You are absolutely right. And right now, the league has a rule against it. But for all the people saying "if I x,y,z at my job", it wasn't comparable. One, because the NFL never had a rule against it (and I say they allowed it because, unlike Dallas, pretty much no teams put out any rules against it). And two, your job doesn't play the anthem and force real or fake patriotism. It's not comparable to be honest.
Well, that's not necessarily true. Most jobs, like the NFL even, have unwritten rules. The NFL for example has a rule against doing anything detrimental to the team or the shield and this could be construed as detrimental. Just as my job doesn't have anything in the handbook against holding a protest, it does have specific language about personal business on company time. ANY protest would be considered personal business unless your employer was conducting the protest and asked you to participate. The NFL certainly was not conducting the protest, therefore the players are using company time to conduct personal business. For the record, the Browns did not allow it. After the players initial prayer "protest" the team met and came up with an alternative solution allowing anyone that wanted to say a message to do it on camera for a PSA that was played immediately before the anthem. It got the same point across. AS for your final comment...The players have stated FRANKLY this is not in protest to...what do you personally call it? "force real or fake patriotism", or patriotism in any sense...it was for a personal, non related issue to them.
You are absolutely right. And right now, the league has a rule against it. But for all the people saying "if I x,y,z at my job", it wasn't comparable. One, because the NFL never had a rule against it (and I say they allowed it because, unlike Dallas, pretty much no teams put out any rules against it). And two, your job doesn't play the anthem and force real or fake patriotism. It's not comparable to be honest. For me, I wouldn't really care. I turn on football to watch football games. I don't watch the NFL to see the anthem played, to see if players are standing or kneeling, to see random visuals of the stands or the announcers. I don't watch to see commercials either, but all of those things come with football. And I don't get mad about the few minutes any of them are on my tv screen. At home, I can change the channel and at the game I can look away. So I can't speak for everyone, but I wouldn't complain. Players use their NFL player status to bring attention to many topics. Matt Birk used his platform to speak on same sex marriages. Ray Rice used his platform to talk about drunk drivers. JJ Watt used his platform for hurricane survivors. And many more. The only time you'll ever hear complaints about keeping politics, or anything else, out of football is when that individual doesn't agree with it. Matt Birk was told to keep it out of football but Ray Rice never was. Everyone doesn't agree with same sex marriage, but practically everyone is opposed to drunk driving (or at least nobody is for it). Unlike many, I'm not going to pick and choose what is allowed in or out of football. Until they start protesting DURING the actual game, I couldn't care less if someone protests anything. It's their right
That's EXACTLY what would happen if the proposed walk out happens. Any game involving walkouts may force the game to be cancelled...
Well, I guess that comes down to perspective. If my job tries to force me to do something 100% outside of my job description, and I choose not to, I'm fairly confident I can't be fired for it. In fact, I can tell you that I've tested that theory in the past and was never terminated. This may be a guess, but I'm betting that standing for the anthem isn't written into any current contracts. From a legal standpoint, they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. You can't force something, then say not doing it is detrimental to the shield. To be frank, the NFL could have killed this whole thing by simply telling camermen not to show players during the anthem, but that's another topic. The players are protesting something they rarely have to experience, I agree. And I honestly think that's fantastic of them. In many cases, they are experience hate, receiving threats, and putting their overpaid contracts on the line to protest something that affect a lot of Americans, but doesn't affect them specifically. That's worthy of a ton of respect from me. Unfortunately many would rather focus on the actions as opposed to the reason for the action. To be honest, if someone asked me if players should continue or stop the protests, I'd say they should stop. Too many have already shown that the only thing they care about is the method of protest, primarily because the issues don't affect them. Sadly, it's not changing any of the current issues anyway
Well, when that happens I might actually care about their form of protests. Then again, I consider these real world issues a little more important than watching people play a game so maybe I wouldn't be upset still. There are tons of things I do on Sundays during the offseason. I'd gladly do them longer if it created the change these protests are after.
Exactly. Perfectly said imo. Also, I'd like to know how much these multi-multi-millionaire players are contributing both of their time and money to help solve what they consider to be problems in this country, the same country in which they have thrived so abundantly. I guess maybe asinine and pointless token knees of virtue signaling are more important? In the words of AJM (and office speak everywhere), please advise.
Change is in action to change them...which is happening in the "summit" meetings taking place in neighborhoods across the US...NOT in the minute and a half of the song in which an athlete is kneeling in protest on their bosses dime. Again...Kaep hurt himself when he decided not to speak on the subject when given multiple opportunities to in the past on HIS time. I know he does things on his own time, that isn't what I meant. In the past when asked questions, he has stated those know what it is about and I'll leave it at that, next question...NO, this is your opportunity to educate, not just show how cool you are for causing controversy, if you aren't educating then you aren't part of the solution. Be AT the meetings between police and the community, to my knowledge he has not done THAT yet.
