The NFL: Still racist after all these years

Recently, a minor event, that would only have been noticeable by people following the petition site Change.org, occurred.  The individual who created the petition calling for a boycott of the National Football League (NFL), due to its blacklisting of former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, decided to withdraw it, despite the facts that Kaepernick is still banished from the league for protesting police brutality and racial injustices, and that these injustices persist, as demonstrated by the shooting of Casey Goodson in Columbus, OH.

Just a little over a week ago, Goodson was shot by a sheriff's deputy while trying to enter his own home.  According to CNN, Goodson had no criminal history, was not being sought by police, was legally licensed to carry a firearm, and was carrying a sandwich he had bought for lunch when he was shot.  Not surprisingly, the officer was not wearing a body camera, which conveniently means it is his word about what happened versus the word of a person who can no longer speak.

In my article Black Lives Matter - BS (Pravda.Report, July 12, 2020), I discussed my skepticism about the number of prominent individuals and corporations that suddenly "supported" the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, despite the fact that for years, often decades, they ignored, and even profited from, the systemic racism that continues to plague America.

The thesis for this article arose from two sources:  The civil rights movement of the 1960s and 70s, and the late, great folk singer Phil Ochs's song Love Me I'm A Liberal.

During his spoken introduction to this song, Ochs described liberals as being "ten degrees to the left of center in good times, [and] ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally."

Many in the civil rights movement agreed, claiming that the greatest threat to progress did not emanate from virulent, unabashed racists, but instead from so-called "supporters" who would abandon, or even sabotage, the cause when there was no personal incentive to support it or when things didn't go their way.

One of the organizations foremost on my mind when writing the aforementioned article was the NFL.

For years the NFL did its utmost to erase Kaepernick from the public memory, effectively quashing the protests in the process.  While the league did throw some token money at the problem of racism, and even signed the sell-out rapper Jay-Z, to try to show how "woke" it was, the reality was that many of its Trump supporting owners and executives didn't give a damn about racism, or Black lives in general.

This is evidenced by the fact that, for years, the NFL tried to downplay its problems with concussions and the resultant brain damage that culminated in several former players committing suicide.

This callousness can perhaps best be explained by examining the two sordid institutions the NFL is built on:  Gladiatorial combat in the Coliseum of ancient Rome and America's legacy of slavery.  When looking at the NFL objectively, what is more indicative of this than seeing its primarily white team owners (emperors) perched in their lofty "owner's boxes" profiting from the spectacle of watching young men turn their knees to splinters and their brains to mush for the entertainment of predominantly white spectators.

This same barbarism also existed for centuries in America, where, during the days of slavery, African Americans were often forced to fight each other for the amusement of their "masters."

So, evolving from such mindsets, it is not difficult to perceive why the NFL and its owners viewed Kaepernick as an "uppity Negro" who did not know his place.

All that has changed, right?  The NFL is now committing more resources towards combating racism; NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is now saying the league was wrong for not listening to Kaepernick; player protests are now accepted; and, perhaps most surprisingly, given its owner's previous obstinance, the Washington football team actually abandoned its racist nickname.

But not so fast.  The real truth is, despite all its smoke-and-mirrors, the NFL, and many of its owners and executives, are just as racist, and just as repulsed by "uppity Negroes," as they have always been.

Of course, the NFL is hiding behind its usual suspects:

"Kaepernick wants too much money"; "He doesn't really want to play"; or "It was a football decision that had nothing to do with his protests."

But the reality is, despite claiming to be "woke" by the death of George Floyd, NFL owners and executives have continued to sign inferior quarterbacks, displaying a shameless willingness to lose games and even tank their entire seasons to avoid giving Kaepernick a tryout.  After all, the NFL's biggest scam is selling the idea the league is all about "winning and losing," when, in reality, it profits handsomely from sponsorship dollars, fantasy football leagues, and gambling bets that have absolutely nothing to do with victory or defeat.

Kaepernick and his friend, the also blacklisted Eric Reid, have been aware of, and vocal about, the NFL's illusory concerns regarding racial injustice.  They have been particularly outspoken about the NFL's hypocrisy in using video of Kaepernick's protests in its cynical attempt to promote these newly found "concerns."

So even though the Change.org petition has ended, my boycott remains.  And, while I support Kaepernick's return, my boycott will continue, because the NFL, by banishing Kaepernick, did me a great favor by making me realize that life is too short to waste precious hours of it watching and supporting what is arguably the most racist, corrupt, and hypocritical league in all of professional sports.

On August 11, 2020, Pravda.Report published my article, Six Reasons Why America's Race Problem Will Never Be Solved.  Today I would like to add a seventh:  the NFL and all individuals and businesses like it that feign "concern" about racial injustice, but who are, in reality, still racist after all these years.

David R. Hoffman, Legal Editor of Pravda.Report