Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country
President Trump praised the NFL’s decision to mandate that players either stand for the national anthem or stay in the locker room in a TV interview that aired Thursday.
And he questioned whether players who choose not to stand “proudly” should be in the country at all.
Oh did he. Did he really. This lying stealing bullying garbage fire of a man who defecates on this country every day has the gall to question whether African American athletes who protest racism by kneeling instead of standing while a song is sung should be in the country at all.
“Well, I think that’s good,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. “I don’t think people should be staying in locker rooms, but still I think it’s good. You have to stand, proudly, for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there, maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.”
No you don’t “have to.” Opinion should not be coerced, and public expression of opinion should not be coerced. Employers can make workplace rules, but morally speaking (at least) there are some rules they should not make. It’s not Trump’s decision to make either way, but he does love to find opportunities to bully brown people.
Sorry to pick on you totally out of context, Skeletor, but *this* is what Ophelia was on about. That a president can so casually proclaim that black people who don’t particularly want to be killed by police for no reason don’t belong in the country.. This is *not* a national emergency? You’ll muddle through *this*?
Sincerely, I hope you *don’t* muddle through this. I hope it comes to some sort of head – terrible though that will be – that makes shit like this at least slightly difficult to happen again.
But it won’t. Even if dems get in next time, the damage to the political system has been done, I suspect. It is *very* obvious that our government here in the UK is eagerly taking lessons from Trump and the other parties are not far behind. Lying is perfectly OK now and being caught in lies – even decades-long lies that have killed thousands of people – is totally fine. We’ve learned that from you guys. Thanks.
At least, pre-trump, our politicians used to pretend they weren’t lying. They don’t bother any more. Now they lie because they know it doesn’t matter rather than because they think they can get away with it. They don’t even give the slightest thought about whether or how they can get away with it. At least we used to have that pretense. We don’t now.
Thanks, Americans.
For concussion sake I hope American football dies.
I am proud when people kneel. So now NFL has made a way to be less proud of America. awesome.
Concussion, and the overall violence combined with the coercive passion for the game, and the endemic sexism. There’s a lot to hate about US football.
There’s a lot to hate about team sports in general, obviously.
My youth included the hayday of English football hooliganism. If you don’t know about that, please do go and look it up. People engaged in routine yet extreme violence against other people because teams. Mutilation and murder weren’t just opportunistic or fucking artisan, they were organised. It was about hating and hurting other people rather than actually enjoying anything. Perhaps it has changed, but I’m suspicious.
For a couple of years I lived ten feet away from the Newcastle United football stadium in the mid 90s. It was a nightmare when there was a match on. My basement flat’s windows were at ground level, right outside the stadium. Imagine how that worked out with entitled macho fucking idiots crying their eyes out on the way home.
Not to mention the extreme amount of resources that are devoted to team sports, turning colleges into places of “team spirit” rather than centers of learning. Sports coaches make so much more than instructors. They are not filled by adjuncts. And tons of money goes to supporting team sports (no, please, some sports lover, do not come in and blather about the money brought in by sports. Most colleges lose money on the game; only a tiny number actually bring any money in, so yes, there is a lot lost). And classroom space is often given over to people who only show up to play sports and only come to class because it’s required to play. Jocks can be very disruptive in classes, to the extent that I once had a colleague promise they would all get an A if they never showed up to class again because he couldn’t teach the other students with the football players disrupting the class.
I definitely support the players in their fight against the racism, and their right to kneel during the anthem, but that doesn’t change the problems that sports raise in the country, and the problem that the players can get away with levels of outrageous behavior that harm women because, well, the team needs them.
If the players are to stand, they could protest elsewise, maybe have tape over their mouths or wear shackles. That would be bold.