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Are you a die-hard fan who will grin and bear it? Or are you tired of people politicizing our pastimes so they can moralize and point an accusing finger?
The NFL did more than just ‘cave’ to the demands of Colin Kaepernick and the other angry activists who decided to hijack the power and platform of a team sport they didn’t build or invest in, and who pay no serious price if it goes bankrupt from alienating its viewers.
They made a conscious choice to bow THEIR knee to the political power of a group that doesn’t much like America, and who have a stated goal of undermining its institutions … including cultural ones like sports.
The NFL made the decision to take the appeaser’s route, hoping to save their bacon and are hoping to buy their way back into the activists’ good graces by performing various complex performative rites of contrition that are being demanded of them.
The Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” permanently returns to the @NFL
Expected to be featured during NFL Playoffs, NFL Draft and Sept. 9 NFL Kickoff game. Additionally, the league will promote social justice through signage, player helmet decals and PSA’s.@CBS46 pic.twitter.com/LjWlitd8IQ— shon gables cbs46 (@shongables) July 15, 2021
There IS no neutral ground here. The one healthy outlet we had left in entertainment where the categories of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ were so much simpler is gone. It wasn’t skin color or politics that made you ‘friend’ or ‘foe’, but whether you play for the home team, or the hated rival.
It was the sort of thing when it was the crest on the front of a jersey that really matters and could bring a nation together — like it did when everyone cheered the ‘Miracle On Ice’ as we beat the Soviets at their own game.
Here’s how the other side is framing it.
The NFL plans to make “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — often referred to as the Black national anthem — a permanent fixture before all major league events this coming season, according to reports.
…Front Office Sports, which broke the story, also reported Wednesday that the NFL will have social-justice messaging on fields and on helmets. This is also a good thing. It’s too bad the NBA didn’t continue putting social-justice messages on jerseys, like they did in the bubble at the end of last season.
…There’s something to be said for not playing any anthem before the games, for just starting them. But if you’re going to play “The Star Spangled Banner,” play “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” too. What is the harm? It’s a beautiful song, it’s meaningful and it should be played at sporting events, if anything at all is. —Arizona Republic
The author gushes about what a wonderful idea it is, presumably because he is in lockstep agreement with the usual premises of the media bubble.
Could he be missing something that keeps him from seeing a possible downside? Let’s see, when he paused to ‘wonder’ why the right could possibly object to sports being yet another political propaganda vehicle by which they perpetuate a political monoculture, he didn’t even bother with putting his answer into words. Even the slur with which he swipes his opponents is little more than a half-assed innuendo. A knowing wink and a nod.
So why are some people, and right-wing media outlets, mad about it?
You know why.
You know… ‘those’ people.
Those no-good, worthless reprobates who aren’t nearly as enlightened or intelligent as their social betters on the coasts, or populating media culture.
Right.
Whatever would we do without even more cultural avenues where these lockstep lemmings can stand on their soapboxes and lecture us about how backward we are for not sharing their deep and abiding love of the authoritarian left, how we don’t think that ‘free’ food and shelter is any better for a soul of a free-born man whose government would gladly ‘domesticate’ him than it is for a free-born lion whose zookeepers offer the same exchange.
Now that the price of admission for watching a game isn’t just the self-important political hacks who pretend to offer sports commentary, but is being integrated into the game itself, does the game still have any appeal?
