Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
“America refuses to address the pervasive evil of white cops killing black men, and I will not stand during a national anthem that honors the flag of such a country!”
That is the message Colin Kaepernick sent by “taking a knee” during the singing of “The Star Spangled Banner” before San Francisco ’49s games in 2016. No NFL owner picked up his contract in 2017. But a few players began to copy Colin and to “take a knee.”
Friday night in Alabama, President Trump raged that any NFL player who disrespects Old Glory is a “son of a b—-h” who ought to be kicked off the field and fired by his team’s owner. And if the owners refuse to do their patriotic duty, the fans should take a walk on the NFL.
And so the stage was set for NFL Sunday.
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Two hundred players, almost all black, knelt or sat during the national anthem. The Patriots’ Tom Brady stood in respect for the flag, while locking arms in solidarity with kneeling teammates.
The Pittsburgh Steelers coach kept his team in the locker room. Steeler Alejandro Villanueva, an ex-Army Ranger and combat vet, came out and stood erect and alone on the field.
For NFL players, coaches, commentators, owners and fans, it was an uncomfortable and sad day. And it is not going to get any better. Sundays with the NFL, as a day of family and friends, rest and respite from the name-calling nastiness of American politics, is over.
The culture war has come to the NFL. And Trump will be proven right. Having most players stand respectfully during the national anthem, while locking arms with other players sitting or kneeling in disrespect of the flag, is a practice the NFL cannot sustain.
The mega-millionaire and billionaire owners of NFL franchises are going to have to come down off the fence and take a stand.
The issue is not the First Amendment. It is not whether players have a right to air their views about what cops did to Michael Brown in Ferguson, or Eric Garner in Staten Island, or Freddie Gray in Baltimore. Players have a right to speak, march in protest, or even burn the flag.
The question NFL owners are going to have to answer soon with a definitive “yes” or “no” is this: Do players, before games, have a right, as a form of protest, to dishonor and disrespect the flag of the United States and the republic for which it stands? Or is that intolerable conduct that the NFL will punish?
Trump is taking a beating from owners, players and press for being “divisive.” But he did not start this fight or divide the country over it.
Kaepernick did, and the players who emulated him, and the coaches and owners who refuse to declare whether insulting the flag is now permissible behavior in the NFL.
As Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Sunday, team owners and Commissioner Roger Goodell have strict rules for NFL games. No NASCAR-type ads on uniforms. Restrictions on end-zone dances. All shirttails tucked in. Certain behavior on the field can call forth 15-yard penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct, or even expulsion from the game.
Our Supreme Court has denied coaches of public high school teams the right to gather players for voluntary prayer before games. Why not an NFL rule requiring players to stand respectfully silent during the national anthem, and, if they refuse, suspend them from play for that day?
Or will the NFL permit indefinite disrespect for the flag of the United States for vastly privileged players whose salaries put them in the top 1 percent of Americans?
If watching players take a knee on the gridiron before every game, in insult to the flag, is what fans can expect every week, Trump again is right: The NFL fan base will dissipate.
Sunday’s game exposed a clash of loyalties in the hearts of NFL players. Do black players stand in solidarity with Kaepernick? Do white players stand beside black teammates, if that means standing with them as they disrespect the flag under which hundreds of thousands of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have died?
This conflict in loyalties among NFL players mirrors that of our country, as America divides and our society disintegrates over issues of morality, patriotism, race and culture.
We have been here before. At the Mexico City Olympics of 1968, gold and bronze medal-winning sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos each raised a black-gloved fist as a sign of solidarity with Black America, and not the nation they were sent to represent.
A month later, America elected Richard Nixon.
In terms of fame and fortune, no professions have proven more rewarding for young black American males than the NFL and the NBA.
Whether they soil their nest is, in the last analysis, up to them.
I like this guy more and more.
A while back, out front of my company, I overheard two of my employees cursing and bantering. It was near the entrance. They have worked for me for a long time. I pulled them aside and told them that I understand rough and tumble, but they are not to use that language near where customers or suppliers could overhear. They nodded acquiescence.
Well, blow me down, a couple of weeks later, they were at it again.
This time I pulled them aside and told them just this: “I have already told you once. This is my place of business. That you have worked for me twenty years is of no consequence. If it ever happens again I will fire your asses and your feet will not touch the ground on the way out the gate. You will not disrespect this business, my customers, my suppliers, or me.”
They got the message that time. No reoccurence.
But the NFL will not protect their business? Will not stop their employees from disrespecting their customers?
This will end in tears. That is some bullshit the players and owners are pulling right there – I deserve better. I have the right to be treated with respect by those people I support with my patronage. It is only decent.
I am done with them. The networks will get the message shortly. Because I am reasonably sure there are millions upon millions like me who will do the same.
My buddy phil is the most die hard sports fan i know. When a game aint on, he listens to sports radio. He called to tell me last night that he is turning it off. Cant watch them kneel. Cant listen to talk of it on sports radio. That makes for about 20 or so guys i know who are turning it off. Not just football either. All of it, because one sport pollutes the talk on other sports. They say fences make good neighbors. People who are basically the same need separation. Borders if you will. Or more aptly, segregation.
