Coach Tuesday

I feel like we’re drifting here. Making fun of someone because of their appearance isn’t nice. Making fun of someone because of their race isn’t PC and is widely frowned upon. Denying someone equal access to rights and benefits (or their life or liberty) because of their race is racism.

Great! We agree.

So if the private employer ok's kneeling during the anthem, you're good with it?

See how this works?

Oh come on! Just own it.

It’s political. Keep it out.

Including the anthem itself and the Air Force flyovers?

Maybe he’d undertake that near-impossible task if you first post some examples of you actually changing your mind about something in your lifetime.

And? ?

I’ve heard plenty of folks in this thread suggest removing the anthem ritual from the pre-game. So yes? Personally I have no problem with it if the Army wants to advertise and certain people want to express their patriotism or whatever and others want to kneel. To each his or her own, Gerry. But I’m sure you’ll go dig up some incident from 1983 when Joe Biden discussed his love of the national anthem and waive it in our faces as some kind of “See they’re all hypocrites!” retort.

Inaugerations?

It really means: “keep politics I don’t agree with out of the NFL.”

“We will protest quietly, in the most inoffensive way possible, on our own time and in a manner that draws no attention to ourselves. We want everyone to be completely comfortable at all times, and we will ask only ordinary people, not celebrities or other influentials, to take part.” - said no successful protest, ever EDIT: the Boston Tea Party disrespected the Crown. Should the colonists have done something less offensive to show their anger at taxation without adequate representation? EDIT 2: Maybe the problem isn't politics in sports, it's sports in politics. People treat politics like they're rooting for sports teams, against other teams. The "don't disrespect the flag" crowd acts like THEY'RE the flag being disrespected - like they're on "Team Flag," and that someone who silently kneels during the Anthem is somehow protesting THEM.

You know what, sometimes there’s just a societal overcorrection and overreaction after years of underreaction in the other direction. It’s not necessarily fair but that’s what happens and it makes sense. The #metoo movement might be an example - lots of reputations being torched for things people did while it was still ok to do them - certain people just get caught up in the gears when societal norms suddenly change, when they snap forward in the opposite direction. It can feel very unfair and to those people it probably is - but that’s what happens when things are going in the wrong direction for too long. Society overcorrects, first, and then hopefully a more appropriate balance is stricken. But you’re right: right now is not a good time to be on the wrong side of the culture wars and the impending changes that many of us are advocating for and predicting. It’s long overdue. I’m sorry you feel shouted down in the meantime - it’s just a very loud of roar for change. The “other side” had its day in the sun and the rest of us felt silenced, for decades even.

And right there, with all due respect, is what is wrong with your argument. It’s all spelled out right in that statement. Astronomical platforms can lead to meaningful change. That’s what protests are all about. This seems so obvious.

I mean doesn’t this just sum it up? Angry white bros - check! Pickup truck - check! Trump banner - check! Works in the corrections department - check! Completely disrespecting flag without anyone complaining or noting the hypocrisy - check! Threatening violence and intimidation - check!

This is a terrific post and I thank you for sharing it. I think the only part of it that I would contend with is the first statement. I do think, for many in the black community, police brutality has a lot to do with race. I’m not of the view that police are inherently racist or that all police forces are corrupted by racism. I think the issue is that, for many in the black community, encounters with the police are an entry point for being stuck in “the system,” and that system, as a whole, does not serve African-Americans nearly as well as it should and often makes their lives much worse. The police are the touchpoints for a much bigger threat. I agree it’s not fair to all of the great policemen and women out there to label the entire law enforcement community racist because of a few horrible actors. But those bad apples (as you concede) make it worse for everyone, because they confirm some people’s worst fears and biases, and undermine a fragile trust that you and your colleagues worked so hard to establish. To put it another way, as Chris Rock said, police are like pilots in that you really can’t have any bad apples - you can’t have a few pilots who just love crashing into mountains. Law enforcement almost needs to bat 1.000 at this point in society and it’s not fair but it’s where things are at.

Oh no. I was prepared to ride out the TSW culture wars until they turned into a Doc/WEO death match. Hatfields vs. McCoys. 1,000 pages here we go.

Bill here’s the thing: you ALMOST NEVER hear someone say, “You know, I agree that police brutality and racial inequality are related, and that they’re among, if not THE most pressing issues in society today, but protesting about them by kneeling during the anthem is wrong no matter what.” The anti-kneeling crowd, to a near-universal degree, largely disagrees with the content of the message itself, or at least the relative importance of it in society. That’s what makes it so hard to swallow for some of us. It feels like the issue was deliberately twisted into something other than it was supposed to be about (patriotism) so as not to have to deal with the real content (police brutality and systemic racism) head-on. It feels like a trick. Just my two cents.

Even I know better than to click on that!

Do you know anyone in MSM? Just curious. I do, and they are incredibly well-read and thoughtful, and do their very best to be balanced and careful. That's not everyone, to be sure, just the folks I know. Then again, if you're including social media, I might even agree with you - social media has added very little value to our lives, and has significantly increased tribalism.

Vote with your pocketbook, then.

Disrespectful would be blasting music over the anthem to interfere with other peoples' observance of it. Making your own choice not to stand does not force your opinion on anyone else.

The silent tyranny of a closed mind. Football: PFT insinuated during the draft lead-up that the “Fromm is a great leader with off-the-charts intangibles” narrative was pure agent-driven spin. Didn’t take long for some of his luster to fade. Wouldn’t be shocked if he’s another A.J. “He’s Not Who We Thought He Was” McCarron and doesn’t even survive the final cuts.

1) It has been explained at length here what the kneeling protests are about and how they have nothing to do with the flag. 2) PPP is not a preferable place for anything. It is a sewer. If you listen closely in these threads you can hear the sound of the PPP rats crawling below. Trying to bring perspective, logic and empathy down there is like trying to shine a fading flashlight into a rat-filled sewer: there is no real dialogue, the responses are straight out of the 4Chan far-right troll manual, you get shouted down and eventually the Rat King shows up and declares “you’re an idiot” and his subjects cackle and throw feces at you and repeat “but whatabout Hillary’s emails?” until you want to claw your own eyes out or become one of them. It’s a horrible place and maybe one day an ambitious mod will dump a bucket of lye down that drain.