I thought "this" wasn't about the flag/anthem?

[savannahskol]

"This"= social justice

& if it wasn't, so why do we need another 'anthem'?  

USA TODAY, today:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nf...368762002/

"black national anthem"?



Kaepernick:  "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick tells NFL Media after the game. 

So....if Kaep (et al) kneel for the "white national anthem", will he/they kneel for the "black national anthem?"  

[Guest]

The NFL Is on the Brink

By Victor Davis Hanson

July 16, 2020 6:30 AM 

The league survived all sorts of crises in the past, yet they are in deep trouble like never before.




The National Football League celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. This should be a time of self-congratulation for the brutal sport, which has no similar counterpart outside the United States.

The NFL’s megaprofits dwarf those of other professional sports in the U.S. The Super Bowl, not the World Series, is America’s national sports event.
The league survived all sorts of crises in the past. It was one of the first professional sports to integrate its teams, doing so in the 1920s. But the integration unfortunately ceased, and the NFL didn’t reintegrate until the mid ’40s, becoming one of the last sports leagues to embrace fully a racially blind meritocracy.

The NFL successfully absorbed the rival American Football League in 1966. So far the NFL has avoided federal safety regulations that could curb the incidence of physical trauma inherent in the sport.

The league’s owners are a cross-section of America’s most successful entrepreneurs and old-money families — many of them politically well-connected.
Yet the NFL is in deep trouble like never before.


In 2016, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem. He claimed he was protesting the treatment of African Americans.


Kaepernick was an odd revolutionary. His mother is white, his father is an African American of Ghanaian-Nigerian ancestry, and he was raised by a middle-class white couple. Kaepernick’s only prior controversy was being accused by another player of using the N-word. He denied it but was still fined by the league.

Kaepernick’s rejection of “The Star-Spangled Banner” eventually spread throughout the NFL. Even though he was a backup quarterback, Kaepernick became a #Resistance idol. Soon he was a corporate ad man, pitching Nike sneakers.


Then game attendance fell. So did television viewership. Apparently, lots of fans had no desire to spend their Sundays watching 20-something multimillionaires lecture them that the American flag was not worth honoring.


In 2018, the league belatedly banned players from kneeling for the national anthem. By then, Kaepernick had left football and become a megaphone for even more corporate sponsors.

Now the NFL is in the news amid national protests and violence following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police.


The inspirational song “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — also known as the black national anthem — will be played before every game of the first week of the season. The league is considering letting players wear protest insignia on their helmets or jerseys. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell apologized to players for not listening to them about racism.

Yet the NFL capitulation poses fundamental problems for the league. It has now essentially green-lighted the sort of activism that has been eating away its profits in the past few years.


Racial issues are often virtue-signaled in the NFL — but almost never in an honest way. New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees recently objected to players not honoring the flag. But he quickly caved when a media mob damned him. In contrast, Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson posted a series of anti-Semitic tweets last week, even falsely attributing a quote to Adolf Hitler. That disconnect posed a bizarre question for the NFL: Is it worse for a player to be pro–American flag or anti-Semitic?


NFL owners and head coaches are almost all white. But nearly three-quarters of the players are black. Those who play the game obviously want to see more diversity in coaching and ownership.

In a culture so obsessed with identity politics, is it the players or the owners and coaches (or both) who do not “look like America”?


Given that about 13 percent of the U.S. population is black, and given that the Black Lives Matter movement embraces concepts such as proportional representation, today’s NFL teams hardly qualify as diverse. Social activists might argue that the league should mentor and recruit more Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans to better reflect their percentages of our diverse national population.


Perhaps an NFL compromise could ensure that 30 percent of coaches and owners are nonwhite, thus reflecting current U.S. demography. But then, in reciprocity, the players would match such mandatory demographic diversity — leading to Native Americans, Latinos, Asians, whites, and those of mixed ancestry accounting for 87 percent of the player population. The NBA might also take note.


This progressive model of proportional representation could also apply to overrepresented white athletes in hockey, tennis, golf, and swimming — sports faulted by identity-politics groups as being unfairly overrepresented by whites.

