Page 12
June 6, 2018
O PINION
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NFL Anthem Policy is Pure Hypocrisy
A variation of an old,
familiar theme
J effery r obinson
The NFL’s new “anthem
policy” requires players to
“respect” the flag and the na-
tional anthem or stay in the
locker room until it is played.
The NFL refers to this as a
compromise — it was any-
thing but.
This was a mandate, not a decision ar-
rived at through a collaborative process.
Despite claiming that they would consult
with the players before making a decision
on this issue, the National Football League
Players Association said, “The NFL chose
to not consult the union in the development
of this new ‘policy.’” So the league and
owners will decide what shows “respect.”
Kneeling is out. The Pittsburgh Steelers
indicated that raising a fist or linking arms
is out. If one team decides a gesture or pos-
ture is respectful but another team doesn’t
like it, what will happen? One of the NFL
officials actually said, “We will know it
when we see it.”
Players who want to kneel (or raise a fist
or link arms or do some other kind of ges-
ture) are told, “If you do that on the field
we will take money away from you.” This
is simply a variation of an old, familiar
theme. Don’t demonstrate in the street be-
by
cause you block my commute home. Don’t
demonstrate downtown, I have shopping to
do. Don’t demonstrate at a sporting event
because you take away from my enter-
tainment. Why can’t you all just shut
up and dribble?
Telling players to stay in the locker
room also rings familiar as well —
get to the back of the bus. Get to the
other water fountain. Do not appear
in public in ways that will threaten or
displease white people in America. If
you want to protest, do it in a way that
white folks don’t have to see it or deal with
your claimed injustices.
And with the collusion to keep Colin
Kaepernick out of the league combined
with teams asking free agents if they will
stand during the anthem, another message
is being delivered. Be thankful you are
making all that money — you play a game
for a living. If we didn’t allow you to be
making this money, you would be out there
with the rest of “them.”
President Donald Trump weighed in
on players staying in the locker room
saying, “Maybe you should not be in the
country.” In a country that claims to value
free speech and expression, you should be
fined or forced to leave the country if you
“speak” in a way some don’t like. Orwell
would have loved it.
John Elway and other NFL officials
have said that we should “take the politics
out of football.” Really? What about the
millions of dollars paid to the NFL by the
Department of Defense to promote the mil-
itary? If encouraging people not to serve in
the military is a political act, then encour-
aging them to serve is equally political.
What about the show of military aircraft
flying overhead and flags streaming across
the field? Kneeling during the anthem has
nothing to do with being for or against
military recruiting, but the Pentagon paid
for the NFL to promote the military — an
overtly political act — and the NFL has
been delivering. There is nothing wrong
with that, but it is what it is. The NFL gave
up being non-political a long time ago.
The NFL said the new policy would
change “a false perception among many
that thousands of NFL players were un-
patriotic.” Think about that for a minute.
There was a false perception that play-
ers were unpatriotic, meaning the players
kneeling were patriotic. The cure for this
false perception is to force players to stand
when they would prefer to kneel. By forc-
ing them to stand, the fans will now know
they are patriotic. This makes no sense.
Only one team has said they will stop
selling concessions during the anthem. It
does not appear that the suspending the
selling of beer, hotdogs, banners, and the
like was even considered by the group. I
guess it is not disrespectful to leave your
seat and miss the anthem in order to get a
dog and a beer. After all, there is money
to be made. And no disrespect is shown by
the fans at home who go to the bathroom,
grab another beer, or set up the snacks
during the anthem. The respect that must
be shown must come from the players.
Houston Texans owner Bob McNair
told players last year, “You fellas need to
ask your compadres, fellas, stop that other
business, let’s go out and do something that
really produces positive results, and we’ll
help you.” Much has been made of the
NFL setting aside money for social justice.
The money was not new money to support
communities, but re-allocating already
designated charitable funds from one issue
(breast cancer) to another (social justice).
This is what caring means to an institution
which was forecast to hit $14 billion in
gross revenue last year.
