American Football Players Protesting

Started by Deamonbane, September 24, 2017, 06:51:29 PM

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Deamonbane

Patriots fans boo players for taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem before the game against the Texans.

http://nypost.com/2017/09/24/patriots-fans-rain-boos-on-own-players-for-anthem-protest/

Like... I get it? But it still feels like a legitimate protest to me. I've had my fill of watching arguments for both sides on Facebook, even taking part myself. Not too proud, and decided I needed a break from it.

I would like to hear what folks around here think about it, though.
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WindFish

I find it completely hypocritical that people who claim to support free speech and complain about people getting offended by everything are so offended by this. They scream oppression when a private organization cancels an event by an alt-right instigator, but cheer on Trump when he actually threatens the free speech of peaceful protesters.

Nobody should be forced to salute the flag or stand for the anthem. I fully support the players who are doing the protests and kudos to the NFL for not giving into Trump's shameful demands to fire them.

I think it's very telling that Trump calls the (predominately black) players who peacefully protest "sons of bitches" while calling white supremacists "very fine people".
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Regina Minx

Quote from: Deamonbane on September 24, 2017, 06:51:29 PM
Patriots fans boo players for taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem before the game against the Texans.

I seem to remember that the same ones that booed were ready to canonize Tebow when he did it.


Lustful Bride

+1 to all of the above. I cant add much else but I agree. I feel people are overreacting and the players are protesting respectfully and should be respected themselves. 

Missy

#4
I'm buying a Betsy Ross out of protest. Getting pissed because people don't like other peopel exercising their free speech is just bullshit.

Darkcide

I hate how blind patriotism is a thing here and is seen as a virtue. I also think it is funny how a lot of the people who cry about dudes taking a knee, rush to defend flying Nazi flags and Confederate flags which are actually you know, Anti-American.

TheGlyphstone

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 24, 2017, 07:57:01 PM
I seem to remember that the same ones that booed were ready to canonize Tebow when he did it.



To play devil's advocate, he was kneeling for prayer, while the current group are kneeling for protest. So at least in their minds, they are legitimately two different things even if the physical expression looks similar.

I'm impressed that the NFL as a whole is standing so solidly on this. Trump has even managed to piss off football players now.

Oniya

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on September 25, 2017, 11:23:02 AM
To play devil's advocate, he was kneeling for prayer, while the current group are kneeling for protest.

'Tebowing' has been going on for a lot longer than the current presidency.  *nods*  It started back when he was with the Broncos in 2011.
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Regina Minx

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on September 25, 2017, 11:23:02 AM
To play devil's advocate, he was kneeling for prayer, while the current group are kneeling for protest.

The whole "Play the National Anthem before a sporting event" thing confuses me anyway. We don't play the anthem before theater, movies, or before enjoying marital intercourse (although if you do, I think that's great). But having decided to do it before sports, it's somehow disrespectful to kneel during the song. I'll just point out that in Game of Thrones, to 'take the knee' is the highest form of supplication and respect.

Oniya

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 25, 2017, 12:59:53 PM
The whole "Play the National Anthem before a sporting event" thing confuses me anyway.

I'm not sure which came first, but during the Olympics, they play the national anthem of the competitors as a form of respect to the athletes and as a way of identifying what teams are competing.  (I've heard 'O, Canada' played before NHL hockey games when one of the teams was Canadian.)
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Darkcide

Quote from: Regina Minx on September 25, 2017, 12:59:53 PM
The whole "Play the National Anthem before a sporting event" thing confuses me anyway. We don't play the anthem before theater, movies, or before enjoying marital intercourse (although if you do, I think that's great). But having decided to do it before sports, it's somehow disrespectful to kneel during the song. I'll just point out that in Game of Thrones, to 'take the knee' is the highest form of supplication and respect.

The NFL didn't start doing it until 2009, the Government started paying the league to stage patriotic displays. The players weren't given a say in being functionally used for recruitment purposes.

Cognitive Brainfart

#11
Wait, I'm really confused about this. I even read the article and I'm still confused. So the anthem was going and the players were kneeling instead of standing and that was meant to protest something? Trump, I assume? Is kneeling worse than standing when the anthem is playing? I would think kneeling is more respectful but maybe it doesn't work that way in the US.

