What's the Protest: NFL and NBA Athletes

When Martin Luther protested, he nailed 95 theses to the door of a Wittenberg church building.  He was very specific about his problems with Roman Catholicism. The Protestant Reformation came out of that protest.  Many people know the very beginning of the Declaration of Independence, a very small portion of the declaration, but very few, I would guess, could name one of the twenty seven grievances the colonies had with the British monarchy, written down by Thomas Jefferson.  Zoom forward to the monumental early 21st century protest of NBA and NFL game players.

Society regressed to where the opinion of people playing games became important.  The characters of the Roman circus became prominent before the downfall of Rome.  The combination of the internet and people's hunger for entertainment overinflates the role of actors and games and players, like the performers of the Roman coliseum.  This does not bode well for a culture, that people care what Lebron says about anything important.  What he says, however, brings web clicks, which sells advertising.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I have for awhile heard Stephen Curry hold forth on whatever the media asks him.  I have found Curry to be very, very good at saying nothing -- genius level flurries of snow.  Even I must admit that he is a master at saying nothing about a great many different topics.  As NBA camp opened this week for this new season, he of the champion Golden State Warriors was asked about whether he would attend an invitation to the White House, and he enunciated his carefully thought-out reasons for not accepting something he had not yet been given.  What would he do? He chose to insult the president, still relying on some of his well tuned skill at saying nothing, so that it was difficult to comprehend the denigration:

That we don’t stand for basically what our president has done, the things that he’s said and the things that he hasn’t said in the right times, that we won’t stand for it.  And by acting and not going, hopefully that will inspire some change when it comes to what we tolerate in this country and what is accepted and what we turn a blind eye to. It’s not just the act of not going there. There are things you have to do on the back end to actually push that message into motion. . . . You can talk about all the athletes that have said things and done things – from Kaepernick to what happened with Michael Bennett to all sorts of examples of what has gone on in our country that has led to change. We’re all trying to do what we can using our platforms, using our opportunities to shed light on that, so that’s kind of where I stand on it. I don’t think us not going to the White House is going to miraculously make everything better, but this is my opportunity to voice that. . . . We have an opportunity to send a statement that hopefully encourages unity, encourages us to appreciate what it means to be American, and stand for something. So whatever your opinion is on either side, that’s what we wanna take advantage of this opportunity.

Curry, the now long time face of the Warriors still, even with Kevin Durant having joined him, would not say, "No comment."  He took his stand.  He nailed his abstractions to the proverbial backboard to a leftist media's delight.

I need some help trying to support what Curry said.  What is this 'message he wants to push into motion'?  What does he want to 'shed light on'?  In what way is anyone 'turning a blind eye to something'?  His lack of clarity produces a perfect opportunity for deniability.  You could tap into what he might have been saying if you were savvy enough, keeping up with what's politically correct.  You could read between his lines if you followed the media's talking points, what Trump calls "fake news."  However, it adds up to saying about nothing, zero -- a whole lot of verbiage, nothing of substance at all, which is what I find typical of protesting today.  You can't figure out what is bothering people that might motivate you to join them in their fight against oppression or injustice, or whatever it is.  I'd be glad to join Curry and the Warriors in their fight, but they are going to have to talk more plain to do that.

If the slightest intelligent person could engage Curry in a minimal amount of debate, he could tear through what Curry said in seconds.  The media doesn't hold game players accountable for their incoherent pronouncements.  They trade responsibility for availability, like when Kaepernick wore his Castro fanboy shirt in Miami when the 49ers played the Dolphins.  Rather than expect them to mount some sensible defense, they would rather take their few statements, play off their celebrity for the attention they receive, and blow them into larger proportions.

The image that comes to my mind for Kaepernick is the one of him kneeling with an afro the size of a beach ball, the one now that you'll see on people's t-shirts similar to the iconic deco art of Che Guevera, its immensity a great feat of engineering over which to pull a football helmet.  He could grow it even bigger if he wanted, but its size is suitable for making his point.  It says all over him -- I'm black -- his emphasis his race, his ethnicity.   Even though MLK yearned for a society that judged not by the color of the skin, Kaepernick delights in one that judges by the circumference of his afro.

I know the hair was part of the protest with Kaepernick, part of the messaging, but I still don't get the point, except to make note of his race.  He wants to end something.  What?  With his attitude, racism is bound to accelerate.  Some people are glad to be an American, the anthem represents their joy, and they know that no one has to live in this country if he wants to move somewhere else.  Because Kaepernick is free, he doesn't have to stay -- he can go find a better country -- but he chooses to stay where something is so, so wrong that he can't stand for the national anthem.

From what I had seen, Trump had never said anything bad about Stephen Curry, never attacked him, never hindered him from working or traveling (I see pictures of Curry all over the world every year) or from receiving what Forbes reports is 80 million dollars this year including his endorsements.  Trump still doesn't threaten any of that for him, despite what he and all these players have said. They wouldn't enjoy this same freedom in China or Cuba. In the current NBA climate, disrespecting Trump is about the easiest thing that Curry could do.  Coaches who criticize Trump can only help themselves in their locker rooms.  Their statements pander to their target audience.  Saying something nice about Trump would bring far more grief and opposition for Curry.  Anyone above a lobotomy knows that.

