Liberals: The NFL’s virtue signaling ruined the #TakeAKnee protest
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(AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
Just when players have the momentum and justification they need to continue on with their “take a knee” protest during the national anthem, the NFL has to come ruin everything.
According to some liberals, the NFL is somehow virtue signaling and appropriating the “take a knee” protest started by Colin Kaepernick, therefore cheapening the meaning behind it and rendering it useless.
After President Donald Trump criticized Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players who use the national anthem as a time to protest police brutality and push for criminal justice reform, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, team owners, and players stood (or knelt) in solidarity with them.
According to Deadspin’s Tom Ley, this is the worst news to happen to the cause. He wrote, “All [the NFL] had to do was release a few limp-dick statements tsk-tsking Trump’s comments for their divisiveness, come up with a few meaningless shows of pseudo-solidarity like we saw in Arizona last night, and poof: Suddenly the anthem protests aren’t about a very specific set of problems plaguing this country, but about ‘unity,’ a cause more hollow than anything 25 branding execs could ever dream up in a conference room.”
He, like many others, highlights how a number of professional athletes, coaches, and executives are on the cover of Sports Illustrated, however, Kaepernick is not.
THIS WEEK’S COVER: In a nation divided, the sports world is coming together https://t.co/aONQ0a141s pic.twitter.com/rvuXVmiHq7
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) September 26, 2017
“The worst irony here may be the way the NFL’s new marketing initiative not only appropriates the protests, but perverts their meaning,” Ley wrote.
Current and former NFL players sent a lengthy memo to Roger Goodell in August seeking his support in their racial equality campaign. This past weekend shows that Goodell does support them, but not in a way that produces substantive change for improving their respective communities.
The NFL is already running a marketing campaign on what we saw happened this past weekend.
And Tom Ley isn’t the only one complaining about the massive protests and the NFL and media’s response to it.
“Hooray, sports! United we stand! Except the kneeling unemployed guy who started all this and isn’t in the photo.” https://t.co/Dn3zts8CyP
— Dan Le Batard Show (@LeBatardShow) September 26, 2017
The cover seemingly erases Kaepernick from the movement he started. – @kelseymsutton https://t.co/15iv2SupZM
— stephanie clary (@sclary) September 26, 2017
The Sports Illustrated “protest” cover includes a man who gave a $1,000,000 to Trump but not Colin Kaepernick who lost his career over it. pic.twitter.com/TyQ6eD4cuP
— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) September 26, 2017
Any substantive conversation that needs to be had with respect to racism has now devolved into 1) hatred for America and disrespect for the flag as well as the men and women who died fighting to protect it, and 2) expressing a united front against President Trump. The original meaning of the protest (i.e. ending police brutality and reforming the criminal justice system) has been completely lost.
On top of all of this, the “take a knee” protest has been further cheapened by protesters at the Georgetown University Law Center, who took a knee to signal their opposition to Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaking on campus that day. It’s become an anti-Trump gesture, not an anti-police brutality or pro-criminal justice reform gesture.
Maybe if liberals can stop overreacting to everything that Trump says and does, then liberals wouldn’t have to continue to fight their own over the meaning of things.
The post Liberals: The NFL’s virtue signaling ruined the #TakeAKnee protest appeared first on Red Alert Politics.
Source: Red Alert Politics
