Football has never served the black body. This is not revolutionary, but something important to lay bare. The sport’s Day of Reckoning came in autumn. The ghost of Colin Kaepernick meandered the locker rooms and hallways all season. It’s no wonder such a force — conservative and vicious in all its might — would enforce such a performative policy. The rule change forcing players to “show respect for the flag and the anthem” is a compromised piece of patriotism, forced onto black players that’ve entertained white people for decades.
A league-wide mandate on the perversity of free speech and a Trump-induced panic serves no one but those rich off of white supremacy’s pernicious power, those who cannot be condemned. They are too powerful, so much so that writing bylaws into the DNA of America’s Game is nothing but an offseason venture for the wicked.
The NFL has been crushed under presidential pressure and is denying the trueness of constitutional rights to its employees. Its president, swelling from the power white supremacy has afforded him, furthered his assault on the black athletes he’s waged war with for months. Trump told Fox & Friends that players shouldn’t be afforded the the opportunity to stay in locker rooms for America’s song, that they should stand “proudly,” or else “you shouldn’t be playing” and “maybe” you should be deported.
