|
FOCUS: Why the NFL Player Protests Still Matter |
 |
|
Sunday, 04 February 2018 11:46 |
|
Abdul-Jabbar writes: "If people of color want to figure out who's got to shoulder the heavy lifting to bring about meaningful change, the answer is the same. Just us."
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. (photo: Getty Images)
Why the NFL Player Protests Still Matter
By Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Guardian UK
04 February 18
Football is the perfect public platform for discussing racial disparity, no matter how convincingly sappy patriotic songs and inaccurate textbooks proclaim equality has been achieved
 ichard Pryor once joked about the relationship African-Americans have with the American judicial system, “If you go down there looking for justice, that’s what you find: just us.” Not much has changed in 50 years. But if people of color want to figure out who’s got to shoulder the heavy lifting to bring about meaningful change, the answer is the same. Just us. That’s why the relatively benign protests among some NFL players over the last 18 months are being studied so closely by the full spectrum of left-to-right politicians. It’s a social petri dish to determine whether we’re growing an antibiotic to institutional racism or weaponizing a nasty virus to infect American Exceptionalism.
To be clear, these protests are so peaceful – taking a knee or staying in the locker room during the national anthem – that they are less violent than post-Super Bowl street parties or even Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s marches. And the message is so historically American that Betsy Ross could have embroidered it on her bloomers: “All people are created equal, so let’s treat them that way.”
More specifically for the NFL protestors, let’s stop gunning down unarmed blacks, stop giving substandard education to black children, stop creating legal obstacles to keep minorities from voting, stop passing laws that punish blacks more than whites for doing the same crime. Instead, promote equal job opportunities so we can prosper and affordable health care to prevent us from dying younger than whites. Bottom line: We want our children to have the same shot at a happy, healthy, successful life that white kids have. Sappy patriotic songs and deliberately inaccurate textbooks proclaim we already have it, but hundreds of studies by the US government, the United Nations and best institutions in America say we don’t. And every African-American who walks out onto the street every day knows we don’t. The goal then is to wake those who don’t know that out of their cozy slumber.
There are two reasons why the NFL is the perfect public platform for discussing racial disparity. First, 70% of NFL’s 1,696 players are black. If ever there was a group that should be sensitive to racial inequity, it would be them. To many whites, especially those skeptical that racism even exists, the level of commitment of black players protesting reflects how serious the problem is. They are a social thermometer measuring the degree of racism in our social climate.
Second, the NFL’s significant ratings means it reaches not just a lot of people (an average of 18m), but a wider cross-section of people, particularly those whose hearts and minds need to be changed if we are to see progress. This target audience may not be aware of the problem or are reluctant to believe there is a problem until they see their favorite players week after week expressing their sadness and frustration at calculated government inaction.
The question on everyone’s minds is: Has the players’ protest already failed?
There’s evidence to suggest it has. Of those 70% black NFL players (1,187), only 15 to 23 (about 2%) have regularly protested at games on a weekly basis. To the white fans the protestors are trying to reach, those tiny numbers might suggest there is no big problem. For them, it’s a legitimate excuse to ignore the issue: If blacks don’t care, why should I?
What’s odd about the lack of commitment from black players are the troubling racial statistics within their own game. The preference for white quarterbacks has always been a contentious issue. According to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports, in 1999, 81% of the quarterbacks were white. Fast forward 15 years later to 2014 and its 80.2% white. According to the US Census, only 6.7% of management are black. They’re facing disparity in their own artificially turfed backyards.
Equally troubling is that the NFL managed to choke-hold Colin Kaepernick’s career. We don’t need the X-Files’ Lone Gunmen to recognize a conspiracy to deliberately sacrifice uppity Kaepernick because he refused to quit taking a knee.
More bad news: The Players Coalition, NFL players committed to addressing social justice, has had internal dissent about how to proceed, causing some players to split from the group.
Yet, despite all that, there is much more evidence that the protests have been effective. First, we’re still talking about it, aren’t we? That’s one of the main goals of any prolonged protest: to keep the issue in the public eye. To keep the conversation going. All progressive movements met with strong resistance at first, but constant protest leads to reform. We already know that many were not keen to abandon slavery. Nor were many anxious to give women the vote, eliminate child labor, abolish Jim Crow laws, end the Vietnam War. These reforms were accomplished over time by protestors who held their ground despite lack of popularity. History has honored them to as admired patriots. As long as there are players, no matter how few, out there every week showing their courage in the face of others’ timidity, the protests are effective.
A practical result of the protests is the $89m the NFL pledged over seven years to be donated to grassroots social justice groups. The NFL made no demands that the players stop protesting, but some players felt mission accomplished and ceased protesting. Others saw it as hush money, a bribe to keep everyone standing and smiling during the national anthem, and continued to protest. As they saw it, the issue wasn’t about extorting money, it was about raising awareness in the general population to engender real substantive legislative changes.
