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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDan Le Batard: With football's return, we can't forget past 4 years of NFL's cowardice
Great article from Dan LeBetard. He can be a goofball on his sports talk show but he can be very well spoken when the topics turn to serious subjects. He has gotten in trouble with ESPN a number of times for being too political
https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/dan-le-batard/article245683045.html#storylink=mainstage_lead
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As the excitement and enthusiasm for football finally returns, now were supposed to just forget about the past four years of historic cowardice from the power in this sport and resume our cheering because the NFL painted some new slogans in the end zones that make the big, bold, brazen statement that racism is bad? The Miami Dolphins clearly havent forgotten. Via a slick video released Thursday, one punctuated by their Black coach, they announced their disgust and distrust with the leagues owners and that theyd be staying in the locker room during the anthem Sunday because they are tired of superficial symbols and gestures, and they demand real and substantive action against racism. They did this because they know how good the owners are at hiding behind their pillars of money in shadowy silence, rarely pressed to answer any difficult questions about how they can at once support their players with sanitized statements and support their president with unsanitary dollars.
When Kaepernick kneeled, we all saw where and how the NFL stood, and that cant be unseen. It echoes and haunts four years later, the unprecedented way Kaepernick suffered the strangest of career-ending knee injuries. No amount of jellyfish flip-flopping from the league changes the following: Kaepernick is back in Madden, raising a Black fist, no less, but him being a part of EAsportsitsinthegame isnt the same as being in the actual game-game, no matter how realistic we can make the virtual.
The NFLs owners not only refused to be on Kaepernicks side regarding protests but exercised an obvious institutional pressure upon him and his peers ... choosing en masse, really, to kneel before Trump instead. These owners, with all their power and F-you money, either didnt have the stomach for any kind of public fight or chose the wrong side, and they did so for almost four damn years, while Trump was at the height of his powers but they were also at the height of theirs. That the NFL has totally about-faced on this is not an act of nobility; it is the spineless swaying blown in by the days wind because of all the unrest in their huddles, in their banks, in their streets. Even as piñata Roger Goodell goes on an apology tour on their behalf, Kaepernick remains unemployed. The Dolphins are wondering: How can these owners be trusted to exert their power over anything in America when they cant even get Kaepernick a job in their own sport?
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Too many great paragraphs to quote. Worth a read in full
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