Obviously, such racial gerrymandering will not happen because fans value meritocracy over ethnic affiliations.
Or at least they did.


If the multibillion-dollar NFL decides that multimillionaire players have no obligation to stand to honor a collective national anthem, and that there will be separate anthems and politicized uniforms, then millions of Americans will quietly shrug and change the channel.



And that silent protest will make the 2016–17 anthem protest look like child’s play.


--VDH

[Guest]

What a surprise.....(eye roll)....Victor Hanson, lol.

Hanson is a supporter of Donald Trump, authoring a 2019 book The Case for Trump.[20] Trump praised the book.[20] In the book, Hanson defends Trump's insults and incendiary language as "uncouth authenticity", and praises Trump for "an uncanny ability to troll and create hysteria among his media and political critics.

[Guest]

@StickyBun said:
What a surprise.....(eye roll)....Victor Hanson, lol.

Hanson is a supporter of Donald Trump, authoring a 2019 book The Case for Trump.[20] Trump praised the book.[20] In the book, Hanson defends Trump's insults and incendiary language as "uncouth authenticity", and praises Trump for "an uncanny ability to troll and create hysteria among his media and political critics.

...or as Aaron Sorkin once put it, "glamorizing abject dumbness as the fresh voice of an outsider."

[Guest]

I don't know who that author is,  but his message is likely correct.  This move/movement will not likely sit well with a good chunk of the NFLs fanbase and it will be noticed in the bottom line,   and bottom liine that the players union  that represent that largely black group of players depends on for their ever increasing contractual demands.

Wait and see I guess.

[Guest]

@savannahskol said:
If the multibillion-dollar NFL decides that multimillionaire players have no obligation to stand to honor a collective national anthem, and that there will be separate anthems and politicized uniforms, then millions of Americans will quietly shrug and change the channel.

--VDH

Trumpish conservatives have been saying this for years, trying to attribute the NFL's "declining numbers" to black people wanting something. But not everyone gets their knickers in a twist every time someone has the nerve to suggest black lives matter. And the NFL's numbers were up big last year, sort of shutting down that narrative. 

Honestly, I see the opposite happening. I give the NFL about a 40% chance of even having (and finishing) a season, but if they do, Americans will react to it the same way they did when restaurants and beaches opened. They flocked. With an increasing number of states with legalized gambling and fantasy football as popular as ever, no college football, and people still largely stuck at home, the NFL will be an elixir for Americans. 

I think if people don't tune in, it will more likely be because it doesn't look and feel the same. More players on IR, big time contributors getting sick, few or no fans in the seats. No matter what happens, it's going to be an asterisk season. 

[Guest]

@StickyBun said:
What a surprise.....(eye roll)....Victor Hanson, lol.

Hanson is a supporter of Donald Trump, authoring a 2019 book The Case for Trump.[20] Trump praised the book.[20] In the book, Hanson defends Trump's insults and incendiary language as "uncouth authenticity", and praises Trump for "an uncanny ability to troll and create hysteria among his media and political critics.

Your snippet re: Hanson (from Wiki) is grossly unfair and intellectually  dishonest.  
Your quote(s) above, is/are attributed to Peruvian Carlos Lozada {20}, Wa-Po journalist.  
And Lozada's quotes, are not facts....but opinions on VDH's works. Fair enough....if that's what you want to characterize. 


Here's some facts on VDH, from the same Wiki article, you quoted. 
VDH's  Curriculum Vitae:   

Raised as a farmer's son in the central California farmland valley. 
Received highest honors as an undergrad @UC-Santa Cruz. 
Graduate PH.D from Stanford. 
Professor Emeritus at CSU-Fresno, Classics. 
Senior fellow at Stanford U's Hoover Institute of both Classics and Military History.  
American philogical association's educator of the year, award. 
Awarded Shifrin Chair of Military History from the United States Naval Academy 
(don't look now, but the US military academies are recognized top-notch in academe)
NUMEROUS other awards. (see Wiki)
And VDH is a regular contributor to the "never Trump" National Review.  




Does that give you any intellectual pause?  

A:  No, it doesn't.  