A particularly heartening result of the NFL protests is how it has spread to colleges and high schools. One Native American high school quarterback who chose to kneel during the anthem was at first supported by his mostly Latino high school. But when he did the same thing at another school that was 78% white, their protests resulted in the boy’s school district passing a rule that made standing for the national anthem mandatory. They threatened to kick the quarterback off the team unless he stood. Instead, he stood up to them by suing the district for violating his constitutional right to free speech. If the NFL protests inspires that kind of brave, patriotic American, fighting on behalf of the US Constitution, then it has been successful.
The bigger question is what is the NFL fighting so hard to protect?
Their political answer was that they wanted to preserve the American respect for the flag and for veterans. President Trump made that point at his State of the Union address. Numerous veterans have made the same point. They are wrong. Protesting when the government doesn’t live up to or directly undermines the principles of the US Constitution is the best way to honor the flag and veterans because those principles are what they fought for. Trying to discourage freedom of expression actually insults veterans by diminishing their sacrifice.
The NFL owners’ more pressing concern was money. They feared that their decline in ratings was the result of player protests. But we have since come to learn that the decline is due to the same reasons all television shows are in decline: too many entertainment options. According to Recode, “MoffettNathanson, like most sober analysis of NFL ratings, doesn’t blame the ratings decline on the Trump/Kaepernick/anthem controversy, since there’s zero evidence people actually tuned out for that reason.” In fact, a USA Today poll in September 2017 showed 68% thought Trump’s call to fire protesting player was inappropriate versus only 27% who agreed with him. Owners’ panic was both unfounded and unflattering. A willingness to sacrifice patriotism for profit.
Last week, Colin Kaepernick, still sidelined by the vengeful NFL, announced he had reached his goal, launched back in September 2016, of donating $1m of his salary to communities in need. He donated $10,000 of his own money for every $10,000 others donated. And donate they did, including Usher, Stephen Curry, Nick Cannon and Jesse Williams.
NFL players are still taking knee. Colin Kaepernick is still fighting for social justice. A high school student is suing to protect the Constitution. Have the NFL protests been successful in making people care?
You cared enough to read this article, didn’t you?
 |
|
We Must Stand Up to This Tyrant |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=36361"><span class="small">Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page</span></a>
|
|
Sunday, 04 February 2018 09:37 |
|
Reich writes: "It's becoming clear that Trump was behind both the creation and release of the Republican House memo alleging that officials in the Justice Department and FBI have favored Democrats over Republicans in investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election."
Former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich. (photo: Steve Russell/Toronto Star)
We Must Stand Up to This Tyrant
By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Facebook Page
04 February 18
 t's becoming clear that Trump was behind both the creation and release of the Republican House memo alleging that officials in the Justice Department and FBI have favored Democrats over Republicans in investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The memo was released this morning -- first to Fox News and the Washington Examiner.
Trumped tweeted this morning: “The top Leadership and Investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans - something which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. Rank & File are great people!”
Trump wants to drive his Fox-News Republican base further into believing the Russian investigation is a plot to oust him, so that (1) he can fire Rosenstein and Mueller, and maintain Republican congressional support, and (2) be insulated from any further damaging information that may tie him to Russian interference in the 2016 election and beyond.
To maintain power, Trump is willing to foment a virtual civil war in America -- between the 37 percent who still support him, and the majority who know he’s unfit for the job and may have got it with Russian help. Along the way, he's willing to destroy trust in the institutions that maintain the rule of law. If this is not despicable, I don’t know what is.
We must stand up to this tyrant.
Your thoughts?
|
|
|
Work Requirements for Medicaid Will Actually Increase Poverty |
|
|
Sunday, 04 February 2018 09:30 |
|
Jones writes: "A number of states are already taking advantage of a new federal rule allowing them to implement work requirements for Medicaid coverage."
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar announced federal approval for changes to Indiana's Medicaid program Friday in Indianapolis. (photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
Work Requirements for Medicaid Will Actually Increase Poverty
By Sarah Jones, The New Republic
04 February 18
 number of states are already taking advantage of a new federal rule allowing them to implement work requirements for Medicaid coverage. Roll Call reports:
At least four non-expansion states, including Mississippi and Kansas, have already submitted formal work requirement proposals to the Department of Health and Human Services. They are among at least 10 states, including Indiana and Arkansas, to do so. The administration has only approved one proposal so far—in Kentucky, a state that expanded the government insurance program for the poor under the health law.
A familiar reasoning underpins the argument for work requirements: People are poor because they don’t work. But most Medicaid recipients do work either full-time or part-time jobs; the rest, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, work as unpaid family caregivers or go to school. Only 7 percent of all Medicaid recipients are out of work for unknown reasons—and in depressed areas, those reasons could easily include a scarcity of local work.
