Opinions

NFL players’ protest is an insult, period

When I see pampered National Football League players kneeling in self-righteous protest at football games while "The Star-Spangled Banner" plays, a searing image flashes through my mind.

A filthy, skinny kid of maybe 18 writhing in mud. Screaming. Blood everywhere. Another kid of maybe 20 fighting to press a gauze pad over a gaping wound. Both scared to death.

And I want to scream.

Whatever purported wrongs and slights the NFL elite are protesting as they politicize professional football, they cannot begin to match those kids' pain, suffering and sacrifice.

The players' kneeling shows an arrogant disrespect for those kids and the millions of others who have served this nation, from Valley Forge to Afghanistan, and on all the bloody battlefields in between. It is an arrogant disrespect for the more than 1 million who have died serving this nation, fighting beneath the flag the protesters dismiss.

[NFL rallies around protesting players denounced by Trump]

That there are legitimate grounds for protest is incontrovertible. This nation has not always done right by its minorities. Even given that, why is it acceptable for multimillionaire players and coaches and team owners to denigrate the very people who served and sacrificed to protect their right to protest injustice? Why would they think their lack of respect would engender respect for their cause? How did we get to this point?

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"The progressive forces of identity politics started this poisoning of America's favorite spectator sport last year by making a hero of Colin Kaepernick for refusing to stand for 'The Star-Spangled Banner' before games,"  The Wall Street Journal says in an editorial.

Kaepernick, a privileged guy with a nifty shoe collection and a Porsche, played for the San Francisco 49ers. He bought into the cops-are-killing-blacks-and- getting-away-with-it meme hook, line and sinker, the same meme roundly debunked by Heather Mac Donald in her book, "The War on Cops: How the New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe."

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," he said last year after refusing to stand for the anthem.

Says The Journal: "They raised the stakes this year by turning him into a progressive martyr because no team had picked him up to play quarterback" after he left San Francisco. The left, The Journal notes, blames race and class, but it may be he is just not good enough.

The protests cranked up again this season. It was political crack for President Donald Trump, whose mouth is always a nanosecond ahead of his brain. He proffered his opinion of the protesters during an Alabama political rally last month.

[Trump praises fans who booed NFL players]

"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a b—-h off the field right now, out, he's fired. He's fired,' " he told the crowd, which started chanting "USA, USA." Pathologically unable to leave it alone, Trump urged a boycott if the NFL did not sack offending players and later suggested penalties were killing the game.

That he said it on a Friday and the mesmerized media and their talking heads for days seemed to forget Houston, Miami, Puerto Rico, North Korea, Russia, the Obamacare fiasco and a looming tax cut push should not go unnoticed.

Stung by Trump's remarks, more players, joined by coaches and owners, leaped into the fray — many now standing, but linking arms to show "solidarity" with those who kneel. It appears a hastily contrived and convenient out for those squishy at directly insulting millions of veterans and patriots.

Here is a tip for them. Nobody but the looney left cares what they think. Most Americans, no matter their color, I suspect, do not want politics served with their football and they do not want or need NFL players, coaches or owners telling them what to think. They want to watch the game in peace.

In the long run, this ill-advised drama will cost the NFL a potful. The backlash already has started. NFL television viewership this year, so far, is down 16 percent from last year. That is only a harbinger — and why not? Americans have forgiven the NFL and its players for much over the years. Domestic violence. Dog fighting. Assault and battery. Aggravated assault. Drug abuse. Murder. Injury to a child. Pick a crime, any crime. None of them has been bad enough to bar a good player.

But those crimes did not touch individual fans. Showing disrespect for the flag, for the national anthem, showing disrespect for those who sacrificed for this nation is something not likely to be forgotten or forgiven.

I cannot forget those kids; I cannot forgive players who insult them.

Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com. 

Paul Jenkins

Paul Jenkins is a former Associated Press reporter, managing editor of the Anchorage Times, an editor of the Voice of the Times and former editor of the Anchorage Daily Planet.

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