As to people raging about it, well, they can. I mean, the players can certainly protest but at the same time, the other people can say that they disagree with it. To me getting upset about someone protesting is pretty childish, but they certainly can. As an outsider looking in, it just seems to me when either the right or left does something, the other side protests against that, then the first side protests against that protest, and then they all argue for a while. Reset, repeat :D

Oniya

Okay - the whole kneeling during the anthem thing started with Colin Kaepernick (I've probably botched that spelling.)  He started kneeling during the anthem in protest of the apparent lack of accountability when people of color get killed during an encounter with the police.  (There have been several threads about this, so I'm not going to go too far into that.)  These are encounters that included things as mild as traffic stops.  Other NFL players have followed suit, specifically in solidarity with Kaepernick (I'm at least going to botch it consistently.)  As protests go, I think it's a pretty decent one:  It gets attention (by doing something completely different than what others are doing), but it's not necessarily disruptive or inherently disrespectful (I can think of far worse things he could have chosen to do).

Now, Trump has recently come out and said that NFL players who take a knee when the anthem is played 'should be fired'.  As a direct result, you've now got players and owners joining in the protest - maybe not for the original reason, but to affirm that those players protesting by taking a knee have the support of their teammates in making that protest.  Almost the entire Steelers team didn't even take the field for the anthem this past weekend when they played against the Bears. 
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
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ReijiTabibito

On the one hand, free country, Trump doesn't own the NFL - or a team - and can't really enforce anything beyond social shunning of people who go against what he says.  So the protest is fine.

On the other hand - and here I admit to personal bias - guys who get paid six or seven figures to do something like play a game aren't the people that I think we should be looking up to, or having kids look up to.

Regina Minx

There are, of course, wider implications:


Iniquitous

Quote from: Oniya on September 25, 2017, 04:24:22 PM
Okay - the whole kneeling during the anthem thing started with Colin Kaepernick (I've probably botched that spelling.)  He started kneeling during the anthem in protest of the apparent lack of accountability when people of color get killed during an encounter with the police.  (There have been several threads about this, so I'm not going to go too far into that.)  These are encounters that included things as mild as traffic stops.  Other NFL players have followed suit, specifically in solidarity with Kaepernick (I'm at least going to botch it consistently.)  As protests go, I think it's a pretty decent one:  It gets attention (by doing something completely different than what others are doing), but it's not necessarily disruptive or inherently disrespectful (I can think of far worse things he could have chosen to do).

Now, Trump has recently come out and said that NFL players who take a knee when the anthem is played 'should be fired'.  As a direct result, you've now got players and owners joining in the protest - maybe not for the original reason, but to affirm that those players protesting by taking a knee have the support of their teammates in making that protest.  Almost the entire Steelers team didn't even take the field for the anthem this past weekend when they played against the Bears.

Oniya - you didn't butcher Kaepernick's name :D  I had to look it up to make sure I was spelling it right when I was bashing people's heads on my facebook feed.

Secondly, the team from my hometown (Titans) and the Seahawks, PLUS the singer of the national anthem, all joined the protest.  The two teams did not come out on the field and the singer took the knee while singing the anthem.

I like to think the idiot in the oval office just bit off more than he can chew.  No, no. Don't remind me of everything else he has done. Let me have this teeny, tiny belief - at least for a week. Or until he does something else stupid.
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HannibalBarca

I carpooled to college with three friends. Two were black, one was white.  Depending on the day of the week, we had different combinations of the four of us going to the college, which was about an hour away from the town we lived in.  From two years' driving together, I can safely say we were pulled over many times more by police when my black friends were in the car with me, than when it was just my white friend and I.  And this was California.

The players are kneeling because of the systemic racism in the legal system, including abysmal treatment of African-Americans by law enforcement.  Colin Kaepernick took a huge amount of heat as the first person to protest, but it's similar to the heat other civil rights activists took when they were the first to sit in a whites-only restaurant, for example.  Just the amount of rage expressed this Sunday by some fans is proof enough of the lack of compassion, understanding, and empathy over the situation by a lot of white people.  I really feel like a lot of them would be fine with a one-party state, regulations on what clothing can be worn, and papers required to be carried by all citizens...as long as it was their party, their clothes, and their color of skin.

