“NFL owners dared not go against players, who were outraged at Trump’s placing the SOB label upon them on behalf of the one percenters.”
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘get that son of a bitch off the field right now. He is fired. He’s fired!” These were words of our U.S. president reported throughout the social media. Colin Kaepernick and those that were joining or planning to join him were targeted.
He appealed to the millionaire and billionaire NFL owners to do something about these matters as fellow one percenters that control this country.
The NFL owners dared not go against players, who were outraged at Trump’s placing the SOB label upon them on behalf of the one percenters. Black players number 70 percent of the NFL.
NFL owners see dollar signs before symbolic patriotism. Lest we forget, owners made sweet deals with the U.S. Defense Department to intertwine the U.S. armed forces brand of patriotism throughout NFL games from singing the national anthem to unfurling Old Glory to interviewing soldiers a couple of years ago.
Plus their mouths remained shut like a bank vault when cops continued to gun down black males like shooting clay ducks at the rifle range. Colin's protests initially focused on police brutality.
A closer look reveals more than Donald Trump’s rants. It is capitalism’s way to lessen democratic space when persons or groups speak out or speak up or act out, for example, against the socio-economic conditions that masses of black people face. They say that when the economy catches a cold, black people catch pneumonia.
“Owners made sweet deals with the U.S. Defense Department to intertwine the U.S. armed forces brand of patriotism throughout NFL games.”
As we see today, economic conditions equate to pneumonia for white workers. Where does that leave us? It means higher joblessness, poor health, inadequate housing, police brutality, and an opioid epidemic. It means more Charlottvilles.
It means more prisons and more jail time. It means more poor and deprived neighborhoods. It means Black youth dying before they turn 30. It means less money for schools for anyone in the hood to acquire a good education.
The choices Republicans and Democrats offered: Hillary and Donald to lead us. Their primary rivals were just as bad. They sell us on democracy through voting for the donkey or the elephant. Both choices lead to defending imperialism.
So what do we do about attacks on our freedom of speech? One thing not to do is to keep right-wing speakers from speaking. This approach is a liberal one that works against us because it nullifies the very democratic space we fight to open up. Calling Trump names identifies the wrong target. The target is declining capitalism and the wretched inequities and racism that are increased as a result.
We must strive for something much greater. Organize. Win people over. For me that means scientific socialism. It provides a guide for my writing, speaking, and actions.
Dr. Morgan is an activist scholar and internationalist. He can be reached at kmorgan2408@comcast.net
Black memory is a muscle trained, flexed, and disciplined by colonialism, enslavement, and racial terror, as well as collective Black struggle.
Socialist ideas about the inextricable links between class, race, and gender predate the concept of intersectionality.
The struggle against systemic racism and the police state in the US is integral and linked to the struggle against US wars of aggression overseas.
Community control of police and prison abolition have been completely removed from the conversations dictated by a mainstream and complacent narrative.
Global Displacements is an examination of the impact of the global organization of capitalist accumulation and exploitation on the life and labor of Haitian and Dominica
