RIP raising the roof, watching me whip; watching me nae nae, the dab, “for shizzle”, twerking, “Bling Bling”, “on fleek” and the countless other things white people came, saw and ruined. It’s kinda their thing. Shoutout to Columbus. Well, fuck him. But a day off is a day off. Where was I? Ah, yes white people ruining things. My thought as I watched white people turned Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling protest turn into the mannequin challenge. (Another thing that was ruined… They even tried to do it on a flight once, like I know it’s been some years since 9/11 but we ain’t THAT comfortable. Tell me the safety instructions and give me my half a can of soda and go). It was the NFL’s chance to show “unity”, not actual unity like, we support your fight against injustice and police brutality but moreso…we’re on the same team. Literally. How you gentrify a protest? It’s like turning the Montgomery Bus Boycott into a Fitbit steps challenge or making Ghandi’s hunger strike about clean eating. All while the elephant in the room, they DID fire the person who “disrespected the flag” in the first place. So where is this unity?
No one was asking for your unity, B. Pumpkin Spice Putin doesn’t have the power to fire NFL players, so Tom Brady standing with his team mates in a “I got you gesture” serves about as much purpose as an umbrella on a windy day. Unity sounds good, like “post racial”. But you can’t fast track to unity without the work. Not when we can’t come to agreement on what should be simple shit, like Confederate monuments, stop painting your face on Halloween, don’t murder civilians before they have a day in court or whether or not you believe in standing for the national anthem, that wasn’t even a thing the NFL did 8 years ago. Obama was elected twice and no one knows if he prefers the Star Spangled Banner or Love on Top (of course it’s Love on Top… The Star Spangled Banner isn’t even seeing America the Beautiful if we being real) So back to Sunday, I’m watching standers and kneelers come together and feeling satisfied with themselves and it’s like watching Bob from Accounting try to dance at the holiday party. Just…. Stop, you’re embarrassing yourself.
So, how does this unity work anyway? What happens the next time someone is killed by the police? Is Jerry Jones going to call out the police brutality or respect his players right to feel a way about it for 2 minutes while some random Grammy nominated country singer sings. It’s easy to call Twitler divisive, “divisive” has become the gluten free vegan substitute for “racist”, but are we ever going to ask why he and his base are always being “divisive”? Since kneeling is cool now, is anyone going to give Kaepernick a damn job? Or is this “unity” about as stable as a Bad Boy records contract.
-Stan-
Stan of Few Words 