Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Football Players and Social Justice

The Beer:  Shiner Bock. 

The Bicycle:  Hangs in the garage while my good intentions pass by.

The VRWC:  So, NFL players have decided to follow Colin Kaepernick's lead in showing their displeasure with the justice system.  I think we can all agree that the justice system needs reform; minimum sentencing, drug offenses, differences in sentencing based on race and corruption in general are part of a long list of problems with the system.  But appearing disrespectful of the flag, the National Anthem, the Nation and it's people turns off a very large majority of the people. 

The President had an opportunity to say nothing.  He didn't.  He had an opportunity to bring a message of unity.  He didn't.  Instead, like the one before him, he threw gasoline on that fire.  Now the NFL, the players, the owners have all lined up against him as have many of his otherwise allies.  His supporters will never leave him and his haters will never credit him.  But guys like me, who base our judgments on what he does, not who he is see this as a major blunder. 

Now the NFL has changed its approach and possibly lost sight of the original goal.  Besides, it's en vogue to be against Trump.

My take on all this is that 1) the players would do better getting hands on and changing the culture in "the Hood" and 2)  POTUS needs to be working on messages of unity, not off-the-cuff tweets.  Unfortunately, the players are, for the most part stuck in that "Hood Culture".  They can't change it because they don't know differently.  POTUS in equally stuck in his own culture which is "My way or the highway."  Expect Twitter wars to continue.

1 comment:

Dad29 said...

Hadn't seen you for quite some time.....thought you fell off the face of the Earth. Welcome back!