The politicians and the government of this country are shady, and it's people are extremely divided. This is a great country because of the freedom and rights given to its people, but other than that...
To protest what exactly? That 94% of those incarcerated that are men? The per capita rate of police murder that is higher for the mentally ill than black men? The seven black female police shooting deaths vs. the 300 white male police shooting deaths since 2015? Poverty that effects people of all races? I remember as a poor white 10-year-old contemplating writing Clyde Drexler and asking him for money to help out my mom. Intersectional theory wasn't being taught in elementary school back then, so I didn't realize my privilege at the time. Luckily, I didn't embarrass myself by asking for that help. That would've been extremely tacky and racist.
I don't give a fuck about the flag. I hate their cause because at its core it's racist and disingenuous. When you make police violence, incarceration, and sentencing solely a race issue when there is greater disparity correlated to gender and mental health then it becomes a racist movement. I've been downvoted to hell for making this argument elsewhere, but no one has given me a satisfactory explanation for why despite being more correlated with discrimination, mental health and gender aren't considered at least at the same level as race is. As far as I can tell, no one is protesting the 66% longer sentences that men get for the same crime as women. They protest because black men are being sentenced longer than white men, despite that gap not being nearly as big as the gender gap. The same thing happens with the mentally ill in police shootings, only this time, the mentally ill are shot and killed by police at a higher per capita rate than blacks are. It's only the race angle that plays, otherwise these spoiled athletes don't give a fuck about these problems.
There is absolutely no protected right to disregard your job description or rules of your workplace while you are on the clock and receiving pay for it. The NFL quite clearly states exactly how players are to act/perform during the National Anthem. It also prescribes fines, suspensions, and loss of draft picks for any and all violations. Every player, coach and team that has violated these rules needs to be punished or the NFL will be setting a legal precedent that will prevent them from ever being able to discipline any employees for anything in the future. Demonstrating/making political statements at work is not a protected right, in fact it can be in violation of quite a few Federal Workplace Laws. Burning a flag at work is no different than burning a jewish dummy in effigy at work. Hate crime against a particular culture.
There are 2 kinds of countries in the world. America, and the rest. We're the greatest country in the history of the planet, and nobody else even comes close.
Burning your own flag is not a hate crime. And it's up to the NFL to punish their players. If the NFL agrees with the reasons, or chooses not to punish them, then that's up to league. It's not up to you, it's not up to me, and it's not up to the President. Your power is that you can choose not to spend your money. That's it. Everyone can choose to either support the NFL, or don't. Did our forefathers commit hate crimes against the crown?
Lmao. I think Dame cares about the mentally ill, and if you would bring it up he would be concerned about it. Many of these athletes work with Special Olympics. The problem is, there isn't systemic prejudice towards these groups at the same level as there are towards minorities. Show me a comparable pattern bias towards a group (that's defined by something other than race) over as many systemic issues that colored people face. You're trying to use individual situations to argue a pattern...
What made this country great was the ability to speak out against the government as a given right, by law. And if you want to start calling this treason, you're going down a very dangerous path. The more the government tells our people they can't do something, the more they're going to do it.
