I apologize in advance for yet another post about Der Trumpenführer, but the man makes it hard to focus on other things, especially since he embodies the worst aspects of American society and the latent racism that continues to plague so much of white, Christian, heterosexual America. In the case of Trump, he was born to wealth and raised in what would seem to have been a racist household given his father's involvement with the KKK many decades ago. Yet, despite his wealth, like so many of his supporters, he is brain dead when it comes to the grasping the privilege he inherited simply by virtue of the color of his skin. Worse yet, like his supporters, he sees race relations as a zero sum gain. If blacks and Hispanics secure equal rights under the law, under this warped view, it is taken to mean that somehow whites have lost something. The concept of all doing better and the country doing better is a concept beyond their grasp. In the wake of the controversy Trump has generated in his effort to stiffle the freedom of expression rights of minority players in the NFL, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich provided what might be be the best take on the legitimacy of the NFL/police brutality protests. Here are highlights via Joe Jervis' blog:
Race is the elephant in the room and we all understand that. Unless it is talked about constantly, it’s not going to get better. ‘Oh, they’re talking about that again. They pulled the race card again. Why do we have to talk about that?’Well, because it’s uncomfortable. There has to be an uncomfortable element in the discourse for anything to change, whether it’s the LGBT movement, or women’s suffrage, race, it doesn’t matter.
People have to be made to feel uncomfortable, and especially white people, because we’re comfortable. We still have no clue what being born white means. And if you read some of the recent literature, you realize there really is no such thing as whiteness. We kind of made it up. That’s not my original thought, but it’s true.
It’s hard to sit down and decide that, yes, it’s like you’re at the 50-meter mark in a 100-meter dash. You’ve got that kind of a lead, yes, because you were born white. You have advantage that are systemically, culturally, psychologically rare. And they’ve been built up and cemented for hundreds of years.
But many people can’t look at it that way, because it’s too difficult. It can’t be something that’s on their plate on a daily basis. People want to hold their position, people want their status quo, people don’t want to give that up. Until it’s given up, it’s not going to be fixed.
I may be white, but being gay in a state that historically has been virulently anti-gay, has provided with a first hand knowledge that America's supposed promise of "liberty and justice for all" is a myth. Gays are lees than equal and often do not receive justice from bigoted legislators and judges. If one is black, things are far, far worse. Yet if one complains, one is labeled as a whiner, a single issue voter, or according to Der Trumpenführer, unpatriotic. A piece in Sports Illustrated looks at why these NFL protests are not only appropriate but also an affirmation of the values that white Americans claim to support: free speech and the right to engage in peaceful protests. Here are excerpts:
On Sept. 16, 1960, before a home game against the Athletics, Cleveland pitcher James (Mudcat) Grant was standing in the bullpen singing along with the national anthem. Grant decided to do a little barbering of the lyrics. He adjusted the last line to "This land is not so free/I can't go to Mississippi." This was some topical humor of a very high order: opposition to the civil rights movement was growing more violent, and, as had been the case since the Civil War, Mississippi was the cone of the volcano.The Indians' bullpen coach, a Texan named Ted Wilks, took exception to Grant's improvised lyrics and, according to Grant's account, called the pitcher a "black so and so." In reply, Grant told Wilks that Texas was worse than Russia. Grant then got dressed and left the park. The next day, Cleveland manager Jimmie Dykes suspended him for the season without pay. Wilks apologized but Grant refused to accept it. He would no longer accept that this racist invective was part of the cost of doing business as an African-American athlete in the U.S. I mention all this in support of one of several things to which you must stipulate if you're going to talk sensibly about the controversy that blew up over the weekend, and the ongoing controversy regarding displaced quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose protest against police brutality is at the heart of what went on in stadiums all over the world:
1) The inclusion of a national anthem—any national anthem—in a sporting event necessarily politicizes that event. Historically, this is best demonstrated by protests at the Olympic Games. Everyone remembers Tommie Smith and John Carlos in Mexico City in 1968. But few remember Czechoslovakian gymnast Vera Caslavska, who bowed her head and looked away from the Soviet flag while sharing the top spot on the medal podium with the U.S.S.R.'s Larisa Petrik at the same Games, only two months after Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring revolt of 1968. When Caslavska got home, she was investigated by the new government and forbidden to travel or compete for several years.
2) The protests of today are not about the anthem or the flag or the troops, or even about Donald Trump. The protestors are high-profile African-American athletes raising awareness of how lower-profile African-Americans are often mistreated by police officers. 3) All effective protest is inconvenient and, in its own way, uncivil. The Boston Tea Party was an act of vandalism. Critics' appeal to "find a better way to protest" is really a call for self-sabotage, and it's a dodge that dates back to the Olive Branch Petition of 1775.
4) The wealthy athletes protesting worked much harder for their money than the president in question ever has for his.
In short, if you're going to perform national anthems, you're going to have politics. And if you have politics, you're going to have political statements and, this being the United States of America, those statements are not always going to make everyone comfortable. And once military-related promotions reached a level that made even John McCain uncomfortable, those statements had to get louder, if only to be heard over the fighter jets, and more garish, if only to be seen beyond the giant midfield flags.
The way to avoid this, of course, is to de-emphasize the anthem ritual, and return to the days before 2009 when it was common practice for teams to remain in the locker room while the anthem was played. . . . Unfortunately, today, it would take courage beyond that possessed by most owners and league commissioners to take this simple step.
This is why, over the weekend, we had so many owners framing the issue as a matter of standing behind their employees' free-speech rights. . . . Those same owners, along with commissioner Roger Goodell, don't want any part of the issue of why African-Americans end up dead on the pavement after traffic stops and other encounters with police officers. But ultimately the owners and commissioners may not have a choice: The real issue behind the protests has been out there all along.
