2018 and beyond as if none of this I'm writing about is even happening. I'm not saying you should be criticized for wanting to take a break and watch a game once a week. Lord knows we need some distractions to get through this vicious capitalist system we live in. I've decided I'm not watching, but that's an individual decision. What isn't individual is you cannot stand idly by and not do anything about this blatant contradiction against humanity. By pushing Kaepernick out like the NFL did (and now they apparently appear to be doing the same to Eric Reid, Kaepernick's 2016 teammate in San Francisco who also now suddenly cannot find a job), they are saying that a young man who had zero run ins with the law and was a great teammate according to all who played with him is such a problem because he took a principled stand for justice that they want nothing to do with him. Meanwhile, with people like Winston, what the NFL is saying is these guys can beat, kill, and abuse women and non-men all they want because all the NFL will do when that happens is slap them lightly on the wrist. And, the primary reason this contradiction has legs is because the NFL knows millions of people, including many women, don't give a damn about Winston beating and/or raping women, provided he throws that football with at least 60% accuracy. They know people couldn't care less about how bad of a person he or anyone else on the field is and that's the part you should have trouble digesting.
Kaepernick is standing up for something that is a serious problem and we should want to be inconvenienced for a cause like that. We should be talking about how we are going to respond to the NFL openly treating adverse issues against African people as a simple question of how discussing it impacts their revenues. As a community, we should be discussing this, but we aren't. We are discussing training camp and how good our teams are going to be. We have no respect for the dignity of our people and so why are we surprised that people outside our community don't respect us?
In a healthy way of living life, we would be making as much noise about women beaters and rapists as the European community (and some lost Africans) is making about Kaepernick. We aren't. We are so disorganized as a people that we have no response for this. For traitors like Clarence Thomas, Kanye West, Bill Cosby, R Kelly, etc. We should be talking about how we can deal with all of those fools, yet we aren't.
This issue isn't about Kaepernick getting another job in the NFL. Its about our dignity as African people. Its about us capitulating to a racist country of Europeans that cares more about their discomfort than our lives. Its about us sitting there every Sunday next to those vile human beings and us acting like we all have the same things in common. Again, I'm not saying you can't watch, but you damn well better be figuring out how you can do something to address this contradiction, but we probably won't. And, if not, it would be entirely appropriate if the police came into the sports bar where you watch your games and/or your house, and harassed and terrorized you right there during halftime. The Europeans sitting next to you aren't going to care when that happens. They don't like politics mixing with their sports. As long as the African athletes catch and run that ball, they don't care what happens to us, even if those players are the worse types of human beings, they'll still cheer them on the field. So, they won't help you when the police terrorize you. No one will help you because most of us watching are equally compliant. Hopefully nothing like that ever happens to you, but if it does, while its happening, think about how watching that game was so much more important to you than being uncomfortable enough to question why our struggle for dignity and justice is more offensive in this country than rapists and women abusers. And, then think about why you never had much of a problem with that contradiction yourself.
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