Professional football is weird. Teams pay large salaries to talented men. They build them up, suit them in armor, and send them onto a 100-yard field to hurt another group of talented men girded for battle. Many players retain a pride in their performance long after they retire, long after their bodies crumble from the beatings they took playing America's favorite past time.
I'm not a fan. Most Americans think I'm an idiot. Some 264 million people watch every week, creating a fanbase larger than most countries. Not only I am not a fan, I'm in the minority, a tiny-weeny minority.
Its popularity plays large in American culture even without my support. That means money for owners, players, and sponsors. Therefore, most players zig and zag around controversial issues. Reasons vary: team contracts, endorsement contracts, negative publicity hurting family and friends, and even the attitude of their own teammates.
In 2016, quarter Colin Kaepernick stop zagging. He took a knee when a stadium played the national anthem. As he repeatedly said, it was an act of solidary with the Black Lives Matter movement. He originally planned to sit through the anthem, but former Green Beret Nate Boyer suggested taking a knee, as soldiers do for fallen comrades.
It was a simple gesture. It didn't disrespect an individual or the game. It didn't show disregard for anything American. It created not a symbol of defiance but one of mourning. It expressed a desire to eliminate injustice against African Americans, and it had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the American flag or the national anthem, as I noted in my book to you both.
A small group of NFL players followed Kaepernick's lead.
Now W. and M., you would think that was good. Not so for the nation's future commander in chief, healer of the nation, and president Donald Trump. The man who turned filing for bankruptcy into an art form politicized the symbol. At a 2017 rally, he called on NFL owners to fire any athlete who took a knee and referred to Kaepernick with vulgarity. Eventually the controversy's flame died down, not without its victims, primarily Kaepernick.
The death of George Floyd re-ignited the symbol's vitality. Protestors took a knee. In solidarity with the aims of the marchers, some police officers, politicians, and soldiers took a knee.
New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees threw gasoline on the fire, claiming that no player should take a knee during a preseason game. He raised the fool's argument that the act showed disrespect for the nation's flag. Players throughout the league jumped on the statement, and took it upon themselves to re-educate Brees. It was a miracle. Rather than retrenching, Brees listened, learned, and endorsed its practice.
It must be difficult. There are many old dogs, and most never learn new tricks. For example, our Twitterer in Chief offered this reaction to Brees's new position: “We should be standing up straight and tall, ideally with a salute, or a hand on heart. There are other things you can protest, but not our Great American Flag — NO KNEELING!” He takes a patriotic act and places it in the sanctum sanctorum* of Americanism. Giving sanctity to that one act is ludicrous. Half the people in the stands are drunk. (Tailgating is hard.)
He, therefore, is the definition of missing the point (as well as sophomoric thinking, specious reasoning, and simple lying).
Guys, this is the reason I worry for your futures. Not because of one old dog. Alone, Trump is nothing. He's not alone. The fool has a circus of followers.
*I am referring to the sanctum sanctorum as a metaphor of the building in the Old Testament. It's not a reference to the residence of Marvel Comics Doctor Strange.
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