The NFL has somehow opened its season and at the same time tied itself to the muddled message of professional malcontent Colin Kaepernick and the BLM movement. We are not sure what they are mad about or asking for, and we are tired of being preached to by hypocrites who do not understand their own sermon. Thus, many of us tuned out.
TV ratings for the NFL opener were down 16%. The few fans in Kansas City booed the maudlin message that players are good while white fans are racist and in need of “education.” It was like a Joe Biden rally: lots of senseless left-wing talk, the left wing media amplifying the message and few attendees in the stands.
If NFL players want to “effect change” rather than repeat meaningless chants like “social justice,” they could actually do something about it. I was a Big Brother in Memphis, and I remain good friends with my Little Brother, Roscoe. He was in my wedding, and we were Big Brother/Little Brother of the year. Maybe NFL players need to go into their old communities and actually do something like that — or maybe even go see their own kids around the country. Be role models, not uninformed sloganeering idiots.
Maybe another way they could “effect change” would be to go to South Side Chicago, or any major northern city with entrenched Democrat rule, and address the huge spike in mostly black-on-black murders. Instead, they would rather infer that their fans are racist than actually do anything about the plight of African Americans in big cities.
In war-torn Chicago over the past weekend, another 30 people were wounded, with nine dead, in about 50 shootings. The ABC, CBS, CNN and MSNBC reporters there did not cover it. If they had, they would have claimed the homicides were “mostly peaceful.”
The Chicago Bears opened their season with the shotgun formation, giving the handgun formation a little time to cool down.
It’s hard to hear that America is unfair from an NFL which is 75% black, with most players making millions of dollars a year. It’s like Michelle Obama’s DNC speech about how unfair America is and that climate change will do us all in, which she gave from her $15 million, oceanfront estate on Martha’s Vineyard.
And NFL players, like the NBA, are talking about not playing? Guys, you are in a binary financial field. There is no “social justice” league. The NFL is a monopoly; it’s the only show in town. Make your $3 million a year in the NFL or teach gym at a high school and make $29k a year. Your call, NFL players. You have about three years to make millions. I would not spend them protesting the inane.
Odell Beckham Jr. is paid $13 million a year to play for the Cleveland Browns. This answers the age-old question that Lebron James was unable to answer: “How much would it take for you to have to live in Cleveland?” Even Alex Smith makes $15 million a year backing up quarterback Dwayne Haskins Jr. for the Washington Redskins. The only other person who makes more money sitting on the bench is Judge Judy.
Crime, and especially the murder rate, go up in “social justice” cities that try to defund the police. New York City is a mess; taxpayers are leaving and many will not return. People want order in their cities. Right now, polls have Mayor Bill de Blasio 12 points behind re-electing the Mafia to run the city again.
Colin Kaepernick, who has huge neck tattoos (so you know he thinks about the future wisely), is the inspiration for these players. While never presenting solutions and guilting big corporations into capitulating to their nonsensical demands and unsubstantiated charges, most just donate to the avowed Marxists at BLM out of fear. It’s the Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson model. Read up: BLM has little to do with helping blacks. It is a communist organization. Just read its manifesto and look at its communist logo.
Kaepernick’s Marxist buddies with Black Lives Matter even had the audacity to protest at my man Elvis’ Graceland, defacing the walls with BLM graffiti. Now they have gone too far. Elvis sang gospel and blues, danced, wore bling and bought Cadillacs when he got rich. He took care of his mom, and his daughter married Michael Jackson. Good Lord, people, study history and leave The King out of this. Has any white man met you halfway more than Elvis?
Ron is a libertarian syndicated op-ed humorist, award-winning author and TV commentator. He can be reached at Ron@RonaldHart.com or on Twitter @RonaldHart.