Your idea about boycotting the NFL until they award a job to Colin Kaepernick is silly, but how about this instead? Let’s boycott the NFL until they force all players to stand respectfully during the national anthem. Oh wait, we’re already essentially doing that, https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2016/10/05/confirmed-nfl-losing-millions-of-tv-viewers-because-of-national-anthem-protests/#4705e03b226c, and that’s why the NFL is listening by not giving a job to Mr. Ratings-Killing-Unnecessary-Distraction, Colin Kaepernick.
Don’t get me wrong: Colin Kaepernick is absolutely free to be a disrespectful, hate-peddling, publicity-seeking narcissist on his own time. But while his employer is paying him generously to play football, there’s no reason he should be using that platform to spit upon America, and no reason his employer should have to tolerate that. For instance, I’m an attorney. If I go to court on behalf of a client, and if I, as a protest about some political issue, take a knee when the judge walks in instead of standing up respectfully like everyone’s supposed to, I’ll likely get (deservedly) fired. Why should a different standard apply to Kaepernick?
Moreover, just because someone is talented enough to toss a football in the more-or-less right direction doesn’t mean they have any clue about political issues. We have no more reason to listen to what jocks think about complex political race issues than we have to listen to what politicians think about the merits of complex zone blocking schemes. When we turn on football games, we expect these highly compensated athletes to play football, not to make fools of themselves protesting things regarding which they haven’t the faintest clue, just as when we turn on celebrity awards shows, we expect our celebrities to receive awards (and maybe entertain us a bit in the process), not to make dumb political statements, which is also why people are tuning out the Emmy’s. Athletes and celebrities, in other words, need to shut their mouths and do what they’re paid to do.
So you identity-peddlers and race-baiters can boycott all you want, but it looks like we (as in we normal, non-race-obsessed Americans) have already beaten you to it. And sooner or later, our message is going to get heard.
