Baltimore Ravens
The Washington Times quotes a poll indicating that one-third of the country is considering stopping watching the NFL.
The Left has suddenly converted to being on favor of Free Speech. Free Speech is good when it takes the form of black athletes performing a gesture of disrespect toward the country and the rest of us.
Of course, they have a political right to express hostility toward, and contempt for, the United States. No one is going to arrest them or prosecute them in any court of law either. But, parri passu, the right of free speech, as we all know, does not mean that your employer has to tolerate your views. Mozilla and Google made national news throwing out employees who took politically incorrect positions frowned upon by those companies.
And what goes for giant Silicon Valley companies certainly goes for the great America football viewing audience.
Yesterday, one single Pittsburgh Steeler, West Point graduate & Army veteran offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva, appeared outside the locker room to stand for the National Anthem.
Coach Mike Tomlin was reported to have been “disappointed” that there was not “100% participation” in boycotting the Anthem out of respect for the football team.
Coach Tomlin obviously believes that respect for African-American racial chauvinism and respect for team solidarity come before respect for America and national solidarity.
This particular point of view, I can tell you, is not going to be a hit in Appalachian Steeler Country. Boycotts, Mike Tomlin, Roger Goodall, and all those aggrieved and oppressed multi-millionaire black players are going to find out can go both ways.
Seattle Sam
Football players with racial grievances have free speech expectations. Conservatives who want to give a speech on a college campus do not.
And, let’s face it, a 300 pound guy with an unfinished degree in phys ed and $5 million in the bank is bound to have a lot of grievances.
JK Brown
Villanueva has apologized for having an independent thought. Obviously, after pressure or threats from the coach/team. That makes the Steelers action an official team, i.e., employer, act, not individual choices.
If your employer threatens sanction if you do not act in a certain way, that makes your actions, not your own, but your employer’s. And if the NFL doesn’t sanction the Steelers franchise for this behavior, then they are ratifying it as official policy of the NFL to hide during the national anthem.
Sennacherib
J K Brown is exactly right. Villanueva may have a pretty good court case when it’s all said and done. The NFL has made it’s decision, I wonder if they realize nothing is forever.
bob sykes
It seems to be decided that the Flag and the Anthem are White symbols and are owned by Whites, and that Negroes have no ownership or interest in them. So be it. Whites should not allow their symbols to be used to promote Negro sports leagues or other Negro interests.
Steve Gregg
“The FBI released its official crime tally for 2016 today, and the data flies in the face of the rhetoric that professional athletes rehearsed in revived Black Lives Matter protests over the weekend. Nearly 900 additional blacks were killed in 2016 compared with 2015, bringing the black homicide-victim total to 7,881. Those 7,881 “black bodies,†in the parlance of Ta-Nehisi Coates, are 1,305 more than the number of white victims (which in this case includes most Hispanics) for the same period, though blacks are only 13 percent of the nation’s population.
“The increase in black homicide deaths last year comes on top of a previous 900-victim increase between 2014 and 2015.
Who is killing these black victims? Not whites, and not the police, but other blacks. In 2016, the police fatally shot 233 blacks, the vast majority armed and dangerous, according to the Washington Post. The Post categorized only 16 black male victims of police shootings as “unarmed.†That classification masks assaults against officers and violent resistance to arrest.
“Contrary to the Black Lives Matter narrative, the police have much more to fear from black males than black males have to fear from the police. In 2015, a police officer was 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male was to be killed by a police officer. Black males have made up 42 percent of all cop-killers over the last decade, though they are only 6 percent of the population. That 18.5 ratio undoubtedly worsened in 2016, in light of the 53 percent increase in gun murders of officers—committed vastly and disproportionately by black males. Among all homicide suspects whose race was known, white killers of blacks numbered only 243.”
https://www.city-journal.org/html/hard-data-hollow-protests-15458.html
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