For the last few weeks, the nation has been obsessing over NFL players protesting police brutality during the national anthem at football games. While the meaning behind the protests is incredibly important, it’s gotten lost in the controversy—mainly because Donald Trump continues to insist that players who protest don’t respect their country or flag. He’s been on the warpath, tweeting relentlessly and keeping us distracted with this issue (instead of doing all the really important things he should be doing as president) and has even pressured NFL owners to fire these players.
All of the debate about these protests has forced the NFL to come together with players to seek some sort of resolution. It’s unclear why they needed to meet in the first place since players should have the right to protest as they choose. Still on Tuesday, they met anyway. And they decided to do nothing, since they weren’t able to come to an agreement.
NFL owners and players met at league headquarters in New York on Tuesday but failed to resolve the contentious issue of national anthem protests.
Eleven owners and 13 players attended the meeting that lasted for several hours and was variously described as "positive" and "constructive," but didn't break any new ground on the protests that have seen players take a knee, sit or raise fists during pregame renditions of the national anthem to protest against racial inequality and police shootings of unarmed black men.
It’s not at all surprising that they were unable to break new ground. The owners don’t care anything about racial injustice or the police violence against black people (men and women, boys and girls). They’d rather see this whole thing go away—especially because right now NFL ratings are down almost eight percent compared to last year. Why they are down is likely due to a combination of things but certainly the protests (begun by Colin Kaepernick last year, who remains without a job) don’t help.
Truthfully, the meeting seems like a farce anyway. Despite claims that they want to seek a solution, the League is still committed to trying to make players stand for the anthem, which is completely unnecessary and doesn’t particularly have a place in sporting events. This is all about appeasing some Americans bizarre sense of patriotism that is wrapped up in sports and policing black protest.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league "did not ask" for any change to the policy on the national anthem. That policy says players "should" stand for performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner," but in the wake of the protests, some have suggested changing that language to "must."
Meanwhile it’s unclear why players would think they’d get anything meaningful from NFL owners—many of whom financially supported and gave millions of dollars to Donald Trump. These are not exactly social justice activists. They aren’t even operating with common sense. If anything, with all their power and influence you’d think they would absolutely refuse to do Trump’s bidding. But yet there they are, taking advice from Trump and trying to make players into robots who remain silent and just toss the ball.
Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins, who has been a leading spokesman for the players on this issue, said the discussion covered "everything to do with the state of the NFL now, obviously anthem protests, activism that players have been doing, and how we can move this forward to really amplify players' voices and amplify these issues and make some long sustainable changes."
Sorry to break it to you, NFL players, but the League has zero interest in amplifying your voices or these issues. They only care about their bottom line and these protests are an inconvenience to them. If you really want to do something, you’d all collectively refuse to play for one game. No matter what the owners threaten, they’d come around quick and give in because money talks. Besides, these protests at games are not the real issue—police brutality and racial injustice are. Every second wasted talking about this non-issue is time taken from doing the real work necessary for long-term change.