“Without a flag to unite under, America goes tribal” Brannon 1776
Some players are stating their protest is out of unity and respect. I say Bullshit – they are either lying or they are stupid (which is believable).
We all know this goes back to Mr. Nappy (Kapernick) – he was protesting police killing blacks; maybe he should have looked at the crime stats of blacks which are in the stratosphere as compared to their percentage of the population.
Agree. Listen, all of us (white black, whatever) have all, at some point had to tolerate an asshole copfuck. Rather than black people bitching about it being a black problem, maybe they ought to look at the fact that cops are now a para-military occupation force in most cities instead of peace officers. REGARDLESS of race. The crime stats do tell the story. Black people are a small minority, but commit MOST of the crime, so OF COURSE they are going to have more interactions with the law enforcers.
One final note; the last sentence of the article sums this up pretty well: “Whether they soil their nest is, in the last analysis, up to them.”. They had it good. Where else, other than rap or TV stars, is a modern black man going to make millions of dollars? Now they are just too stupid to see that. Unfortunately, they have mostly already made enough to retire if this goes against them, but the blacks in high school and college now are going to find no more “nest” after this nonsense I suspect…
What if some players said they were going to kneel during the anthem to protest black on black crime and absentee black fathers? Now that’d confuse the shit out of most of the black players. They wouldn’t know what to do.
I have been coming to this site since the beginning of it,and have never commented on anything. I just wished to remain anonymous. I have also been a diehard NFL fan for 50 years. As someone who has served this countries wars,and is the son of a father who has done the same,and the grandson of someone who has done the same.I can no longer with good conscience watch the NFL. These overpaid cowards if not for professional sports. Would have 3 choices Dead,In prison, or on the way to prison. They are so ignorant that they will bite the hand that feeds them. Where else are people that look and act like they belong in a zoo going to make millions playing a child’s game? There are so many here that just get it!!!! This s**t is only going to stop…..WHEN IT IS STOPPED!!!!
Like I’ve said before. Allow people to let their freak flags fly so that we can find out exactly what ‘Muricans will tolerate and what they won’t.
In the last week I’ve heard from several lifelong sports-a-holics who have said they are done. I took the opportunity to explain the evil being perpetrated against them by Google, Facebook and the news media and suggested they boycott them as well telling them that ultimately the people have the real power but only if they choose to exercise it. I never even mentioned the central banking issue that impoverishes us all. Baby steps.
IS, and now we find out, formerly, the players were not on the field during the national anthem, until the .gov decided to start paying the NFL for all that “patriotism.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-26/mcmaken-stop-wrapping-flag-around-pro-sports
Well, my Cowboys didn’t kneel “during” the anthem. Does this mean I can still watch their games?
Stupid is as stupid does.
Let your conscience be your guide.
No reason to be a dick. It was an honest question.
I think Jerry Jones took the cowardly route. He could have had the Cowboys smelling like roses…but nooooo.
Not being a dick. It was an honest answer.
Your butthurt over what Jerry and his boys did seems genuine. Even if they had taken the higher route, the majority of them are still just feral kneegrows hitting a high point in life before they end up back in da hood or prison and flat broke. You’ll be watching the rest of their season and you know it.
Support those things you stand for, and remove yourself from those you don’t.
It’s your choice.
But be careful how you make it, as Dylan pointed out “The loser now will be later to win”.
Interesting tidbit – 14 of 32 NFL teams are owned by joos. If Barky were still the president, the owners would have put a stop to this nonsense already.
It is so past time that white males grow up and see professional sports for what they are, a bunch of overgrown retards playing a child’s game. To hear a group discussing the last game their “fake team” played makes me sad and mad, as does any discussion of “stats” of their favorite retard running with a ball. Receiving imaginary points for achieving a false sense of accomplishment such as kicking a ball through the golden arches is pure nonsense.
I am witnessing, on this site as well as other places, an awakening in people to the stupidity that is watching sports. There almost seems to be a display of relief much like an addict getting the monkey off his back. Once the realization of stupidity is achieved there will be no going back to…Hey Y’all, hold my beer and watch this”.
I have been told that it is just entertainment, but to that I respond… “I have never been so bored as to find it entertaining”.
Greg, are you male or female?
The NFL owners are in a hard spot. They don’t want this controversy they want our money. At this time they are evaluating which position will separate us from the most money. When they make a decision they will act to save their business.
I don’t watch football or any other sport. So I am just standing back, to observe all of this nonsense, trying to figure out if this is a distraction to keep people from seeing what is really going on, or if this will actually wake people up to what is really going on.
If it’s the latter, then they will not be fooled if the owners “make a decision to save their business”.
Daniel Tosh will have a joke on his next show. “I’m gonna watch “Orange Is The New Black” on Netflix this Sunday”
“Why not an NFL rule requiring players to stand respectfully silent during the national anthem, and, if they refuse, suspend them from play for that day?”
They don’t have a rule in the NFL rule book that is used during games, but they do have a game operations policy manual that covers this.
The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem.
During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. The home team should ensure that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and our country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses.
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