So all the protests, all the disrespectful kneeling and the John Carlos wannabes making power salutes during the national anthem have led to the NFL's $89 million "Let's Listen Together" campaign. The grand solution to two seasons of bellyaching by rich, disgruntled social justice warriors in football uniforms is, as USA Today's Nancy Armour describes it, "a marketing campaign to highlight the work players have been doing on social justice reform and racial equality, and draw further attention to the problems that prompted the protests in the first place."
The campaign was announced Tuesday by the NFL and the Players Coalition, a group of protesters who shook down the league for a mega-million dollar deal that makes race hustler Jesse Jackson look small-time. No apologies for driving fans away from NFL games and broadcasts or insulting veterans and police officers were part of the announcement. Never mind about putting that Titanic-sized dent in the hull of the NFL's sinking brand.
Armour, just one of a group of far-left ideologues on the USA Today sports staff, claims the players have regained their narrative. What they really meant by their pre-game shenanigans was that they wanted to educate themselves with a video series about biased policing, they wanted letters from owners explaining what they've learned and they wanted to do listen-and-learn tours. Armour was initially skeptical of the NFL's decision to give the money to activist players. She wondered if the "the league was simply trying to buy itself cover from President Donald Trump’s raging tweets and hate-filled characterizations of the player protests."
It didn't take much to convince her, "This campaign shows there’s a lot of promise in the partnership." She wrote that the players could only do so much on their own and they just needed buy-in from the 32 owners. They got it from Patriots' President Jonathan Kraft, who admits he now knows 7-year-olds -- mostly black students -- can be arrested for misbehaving in school. These aha moments of the owners are crucial to moving forward from the protests.
"That is how change happens," writes the easily impressed Armour. "People of economic, racial and social privilege realizing that their view of reality is a limited one and wanting to change that." And as Armour relates, Patriots safety Devin McCourty says it is also a matter of the players becoming "springboards." Hopefully they will spring from their knees back to their feet next season.
$89 million can make that and a lot of other incredible things happen. Like Armour says, "This new campaign will help chip away at that."
Armour claims there's been a lot of noise surrounding the protests. "But if you listen, really listen, you might learn something. And who knows what can happen from there." So the $89 million is really about learning how to listen, not about overcoming the taint of portraying cops as pigs and thumbing noses at veterans. Everybody's tight again now. Insulting never means having to say you're sorry!
The opening moment of "Let's Listen" is tonight on the NFL Network when Malcolm Jenkins of the Philadelphia Eagles listens in with Upper Darby, Pa., police Superintendent Michael Chitwood, who talks about training his police officers about racial bias, social and emotional intelligence.
How ironic is it for any representatives of the NFL to discuss social and emotional intelligence? Many people refer to the NFL, a league with a lengthy list of arrested and disorderly players, as the National "Felons" League. But maybe a listening campaign can turn around a lot of bad behavior.
It's no wonder Colin Kaepernick never participated with the Players Campaign and some active players criticized its efforts. $89 million just doesn't buy as much as it used to. And liberal media typically don't question the costs of social justice movements because they are guided by emotions and intent.
