By now, I am sure that you heard y’all’s president, Donald Trump, refer to any NFL player who kneels in protest of the Star Spangled Banner as a “Son of a Bitch” during a KKK, oops, I meant campaign styled rally in Huntsville, Alabama last night.
Unless you have lived under a rock since August of 2016, when former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick first knelt during the National Anthem to protest police brutality in the Black community, other Black players like Michael Bennett of the Seattle Seahawks, Malcolm Jenkins of the Philadelphia Eagles and even a few white players, most notably Chris Long of the Eagles, have lodged similar protests to the chagrin of Trump and other arm-chair patriots who have never sacrificed anything on behalf of making ours a more perfect Union, but have no qualms with telling “others,” namely Blacks and other racial, ethnic and religious minorities, how “we” are supposed to react towards systemic oppression by “showing respect” to “our” so-called national anthem.
As hearing is often better than reading, listen to “Dotard” Donald on this clip (The Hobbservation Point has no love for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, but as lovers of word-play, we appreciate “Dotard” the SAT word for old and senile he used to describe Trump this week):
To be clear, what Trump said last night did not surprise me because I hail from the school of thought that appreciates an openly racist son of a bitch like Trump far more than the quiet sons of bitches who present themselves as friends. I know exactly who Trump is and what he meant last night; Kaepernick et al., yours truly and other Black men and women who think, act and write like us are sons of bitches to Trump and his racist ilk because we refuse to go along with their racist mindsets. 50 years ago we would have been deemed “uppity” or “communist subversives” or some other phrase that white racists used to blackball, marginalize, harass, beat, rape and kill vocal Black folks to compel compliance among our more timid brothers and sisters. Sure, Kaepernick may never play football again, similar protesters may soon find themselves out of the league and others of us, too, may even find our own careers impacted because we vocalize our passion for justice in a way that renders the racist “authorites” within our respective spheres uncomfortable.
So be it…
But what continues to perplex me is how so many Black folks can still fervently support an NFL where white “owners” are cutting off their noses to spite their faces by refusing to sign Kaep–owners, mind you, who have donated millions of dollars to Trump’s campaign coffers and inaugural events to curry favor. Indeed, Black NFL devotees are still super loyal to a league that is in league with a blatantly racist President of the United States, one who they have now heard call Black protesters a profane pejorative while also gleefully inferring earlier this year that he is responsible for Kaep’s unemployment by saying during a KKK, oops again, a campaign rally in Kentucky that: “Your San Francisco quarterback, I’m sure nobody ever heard of him…There was an article today that said NFL owners don’t want to pick him up because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump. You believe that?”
Yes, Dotard Donald, I believe it. But what is hard to believe is that during a time in which many white conservatives have or soon will boycott the NFL because the Grand Wizard-in-Chief wants the NFL “massas” to teach those uppity million dollar slaves to remain in their places, that there are some Black folks on social and traditional media bragging about “my Cowboys,” “my Redskins,” or “my Falcons” while in their insouciance, failing to realize that those are THEIR Cowboys, Redskins and Falcons. Trust, these rich, racist white owners could not care less about you, your lives, or your rights under the United States Constitution.
Yes, I have heard all of the excuses from NFL loving Black folks about how racism is everywhere and “if we boycott the NFL, we would have to boycott everywhere racism exists.” If saying that bullshit helps you to sleep at night, so be it, but the truth remains that with NFL brass and Trump being outright hostile towards Black protests about the sanctity of Black lives at this very moment, the time is NOW to show them how crucial Black players and fans are to their game; the question is whether more Black players and fans will have the courage to push back against such blatant disrespect?