You know you could probably just google search if you really wanted to know. Most of the stuff players do, in terms of donating money or even time, are available to you on the world wide web
That's really not fair to Kaepernick. His silent protest was initially explained, but reporters kept asking why he was doing it. That's why he started trying to move on from it. He's said in detail why he was protesting, named cases as examples, and talked about it even while he was still in the NFL. Problem is a good portion of America simply doesn't care about his narrative, only their own. He's said countless times that it wasn't about the anthem or flag, and yet people keep telling him what his own protest was about. They told him he was disrespecting veterans. When he went to discuss it with veterans and they told him to kneel as a sign of respect, he was still told he was disrespecting veterans. Hell, look in this thread at the comments about not liking the country and find one example of any of the players saying they don't like this country. At this point, it's really about some Americans just being angry that someone is doing something they feel shouldn't be done.
What percentage of their income would you say most players kneeling contribute to helping police / inner city resident relationships? I will google ... ... ok google didn't have much info on that. I'm guessing not much then?
Then go hold up signs on Sundays. You believe it is more important yet you wouldn’t miss a Ravens game to support what you say is more important. I think the owners would have done this earlier but they had their heads up their collective asses trying to protest President Trump. To many people are fighting Trump for stupid reasons and in stupid ways. The NFL should have stopped it immediately when Kap first started it. A everyday job would fire you for protesting on the job whether or not they had a rule about it. The NFL dropped the ball on this one and Trump scooped it up and scored the game winning TD. They now have a rule in place thanks to Trump and millions of people who said fuck you to the NFL.
Just for the record once again so you all know where I'm coming from. My father spent his entire life in the military, died in the military, was one stripe from the highest rank in the military. He wore the thankless nature of his work on his face, knowing it was even despised by some - like a burden he had to carry. I've never known a man with more integrity. Every time I went to a sporting event with him and the national anthem played he would choke up and hope it went unnoticed (it didn't). Now that he's gone, when I take my kids guess who chokes up these days and hopes it goes unnoticed?
Any particular players? Not specific to helping police / inner city resident relationships, I know I can research how much Kaepernick donated: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jerryb...g-donations-roll-past-1-million/#7d31d3371668 I can find stuff on Eric Reid, who was also a big part of the protests: https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/05/02/49ers-eric-reid-ronnie-lott-team-up-for-charity-event/ I got curious and even found an article that covered at least one player from each team: https://www.sbnation.com/2017/9/29/...-hurricane-harvey-patrick-peterson-foundation None of this took long. But you can't find anything at all?
Yeah, I don't care to discuss Trump on this, but explain to me why I need to go hold up signs on Sundays? This may be a wild guess, but you actually have zero idea of what I do to support causes I believe in. You would assume I don't do anything because I don't do it during a specific 3 hour time span even though there are 168 hours in each week. That's what's wrong with people. Too much one dimensional thinking
Never implied they were. I did, however, say you can google and find what players have donated to. I'm pretty sure donations and taking a knee aren't correlated
I would say the same is true about those that care about this issue...This isn't the only issue in America, but I would venture a guess most of those issues aren't being addressed beside this issue in their daily lives. And, I believe I am being fair. That was my point. This is about education, if there is a group that hasn't been educated, then if you want to do the protest, you should be prepared to educate as many as is needed to forward your cause. You should be willing and able to speak on it at EVERY opportunity and platform given to you. Not just kneel for 90 seconds and say "I did my part". I did your Google search and searching on speaking events for Kaep, only one is showing up...accepting an award for his part...which to my knowledge to this point is simply kneeling for 90 seconds once a week. My problem with it all is that, many of the cases being thrown out there are of circumstances that could have been prevented if the people who lost their lives hadn't done something wrong in the first place. One, holding a toy gun with the orange tip removed to look like a real gun...another who informed the officers he had a concealed gun in the car, then did not listen to officers requests to leave his hands where they could see them...another where a man was being arrested for illegal activity and the man resisted said arrest. I know there are some instances of point blank misuse of power in the police department, just as there is misuse of power in just about every aspect of jobs available in America. It's a police force as big as some of the largest cities in the country. There are going to be bad ones...especially when there are a shortage of officers overall..the bad ones get breaks where they shouldn't. I get that...But, the vast majority of minority citizens not involved in criminal activities are not being oppressed in this country. I can't say they don't see forms of racism, but we all do..It is still racism when a minority accuses you of being racist simply because of the color of your skin. There are ignorant people all around us, of all shapes and color. Racism has no boundaries.
I think some of the mistaken messaging lies at the feet of Kaepernick for the manner in which he approached this to begin with. The socks set the tone and no matter how much he tried to divert from that after the fact it was too late. Then, his girlfriend became his unofficial mouthpiece when he was about to get another chance in Baltimore. If he loses his civil case (and I expect him to win, but for far less cash, which amounts to a loss) it will be traced back to that Tweet and the idea that he was about to get handed another contract and there were actions taken that can be considered to be orchestrated by him that were detrimental to his hiring. The other reason will be his opting out of the San Fran contract to pursue another opportunity. No player is guaranteed work in the NFL and the idea that he showed the desire to end a contract creates an open lane for the league to show disbelief in his willingness to fully commit, which goes directly to reasoning for not wanting to offer a contract.
