THEJNSREPORT

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Is The NFL Black-Balling Kaepernick?

The above title question is a rhetorical one.  The answer in short is 1000% yes, the NFL is “black-balling” Kaepernick.  Let me start by saying it’s not that we all should feel sorry for Kaepernick because his former employer the NFL no longer deems him worthy to represent or earn a living under the “shield”.  It’s the optics and the not so subtle message being sent to all the remaining gainfully employed players within the league.

This is America… the land of opportunity… so long as you play by the unwritten rules.  While we can’t say that the NFL owners got together in secret to collude against the hiring of Colin Kaepernick, say the way Rockefeller & his peers did on a subway car decades upon decades ago to create a tacit system of control and concentrated power among the elites, the effect is no less chilling or real.  By the very fact that Kaepernick who is in his youthful athletic prime hasn’t been offered a job to continue his career in the NFL to date speaks volumes.

When owners are willing to on the surface say let’s “talk” to Kaepernick but no job ensues team after team while career losers who have proven less than Kaepernick are offered jobs even out of retirement speaks volumes.  Why is it that no team wanted Jay Cutler until Tannehill got injured in practice and he’d already agreed to a commentator job that he signs a $10 million 1 year deal, but Kaepernick remains unsigned.

Can we really doubt that had Kaepernick not taken a stand last season and become the face of protest for the murder of unarmed black citizens male/female at the hands of police around the country that he would be employed today?  And let’s look at what he did.  He didn’t shoot anybody, he didn’t drive drunk and kill anybody, he didn’t as far as we know, fail any drug tests, or commit domestic violence.  He simply took a knee.  He took a fucking knee during the national anthem to say “America you aren’t living up to what you’re supposed to stand for and until you do I feel it appropriate to take a knee.”

America for the youth and those who have forgotten is supposed to stand for “Freedom” and the right to protest, to have an opinion, to express it without fear of reprisal for expressing dissent.  If this isn’t the case then there should be no hateful tweets or objection to the tyranny that is Kim Jong Un in North Korea. It is this basic concept that distinguishes America and it’s greatness from the non free world and dictatorships around the globe.

This country was founded on dissent and often VIOLENT dissent.  Civil war is not a peaceful action.  War by its literal definition is devoid of peace until a victor is declared and America fought for its independence through protest and dissent.  I wonder if the same people who wrote to the NFL that they’d no longer buy season tickets even know about the founding principles of the very country that gives them the opportunity and privilege to work, live and pursue happiness within.

Protest by its very nature is not intended to make others who don’t agree with the protest comfortable.  It’s designed to open eyes, to create discourse, and bring the very issues that are causing protest in the first place to the forefront to be heard.  After all it’s always going to be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease.  If we’re willing to suffer in silence we’ll never be heard.  The dummies who drape themselves in the flag so long as only their interests are cared for, are not true patriots and should first pull their heads from their nether regions long enough to read the history of the country whose flag they worship blindly without respect for, or understanding of the symbolic meaning of the flag.  They hate Kaepernick because he took a knee.  They throw up a straw man argument to distract from the issue he’s raising.  Forget about the military and veterans for a second.  They are important but they died for the very rights Kaepernick and many other pioneers exercise in this great nation.

I’ll make it even more plain.  I’d like to think pretty much everyone loves Superman.  If Superman was running around saying he’s a hero and only serving the public good but was robbing banks on the side or killing unarmed citizens while saying “hey I’m Superman the law doesn’t apply to me because of my stature and powers” what would we say?  Would we as a people protest him?  Would we look at each other and say but that’s Superman, you’re disrespecting Superman? Or would we say Superman has to live up to the standards and ideals he claims he stands for?

The NFL is a hypocritical organization.   It’s blanketing itself in its own perceived self-righteousness by punishing Kaepernick for exercising the power of his platform and his right to dissent.  Shannon Sharpe hit the proverbial nail on the head with his commentary earlier today about what’s happening to Colin Kaepernick.  The NFL is rewarding others with the opportunity to earn money from it who’ve done far worse repeatedly.  I’ll borrow the phrase from Skip Bayless what does the “eye test” tell you?  If we’re being 100% real, every person with a brain can see plain as day what this whole situation is and it has nothing to do with performance or productivity regardless of the apologist pundits out there.  If that were the case every starter or backup who has career stats the same or worse than Kaepernick shouldn’t be employed.  I end with this, Blaine Gabbert has a job in the NFL.  Is Blaine a better QB than Colin Kaepernick?

Okay…