If people are serious about making a dif-
ference, they use whatever platform they
have to make that clear. The NFL released
its new policy at the same time news was
breaking about NBA player Sterling Brown
being abused and tased by officers of the
Milwaukee Police Department. This is the
kind of incident that started the protests.
The NFL did not mention this incident in
any of its messaging. Apparently speaking
out about police abuse in the Black com-
munity isn’t something they are interested
in during the offseason either.
Jeffery Robinson is a deputy legal direc-
tor for the American Civil Liberties Union
and director of the Trone Center for Justice
and Equality.
Immigration Debate Needs a Lot More Humanity
Calling people
‘animals’
devalues lives
J ill r iChardson
I don’t think I’m
alone in believing
there’s an intrinsic
value to human life.
That is, any hu-
man, no matter who
they are or what
they’re like, has
worth simply because they’re hu-
man. On some basic level, all of us
are equal and precious.
That’s why many of us would
save a human from a burning
building before we’d try to save a
dog. And why we’d go to extreme
lengths to save the human if it’s at
all possible.
No doubt you have people you
love, people you like, and people
you dislike. There are people you
wouldn’t want to have as a neigh-
bor, co-worker, or friend. But even
when you dislike someone person-
ally, and wish to avoid them, you
wouldn’t deny their fundamental
by
humanity.
Or at least, I like to think
most of us wouldn’t. Apparently,
though, some of us would.
I’ve been deeply uneasy with
some trends that seem to rank
some people as more valu-
able and others as less. One
of them is the idea that im-
migration should be based
on “merit.”
What does merit mean?
Merit as a human being?
What’s actually meant
by proposals to allow im-
migration based solely on “mer-
it” is that only the wealthiest and
most educated people can come to
the U.S.
Calling that “merit” implies
that one’s worth as a human is
dictated by their wealth and edu-
cation. I don’t believe that’s true. I
believe the poorest and most desti-
tute refugee has equal worth to the
wealthiest billionaire.
Beyond their intrinsic worth,
immigrants who lack money and
education make tremendous con-
tributions. Not least, they put food
on America’s tables.
Immigration crackdowns in
Alabama, Georgia, and Califor-
nia led to crops rotting in the
field when undocumented immi-
grants were unavailable to pick
them, and nobody documented
was willing to do the job under
the pay and working conditions
being offered.
An even more troubling, the
devaluation of human life that
He’s done this from when he
first entered office, when he creat-
ed a phone line for people to use to
report crimes by immigrants.
First of all, we don’t need a
phone line for that. We already
have a phone line. It’s called 911.
Or, in a non-emergency, you re-
port crimes to your local police.
Second, immigrants actually
them, dehumanizing Jews by call-
ing them “rats,” and then gradual-
ly more extreme steps like forbid-
ding intermarriage or forcing Jews
into a ghetto.
Let’s not go there. Immigrants
have an intrinsic worth as human
beings. We can debate how many
people to let into the country, how
best to do it, or what sensible pre-
Nobody, even the Nazis, began with concentration
camps. They began by creating an idea of us vs.
them, dehumanizing Jews by calling them “rats,” and
then gradually more extreme steps like forbidding
intermarriage or forcing Jews into a ghetto.
was behind Trump’s assertion that
Central American gang members
are “violent animals.”
Obviously, few of us would
defend or invite members of a vi-
olent gang into the United States.
The problem here is that Trump
has routinely tried to associate all
immigrants — and particularly
those from Latin America — with
criminality.
commit crimes at a lower rate than
native born citizens.
Third, and most troublingly,
calling human beings animals is
one of the steps toward genocide.
(Specifically, according to Greg
Stanton of Genocide Watch, it’s
step three: dehumanization.)
Nobody, even the Nazis, began
with concentration camps. They
began by creating an idea of us vs.
cautions to take.
But whatever we do, our immi-
gration policy — and our politics
— should recognize every per-
son’s common humanity.
OtherWords columnist Jill
Richardson is the author of Rec-
ipe for America: Why Our Food
System Is Broken and What We
Can Do to Fix It. Distributed by
OtherWords.org.