The NFL is Colin Kaepernick’s antagonist. Expecting billionaire team owners to be serious about social justice, with or without Jay-Z, is a mistake. By Jamil Smith, Rolling Stone — “Inspire Change” could be something you say if you are trying to make people aware of a particular problem. But with regards to the National Football League and racial injustice, that job is already done. Colin Kaepernick, along with his fellow football…
The former quarterback caused a problem for the league—which turned to the celebrated rapper for assistance. By Jamele Hill, The Atlantic — The hip-hop mogul Jay-Z and National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell held a joint media session at the Roc Nation offices in New York to seal a once-implausible partnership that isn’t being received as positively as both parties probably hoped. I assume neither Goodell nor Jay-Z expected to…
By Gary M. Pomerantz, Signature — Today’s intersection of race, politics and sports harks back to the 1960’s. That time’s images live in our imagination: Muhammad Ali, loudly defiant, and sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, fists thrust overhead in protest. The undeniable power of those moments has obscured a truth that today’s athletes might want to consider: there can be a cost to ignoring…
Vantage Point Articles and Essays by Dr. Ron Daniels — With the attempted assassination of a series of Democratic leaders and the savage murder of 11 worshipers in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in the past week, the American people are witnessing one of the most horrific seasons of hate and terror in recent memory. And, while there is debate about the link between rhetoric and the actions…
By Astead W. Herndon, The New York Times — An air of solemnity hangs over Lucy McBath’s bid for Congress. It is present in her campaign stump speech, when she recounts the 2012 murder of her son, Jordan Davis, a black teenager who was shot and killed by a white man at a gas station when the 17-year-old refused to lower the volume of the rap music playing in his…
Russia’s troll army was not interested in stirring up generic ‘chaos’ in America. The Kremlin is strategically tapping into the inexhaustible fuel source of white grievance. By Spencer Ackerman, Daily Beast — Not many Russians are likely to understand a shotgun formation or the strategy behind not punting on fourth down. But between September and December 2017, social-media accounts now associated with the Kremlin-backed troll farm known as the Internet…
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, The Hutchinson Report — Trump could care less about LeBron James’s new I Promise public school. He could care even less about his IQ. What he does care about is James’s name, image, and willingness to take shots at him. The name first. James is the most recognizable pro athlete in the country. That makes him the perfect foil for Trump to continue to wage his…
Could it trigger a long-awaited “Jock Spring”? By Robert Lipsyte, The Nation — Snatching immigrant babies may have scored some points for President Trump with his base, but it was never going to light up the scoreboard like tackling black jocks. That one really played to the grandstands. The complicated combination of adoration and resentment so many white males feel for those rich, accomplished über-men is a significant but rarely…
By Patrisse Cullors, HuffPost — Right after the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer in July 2013, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and I were devastated. We’d been following the proceedings closely. We’d watched the media criminalize 17-year-old Trayvon and humiliate his family to justify his cold-blooded murder presumably because his assailant was white-presenting. Still, we were sucker-punched by the acquittal. We stood perplexed; hadn’t we elected our first black president? Yet it was clear;…
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Sports Illustrated — I have never been prouder to be an American. That might seem like a strange confession in these dark times, when there is so much divisiveness in the country. Every day we are faced with cringe-worthy behavior by our country’s leaders: sexual harassment, enabling hate groups by publicly echoing their messages, the enactment of policies that curtail the constitutionally guaranteed civil rights of the…
“For African Americans, it is not about standing, sitting, or kneeling for the National Anthem? it is about unarmed African Americans lying in a grave who were shot and killed by police officers.” Dear NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Other NFL Leaders, In his April 16, 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” which is, in my opinion, his greatest writing, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed white clergy members and other white…
By William Rivers Pitt — It is amazing how quickly and willingly so many people, when pressed by a discomforting situation, will take on a societal self-policing role that favors power and condemns anyone asking necessary questions. This phenomenon exploded after September 11, goaded on by the likes of Bush’s press secretary Ari Fleischer, who famously warned us all to “watch what we say.” That voluntary silence, that timorous obsequiousness…
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