You took a lousy snippet from a competing (yes, the Wa-Po &/Lozado have clearly taken sides) rag...and not only denigrated VDH's works, but also displayed your ignorance for all to see.  


You love "parent brag threads", right?  Imagine your son achieved what VDH has achieved.  
You'd be rightfully proud.  

[Guest]

@MaroonBells said:

@StickyBun said:
What a surprise.....(eye roll)....Victor Hanson, lol.

Hanson is a supporter of Donald Trump, authoring a 2019 book The Case for Trump.[20] Trump praised the book.[20] In the book, Hanson defends Trump's insults and incendiary language as "uncouth authenticity", and praises Trump for "an uncanny ability to troll and create hysteria among his media and political critics.

...or as Aaron Sorkin once put it, "glamorizing abject dumbness as the fresh voice of an outsider."

LOL.  Sorkin.  

Fraud of all Frauds. 

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...lly-pulpit

[Guest]

@savannahskol said:

@StickyBun said:
What a surprise.....(eye roll)....Victor Hanson, lol.

Hanson is a supporter of Donald Trump, authoring a 2019 book The Case for Trump.[20] Trump praised the book.[20] In the book, Hanson defends Trump's insults and incendiary language as "uncouth authenticity", and praises Trump for "an uncanny ability to troll and create hysteria among his media and political critics.

Your snippet re: Hanson (from Wiki) is grossly unfair and intellectually  dishonest.  
Your quote(s) above, is/are attributed to Peruvian Carlos Lozada {20}, Wa-Po journalist.  
And Lozada's quotes, are not facts....but opinions on VDH's works. Fair enough....if that's what you want to characterize. 


Here's some facts on VDH, from the same Wiki article, you quoted. 
VDH's  Curriculum Vitae:   

Raised as a farmer's son in the central California farmland valley. 
Received highest honors as an undergrad @UC-Santa Cruz. 
Graduate PH.D from Stanford. 
Professor Emeritus at CSU-Fresno, Classics. 
Senior fellow at Stanford U's Hoover Institute of both Classics and Military History.  
American philogical association's educator of the year, award. 
Awarded Shifrin Chair of Military History from the United States Naval Academy 
(don't look now, but the US military academies are recognized top-notch in academe)
NUMEROUS other awards. (see Wiki)
And VDH is a regular contributor to the "never Trump" National Review.  




Does that give you any intellectual pause?  

A:  No, it doesn't.  


You took a lousy snippet from a competing (yes, the Wa-Po &/Lozado have clearly taken sides) rag...and not only denigrated VDH's works, but also displayed your ignorance for all to see.  


You love "parent brag threads", right?  Imagine your son achieved what VDH has achieved.  
You'd be rightfully proud.  

VDH has credibility because he contributes to a magazine whose editors once came out against Trump? Umm….oh never mind. 

[Guest]

@savannahskol said:

@MaroonBells said:

@StickyBun said:
What a surprise.....(eye roll)....Victor Hanson, lol.

Hanson is a supporter of Donald Trump, authoring a 2019 book The Case for Trump.[20] Trump praised the book.[20] In the book, Hanson defends Trump's insults and incendiary language as "uncouth authenticity", and praises Trump for "an uncanny ability to troll and create hysteria among his media and political critics.

...or as Aaron Sorkin once put it, "glamorizing abject dumbness as the fresh voice of an outsider."

LOL.  Sorkin.  

Fraud of all Frauds. 

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...lly-pulpit

Fraud? You know Aaron Sorkin's a writer, right? He makes things up for a living. Equipped with this knowledge (presumably), you attempt to discredit his opinion on Trump by linking a 6-year-old critique of a TV show he once wrote?
What is it with conservatives and your seeming inability to separate myth from reality? Fact from fiction? For example, I don't know how many times during the Iraq war, some chickenhawk would quote A Few Good Men in support of the war. You know the one....
Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns....We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "thank you", and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to!

Just fyi...this isn't Colonel Jessup. Colonel Jessup isn't real. He's a character conjured out of thin air, a puppet being spoken through by one of the most liberal writers in Hollywood. I think you know his name.