So Curry, the leader of his franchise, maligns President Trump in public.  He's not going to the White House.  Trump does bad things, says bad things, doesn't say enough good things.  Trump says, no invitation, and now Curry speaks his victimization:

I don't know why he feels the need to target certain individuals rather than others.  I have an idea of why, but, it's just kind of beneath, I think, a leader of a country to go that route. It's not what leaders do. 

Curry pulls the victim card.  He whines about being targeted and then he insinuates a sinister motive, allowing again for deniability.  Speak up.  Take your stand.  Produce your evidence. Curry says he doesn't want to go. Shouldn't he be happy that Trump pulled the invitation?  Why can't Trump reply to your criticism?  Leaders can't do that?  If Curry is a leader, as he purports to be, and he takes a stand against another individual, Trump, targeting him first, why would he not expect some opposition from the person he attacks?  When you take a stand, shouldn't you expect some opposition?  How hard was it, really, to hear that Trump wasn't inviting you to the White House after all?  Curry again doesn't make any sense at all and the media doesn't require it.  The people just want their bread and circuses.

For this "stand for something" (his words), Curry receives only 100% verbal support from NBA players and over 90% support from the media and Hollywood.  Fox News will give tiny pushback to that, this giving single digit opposition.  Those who choose not to support him will be attacked by multitudes with as much foul language as possible and their lives threatened.  They are the ones actually taking a stand.  In my understanding of a stand, Curry's isn't a stand.  It's moving right along with the current of present society, swimming downstream.  Curry is lockstep with popular culture.  It's not a stand at all to say what he says.  The worst persecution Curry actually receives comes from other players who are jealous of his popularity and his pigmentation.

Curry says he's a Christian and points to the sky, apparently to God, when he makes a basket.  He writes an innocuous verse on his shoe.  That's his stand for God that results in zero suffering.  How does Curry manifest a holy life though, the life of biblical obedience? How does he stand on the Bible?  Could he come out against fornication among NBA players, repudiated again and again?  That would be a stand.  Curry makes public shows of the causes he supports that aren't a stand at all.  Who isn't against malaria killing people in Africa?  Curry has had the opportunity to speak out against same-sex marriage and has capitulated.  I've never heard him say a strong, biblical statement for the truth of the Bible ever here in the Bay Area, and he has been asked many times.  Where he finally takes a "stand" is against Trump in a San Francisco Bay Area that voted against Trump about 9 to 1.  Curry stays silent on subjects where he might suffer the most for a Christian testimony.

Nevertheless, I really want to know what Curry and even Colin Kaepernick and the NFL players  are protesting, who kneel during our national anthem.  How are they suffering?  What's wrong?  What in particular is being done to them that they feel helpless to stop?  While the average salaries of NBA and NFL players has risen, the median income of Americans plummeted during the Obama presidency, lower when he left office than when he came in.  They were silent.  Since Trump entered, median income has risen 2%, that is, it has risen faster in the first six months of his presidency than all of Obama's combined.  While rich professional players got richer, the average citizen under Obama got poorer.  Black Americans suffered the most.  Poverty is also the greatest measure of lifespan, and the average lifespan of Americans decreased under Obama for the first time in American history.  If these players are going to have me join their protest and support them, they are going to have to do a better job of persuading me with facts and with truth as to what is so much worse under Trump, that would merit this kind of reaction from them.

How have the protests of professional athletes helped the lives of average Americans?  When things were getting worse for everyone else during the last eight years and so much better for themselves, what did they have to say about that?

Since I've lived in California, always under a Democrat majority, our church property has been robbed or vandalized over thirty times.  We're a church and church school.  I've been told by our sheriffs that they can't do anything to stop it.  They won't do anything, because they can't.  They can arrive after the crime to take a report -- that's the best they can do with far more serious crimes, like murder, taking their attention.  We've caught criminals ourselves three different occasions since I've been here, and nothing has ever been done to any of them.   At the worst, the criminals were inconvenienced by us for catching them in the act.  That's all.  We've never received any remuneration for anything that anyone has ever done to us or taken from us.  I know for a fact that many democrats in public office here would be happy if the violence against us would shut us down forever.

I already know that if someone came on our school campus to start shooting, that my only, I repeat, only recourse is to absorb the bullets to give the students a few extra moments to run and get away.  The state won't protect us or let us protect ourselves.  We ourselves can't have guns.  We and you know that criminals know this too.

The same government that won't protect us is also a threat to our belief and practice.  My daughter attends a state college, where the professors attack the Bible and Christianity.  They do it with freedom. They do it with gusto.  There is an intimidation on the campus not to say anything for the Bible and Jesus Christ.  These people are paid for out of taxpayer money, but students are threatened not to speak up against what they say.  This is all happening and I can go much further in describing it.  I wish Stephen Curry would say something about that.  Instead, he protests the position most difficult, while taking the one easiest and most politically correct.

As far as being an actual solution to the most serious problems of our society, I'm sure that as a whole professional athletes contribute more to the problem than the solution, more symbolism than substance.  Lenin referred to those Communism had successfully manipulated as "useful idiots."  That sums up the commentary and talk of most professional athletes and their coaches.