The policy could directly backfire: People are healthier when they have access to health insurance, which means they’re better able to work. People recovering from opioid addiction could lose treatments covered by Medicaid. Work requirements, therefore, will push people further into poverty, and there will be dangerous ripple effects. Since a number of Medicaid recipients work as family caregivers, elderly people and people with disabilities could lose an important source of caregiving support. It’s a punitive policy with no real positive benefit—unless your goal is to make poverty seem like a pathology.
|
|
Trump Falsely Links Central American Immigrants to Drug Trafficking, Again |
|
|
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=45727"><span class="small">David Boddiger, Splinter</span></a>
|
|
Sunday, 04 February 2018 09:28 |
|
Boddiger writes: "We already knew that Donald Trump's opinion of Mexicans and Central Americans is based entirely on racism and xenophobia. We've known this since at least June 2015, when then-candidate Trump made those awful comments about Mexicans being rapists, drug dealers, and criminals."
U.S. border with Mexico. (photo: AP)
Trump Falsely Links Central American Immigrants to Drug Trafficking, Again
By David Boddiger, Splinter
04 February 18
 e already knew that Donald Trump’s opinion of Mexicans and Central Americans is based entirely on racism and xenophobia. We’ve known this since at least June 2015, when then–candidate Trump made those awful comments about Mexicans being rapists, drug dealers, and criminals.
Trump recently doubled (or tripled) down on the racist ideology behind his approach to foreign policy and immigration by calling African nations, Haiti, and El Salvador “shithole countries” in a private meeting with lawmakers.
Now, he’s again linking undocumented migrants coming to the U.S. from Central American countries and Mexico as drug traffickers, and recklessly threatening to cut off foreign aid to countries that “allow” illicit drugs to be trafficked into the United States.
Speaking on Friday at the Customs and Border Protection National Training Center in Virginia, Trump called out leaders from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, and blamed them for the insatiable demand for illicit drugs in the U.S.
“I want to stop the aid. If they can’t stop drugs from coming in, ‘cause they can stop them a lot easier than us. They say, ‘oh we can’t control it.’ Oh great, we’re supposed to control it,” Trump said, according to CNN. “So we give them billions and billions of dollars, and they don’t do what they’re supposed to be doing, and they know that. But we’re going to take a very harsh action.”
Trump constantly feels the need to “punish” people of color. This is clear from both his actions and public statements, which range from disparaging comments about NFL players silently protesting injustices to his all–out assault on undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
In his comments on Friday, Trump sought to link all undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America to drug trafficking, saying, “You know they’re bad.”
As CNN reported, Trump said:
“We want strong borders. We want to give you laws. We want to stop the catch and release nonsense that goes on. You catch somebody and you release them. You know they’re bad,” he said. “They’re pouring in from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, all over. They’re just pouring into our country.”
The President added: “These countries are not our friends, you know.”
“We think they’re our friends, and we send them massive aid, and I won’t mention names right now,” he said. “But I look at these countries, I look at the numbers we send them, we send them massive aid and they’re pouring drugs into our country and they’re laughing at us.”
No one’s laughing. In reality, a significant number of migrants currently making the dangerous journey to the U.S. from Mexico and Central America are children and families. According to The Pew Charitable Trusts, the number of Central American children crossing the U.S.–Mexico border illegally has been steadily increasing since last April. This follows a sharp drop in the trend as the Trump administration unveiled its anti–immigration policies shortly after taking office last year.
What’s driving this new wave of child and family migration from the region? According to Pew, it’s not drug trafficking, but “fears of gang violence at home — fears that outweigh heightened concerns about deportation under the Trump administration.”
Last April, the number of children caught crossing the U.S.–Mexico border was under 1,000. By December, that number had increased to more than 4,000, Pew reported. The number of family groups with children caught crossing are increasing at even greater levels, Pew said, from 1,118 last April to 8,121 in December.
More than 95% of children who are caught come from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. They are people like a 19–year–old from Honduras, who recently told a Maryland circuit court the following, as reported by Pew:
He was playing ball in the street one day with five friends, all 13- and 14-year-old boys, and sat on the curb with them afterwards. He got up to leave first, and as he walked away, gangsters dressed as police officers walked up and killed the other five boys. The gang members fled, and he never learned why his friends were killed.
Or this 15–year–old from El Salvador, who explained to the court why he made the dangerous journey to the U.S. before his 15th birthday:
Had he waited until his 15th birthday, the boy said, the gangs would have recruited him by force. They scaled security fences at his school and took older boys away, threatening to kill their families if they refused, the boy said.
According to immigration attorney Jennifer Alonso, “There is a great misconception that Central Americans are coming solely to work and for economic reasons. That may have been true in recent decades but right now, I can tell you they are coming out of fear.”
|
|
he most telling item in 
