As the NFL season starts this week, Colin Kaepernick has the right to kneel or sit or do a headstand during the national anthem. What’s more, he can do it for any reason he likes. If he wants to go to the barricades over the oppression he suffers pulling $19 million a year to ride the bench and fill his mansion with his shoe collection, well, fight the power, comrade!
But after photos emerged of him practicing in socks festooned with pigs’ heads in police hats, fans have the right to call B.S. when Kaepernick says he isn’t anti-cop. He’s not anti-cop in the same way Black Lives Matter isn’t anti-cop when they chant “What do we want? Dead Cops! When do we want it? Now!” Kaepernick’s lame explanations aside, his sentiments are crystal clear.
And so are those of any NFL player who joins his protest post-pig socks. His teammate Eric Reid and Seattle Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane have refused to stand. Others may join, cheered on by the race-obsessed liberals of the sports media.
(Predictably President Obama supports Kaepernick, while a lesbian pro soccer player managed to breach obscurity for a moment with her own anthem antics.) Meanwhile, the cowardly NFL won’t allow the Cowboys to wear helmet stickers honoring the five Dallas police officers gunned down protecting Black Lives Matter protesters.
Unfortunately, there are other anti-cop NFL players. In 2014, five St. Louis Rams players, tight end Jared Cook and receivers Kenny Britt, Stedman Bailey, Chris Givens and Tavon Austin entered their stadium making the “hands-up, don’t shoot” gesture popularized by Ferguson Missouri protestors after the police shooting of Michael Brown.
Of course, “hands-up, don’t shoot” was a lie. Michael Brown was a thug who robbed and jacked up a convenience store owner before he attacked a cop, tried to grab the officer’s gun and was killed in an incident that even Eric Holder’s DOJ said was justifiable homicide. But the five were celebrated by lefties in the sports media, and the NFL declined to discipline them.
In July, Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett wore a Black Lives Matter T-shirt to a press conference at which he harangued fellow pro football players for not “talking about things socially.” White players like Peyton Manning or Aaron Rogers “don’t have to deal with the same things we deal with as black players.”
According to Bennett, “Our great [NFL] players are sitting back taking the dollars, whether it's Cam Newton, all these guys, they're just not at the forefront of trying to change what's going on.” By “taking the dollars,” of course, Bennett means doing what they get paid millions to do. Which doesn’t include “talking about things socially,” or wearing the shirt of a group whose members sometimes advocate violence against police.
Wonder what the Minneapolis cops injured by hurled rebar and concrete during a Black Lives Matter march make of Bennett’s press conference. Or the five we can’t ask in Dallas or the three in Baton Rouge.
Speaking of violence against cops, the NFL also did nothing (sensing a theme?) when Browns running back Isaiah Crowell posted a disgusting image on Instagram. So offensive that Facebook banned it, the pic showed an ISIS terrorist cutting the throat of a cop. Crowell apologized and donated $35,000 to a Dallas police charity. Since $35K is nothing to a professional football player, sorry, not sorry.
Of course there are plenty of NFL players who aren’t enamored of Black Lives Matter – Seahawks star Richard Sherman for one. The New York Giants responded to Kaepernick’s initial anthem stunt by forming up in a conspicuous semi-circle for the anthem at their next preseason game. The Giants’ Justin Pugh, made clear he had no sympathy for Kaepernick. We can assume that on Sunday, the 15th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, the Giants and the Jets coaching staffs will be wearing NYPD and FDNY hats.
But as the race industry and the wannabe social justice warriors in the sports press increasingly demand that players be as politicized as they are, even third-rate players can find themselves feted on ESPN for saying or doing something important. Thoughtless (hopefully) anti-cop displays will increase, and the space we have to enjoy the sport will contract even more.