Fuck that.  That's not my country, and it never has been.  Even in the worst of times in this country, when the ideal of the nation was head and shoulders above the reality, the ideal was still equality for all.  We've moved in fits and starts towards the reality becoming the ideal, and right now those who want to drag us back to the bad old days are screaming and whining for their way.  They can scream and whine all they want, because it's their right.  Too bad they can't understand that such a right extends to everyone, including those who don't look like them.
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Lustful Bride

#17
Quote from: HannibalBarca on September 25, 2017, 06:38:56 PM
Fuck that.  That's not my country, and it never has been.  Even in the worst of times in this country, when the ideal of the nation was head and shoulders above the reality, the ideal was still equality for all.  We've moved in fits and starts towards the reality becoming the ideal, and right now those who want to drag us back to the bad old days are screaming and whining for their way.  They can scream and whine all they want, because it's their right.  Too bad they can't understand that such a right extends to everyone, including those who don't look like them.

Hell fucking yeah! We are one nation, one people, one America! We are all Americans before anything else and together we are what makes it great.

For some reason your last section made me feel approvingly patriotic. :P

HannibalBarca

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Oniya

Quote from: Iniquitous on September 25, 2017, 05:24:30 PM
Oniya - you didn't butcher Kaepernick's name :D  I had to look it up to make sure I was spelling it right when I was bashing people's heads on my facebook feed.

Thanks for that - I was in a bit of a rush and couldn't remember if it was 'ck' or 'k'.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Doomblade403xxx

I live in a small rental home.

Me and my family eat well.

Have two vehicles.

Hold down a job to pay for them all.

Have four of the greatest kids ever sired by the human race.

I don't have alot of extra for anything else, but I live and survive with a practical existence that many in other countries less fortunate only dream of. Many people in Africa go to bed at night with empty bellies. Venezuela is suffering a huge political upheaval because they can't keep their people fed. You can look all over the world and see people living in squalor. Tin shacks, huts, crammed in like sardines. Many of those people have ZERO health care options. Jobs? Their job is to survive. To scavenge, scrounge, and forage to sustain their existence. They need transport? They drive their own two feet, and the really lucky ones have shoes. There are place in this world where your kids aren't even safe. In the Congo there are warlords who use sex trafficking and rape as a weapon. In India there is a village sustained by prostitution and even the children of this village are on the menu. In many places in the middle east not only do women not have a voice, but they also have no choice. Their genitals are butchered when they are young so even if they marry a man who loves them, they will never enjoy sex. In china your family is limited by the state, and these days the Chinese marriage rates are way down. In afghanistan young boys are used for sex.

After saying ALL of that I challenge anyone to show me a single country in the world where you have the same freedoms we have in the United States. It literally does not exist. Our poor? They don't have to worry about healthcare. It's provided. Their food. Provided. Phone. Provided. Hell we even have programs to pay for poor folks housing.

Now with all this said. More white makes are killed by police than black males each and every year. As a former law enforcement officer I can tell you as a fact EVERY RACE has a criminal element, and that criminal element is often violent. When caught breaking the law they don't want to be arrested, and WILL kill a police officer to escape. Now if they are willing to murder a cop to avoid jail, imagine what they will do to someone who isn't a cop. I mean if you have a few bucks in your pocket they want. You aren't an equal human being to them. You are a victim. You may get off with just being scared. They might beat you. Might even go farther than that. The police is the line. The only thing keeping malcontents in check.

Black Lives Matter is a joke. I live 60 miles from the birth of this racist movement. I can say it's racist because I saw the handout they gave the people not of color. It basically laid out their rights to protest with them. They have no voice. The movement isn't about them. They talk to no one. They aren't allowed to talk to the press. They are pushed out front when the police approach so if violence occurs they get hit first. Mike Brown robbed a store, got into a fight with a cop, tried to get his gun and got shot. Forensic evidence PROVED THIS beyond a shadow of doubt. Even the families own forensic pathologist agreed with the federal autopsy. Still a whole city burned.

