The NFL has made hundreds of black athletes very rich over the past several decades, but because none of the league's teams wanted to sign a single, mediocre, malcontent black quarterback named Colin Kaepernick, dozens of other black athletes have chosen to show their contempt, not for the league, but for the fans and the country that have made their lives a dream come true.
The protest began as an act of solidarity with Kaepernick, but evidently the protesters soon realized that it was ludicrous to think that a league which is about 85% African-American was racist, so the effort morphed into a general protest against police shootings of innocent black men. Very well, but it's not clear how disrespecting the flag, the fans, the military and everything else the flag stands for really advanced the message that there are rogue cops who need to be removed from the police force or put in jail.
Nor is it clear what measures the NFL, or anyone else, could take to convince the protesters that their grievance had been addressed and to end their protest. It seemed that the demonstrations either had to continue indefinitely or else fizzle out in an embarrassing loss of interest and relevance.
Then, just as the few players who participated in refusing to stand for the anthem began to look less newsworthy, even to a media always eager to promote anything which divides people, Donald Trump helped them out by interjecting himself into the matter. In a speech Friday in Alabama Trump chose to express displeasure with the protesters, and that was all it took. Now the protests were infused with new purpose - they were a sign of "resistance" against Trump. The numbers of players joining the demonstrations swelled even as the rationale for them became even more unclear.
Anyway, to avoid giving the appearance of spurning the flag and the country that has made them rich and famous, players and owners at last night's Monday night game linked arms and knelt prior to the anthem in a show of solidarity, but it wasn't clear what they were solidified about. Perhaps they were in solidarity against Donald Trump, in which case the entire protest theme has wandered as far from its original significance as if they were kneeling to express their objections to the minimum wage or global warming.
Tracinski makes a couple of points about the co-option of the players' protest by the "resistance left."
He says, rightly, I think, that if anybody thinks Trump is going to be hurt by his comments in Alabama with the people who voted him into office, then they're facing a long eight years. He also comments on the fact that,
[S]everal prominent left-leaning figures are now suggesting that “The kneel will now become a sign of opposition to Trump.” But kneeling, of course, is an ancient sign of submission, not resistance.He cites one person who tweeted: "Wouldn't it be great if taking a knee became the symbol of resistance to Trump, and wherever he went, wherever people gathered, they did it?" To which he replies:
That’s what happens when blind, unthinking opposition become more important to you than actual principles and good sense. You end up resisting Trump so much that people kneel before him wherever he goes.
The tragedy is that these protests actually undermine the possibility of anything being done about the very issue they are supposedly drawing our attention to. The problem of police shootings and excessive use of force has been overhyped, but it is real. (Think Philando Castile, not Michael Brown.) But it’s a problem where people on both sides have been sold simplistic solutions.
A real, detailed debate on how to maintain law and order and keep crime low while also reducing the risk of wrongful police shootings would be dull but profitable. Letting the issue be dominated by a partisan protest culture virtually ensures that nothing of value will be done.
So congratulations, Resistance fighters. You’re going to get Trump re-elected, while preventing progress on the big issue you claim to care about.