Maybe I'm jaded but I feel the children getting caught in the crossfire in STL are way more important than Heroin dealers and strongarm robbers of the city. Ten days ago a black male opened up on a man in a car killing a seven year old child. Shot him right in the head. You don't even see that kid getting a passing mention from any of these groups. HIS LIFE MATTERED, but you sure as shit wouldn't know it from the way these assholes behave. They pick their martyrs from the criminal element, block traffic, swarm malls, damage property, and assault people and police with impunity. The irony is for all the people bitching about the police, without them the same people bitching and moaning would get to live the purge in real life. Neighborhoods would become shooting galleries with people settling scores and there would be lawlessness.

I personally can think of about 3 times just off the top of my head where someone got killed and they shouldn't have. Eric Garner died because of New York's draconian tax laws. There was a guy in oklahoma killed by an officer. They say he was high on PCP and was shot, but not one of the officers on scene even got a chance to try and diffuse the situation before this panicky cop fired and killed him. This Heroin dealer in STL {who I'm not going to shed a single tear for because he's a drug dealer} as an ex cop it sure looks like the cop might've dropped that gun. No DNA of the perp on it. Cops DNA on it. Yeah to any right thinking person it's pretty damning evidence that this cop went over the line. Same token it's kinda BLM's fault he walked. They made threats. They said if he wasn't convicted of first degree murder STL would pay. So the city tried and failed to get the conviction. You know why? 1st degree murder requires premeditation. In other words that cop would've had to have a PLAN to kill that man that day. The whole mess was brought about by a car chase. That is a spur of the moment thing.

So in closing the who kneeling of the NFL is just bullshit. If I owned a franchise and one of my players did that shit they would be gone so fast their head would swim. People of all colors run afoul of the law and some of them get shot and killed. It's the way of things. Sometimes mistakes are made and there are laws and penalties in place for that too. The narrative that being black is more likely to get you shot by the police is bullshit.

Oniya

"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Eikichi

Quote from: Doomblade403xxx on September 25, 2017, 08:17:30 PM
So in closing the who kneeling of the NFL is just bullshit. If I owned a franchise and one of my players did that shit they would be gone so fast their head would swim. People of all colors run afoul of the law and some of them get shot and killed. It's the way of things. Sometimes mistakes are made and there are laws and penalties in place for that too. The narrative that being black is more likely to get you shot by the police is bullshit.

It's not bullshit. It's a statistic that has existed since the emancipation proclamation. People of all colors might run afoul of the law, but certain specific colors certainly get more weighted down by the system than any others. Sometimes those mistakes that are made aren't mistakes, just corrupt cops, and those cops are given a slap on the wrist and then shuffled around from department to department until finally the heat dies down and they resurface in a new district to do the same shit all over again.

I really think you have a very biased view of black lives matter, from a point of view that you're looking at one specific group near you that you found issue with. There are a variety of groups affiliated with BLM that are protesting for various reasons. But the one largest reason that has surfaced over the last few years isn't a white on black issue, it's an issue with the level of police corruption that currently exists in our society and how that corruption tends to lead to higher levels of prejudice against black males. At the end of the day they don't have a problem with cops, they have a problem with corrupt cops.

I'm sorry to hear that you feel expressing yourself in your job is a reason to dismiss an employee, but that's your choice. The NFL made it's choice to allow the protests and support it. That was their choice as a company, they have a different view than you. Doesn't make your view, or theirs, the correct view. But from a constitutional angle, one fits more in line with the values of this country. Also, as for a country that fundamentally better than the US. I'd argue you could look up north, sure Canada has it's own issues but there plenty of argument to be made about why it could be better or more free. In the end of the day that's all personal opinion about two countries with provide freedom to it's citizens.

I'm also not sure what any of what you said has to do with the argument of this topic; which focuses on American Football players, black/white/and everything in-between, protesting the current state of the country. There's a valid point to be made that the protest could be in response to Trumps statement,s or in support of Kaepernick's original protest. But their League has given them the right to protest. If they have that right, booing those who protest, calling them unamerican, saying they should be fired for expressing their god-given rights is your right given to you by the constitution. They're simply following that same right. But at the end of the day your 'rant' had nothing to do with the players expressing their right to kneel and was just you lambasting BLM.

For everyone else;

I'd really like to know why the country suddenly thinks it's unpatriotic. As if the goverment didn't spend millions to make Nascar, NFL, and other players attend the national anthem in order to boost recruiting. This practice has only been going on for a decade, the NFL has only existed for around 60-70 years, and we're acting this like is a tradition? As if any of these practices, or the anthem, were instituted to us at the foundation of this country? Whereas the constitution, the bread and butter of this country, alots them the right to kneel and protest and yet people are outraged at a tradition that hasn't even gone past 3-4 generations? At one point in this country, before WWI, there was no pledge of Allegiance, no one was required to stand for it and everyone was still considered just as American.
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Regina Minx

Quote from: Doomblade403xxx on September 25, 2017, 08:17:30 PM
After saying ALL of that I challenge anyone to show me a single country in the world where you have the same freedoms we have in the United States...

This is a meaningless assertion unless you actually define what it means to be free. Fortunately, this is a subject extensively studied by the Fraser Institute, Germany's Liberales Institut, and the Cato Institute. They measure national feedom along a 10 point scale in the areas of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, individual economic choice, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, violence and crimes, freedom of movement, LGBT rights, and women's rights. They also consider human trafficking, sexual violence, female genital mutilation, homicide, and adoption by homosexuals.

Using those numbers, the United States isn't in the top 5. It isn't in the top 10. The US ranks 23rd. Meaning I can show you 22 other countries in the world where people are more free than in the United States, including Hong Kong, Switzerland, New Zealand, Ireland, Denmark, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, and the Netherlands. This is the first factual point you raised, and it's a disprovable assertion.

Quote from: Doomblade403xxx on September 25, 2017, 08:17:30 PM
Now with all this said. More white makes are killed by police than black males each and every year.

And here you make your second mistake. Any time a person compares two differently sized groups and measures absolute difference instead of a per capita difference, they are lying to you with numbers. Being murdered by a police officer is a statistically low probability in anyone's daily life. And yet a meaningful comparison of using odds form of data reporting would be more insightful than a comparison of absolute numbers. And doing so would reveal that a black man is 2.6 times more likely to be killed by police than any other group.

I feel no inclination to continue based on your incorrect assertions and misuse of statistics.

Lustful Bride

There is some overlap here on all sides. There are many good and honorable police officers who do their duty and put themselves in danger for the sake of the community for shit pay. But there are also many corrupt scumbags who abuse and dishonor the badge, and there are cases where protecting the blue line has alienated the officers from the people they are meant to protect.

Just as on the other side we have people in the BLM movement and other groups who have legitimate grievances and have experienced injustice or abuse at the hands of the establishment. And then we also have people who use it as an excuse to be racist towards others or just to lash out and cause riots.

This isn't a case of good or evil on one side or the other. It isn't a case about truth. Absolutes only exist in fiction and in lies. We have lots of people out there, Good people, bad people. Bad-Good people, and Good-Bad people. but at the end of the day they are all people.

@DB403: Im sure you have seen a lot of things on the beat. You have seen the absolute worst of mankind, drug dealers who profit off of ruining the lives of others like a cancer on society, gang members who target civilians, murderers, rapists. There is no end to the horrors you might have seen, I don't know you, and I cant put myself in your shoes no matter how much I try. But I still do my best to understand you.

On the other end, we have to try and understand what it must feel like for people on the other end. Not the criminals, they have made their choice. Im talking about regular civilians, every day people who face prejudice from others, and sometimes face it even from those who swore an oath to protect them.

We aren't going to fix things by throwing out blame, by accusing others. That's the easy and broken way to do things. It makes us feel better but in the end it accomplishes nothing.

The only way we are going to fix society and build a more perfect union, is by working together. We will never have a perfect society. There is no such thing as utopia, but what we can do is always work to improve and remodel ourselves over and over again to become better, to adapt and survive to a changing world.

I know you were upset, and that you might be hurting. But those feelings that you have are exactly what those on the other side of the fence are or have been feeling. Your not a bad person. I can tell, you are just hurting. We are all hurting, and we are all lashing out at eachother because the pain has gotten worse in the last few years. But instead of trying to bandage one another we just keep lashing out, and its trapping us in a cycle of violence and hate. We have to break the chain both from without and from within.

And....I was going somewhere with this but im an idiot and now I don't know what I was saying.

We fix the world by working together. People on both sides have legitimate points and complaints, neither side is completely full of saints or sinners.

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