Posted on 08/19/2019 10:26:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Colin Kaepernick. Remember him? Below-average quarterback. Above-average poseur. Not “activist,” not really. Activists actually say stuff. Kaepernick almost never says anything. He’s like the Queen or most popes — you have to read the deep-background musings of supposed members of his inner circle to get a clue as to what he might be thinking.
Kaepernick hasn’t played in the NFL since 2016, when anyway he was merely the disappointing starter on its worst team, and given that dozens of quarterbacks have entered the league since then and that he’s been gathering rust like the Tin Woodman for three years, he obviously is never going to play in the show again.
Oh, and just to draw a line under the matter: He also sued the league. A handy rule of thumb when you’re trying to get a job is “don’t fire off a lawsuit against your potential employer.” Kaepernick settled out of court with the league in February, and that’s that. The divorce papers have been finalized. The parties have agreed to go their separate ways. Now Kaepernick can get back to his chosen profession, which is posing for advertisements and looking fierce. Hey, he’s pretty good at that. He’s the heir to 80 percent of the America-hating motion-picture professionals known as the Hollywood Ten, who were booted off studio payrolls for being unfriendly witnesses before the House Un-American Activities Committee. As Billy Wilder put it, “Only two of them had talent. The rest were just unfriendly.” Being unfriendly to the flag but not especially talented with a football has worked out fine for Captain Un-America. He can dine out on having been unfriendly for the rest of his life. But as for the rest of us, we’re not going to boycott football any more than anybody boycotted movies in the 1950s.
So what’s this? “Jay-Z Helped the NFL Banish Colin Kaepernick,” claims the headline of a piece by Jemele Hill in The Atlantic. Come again? The “banishment” happened years ago, and the Kaepernick saga ended months ago. It wasn’t till last week that Jay-Z last signed a deal with the league in which his Roc Nation company agreed to provide advice and strategy about Super Bowl halftime entertainment and also social-justice initiatives.
“I think that we forget that Colin’s whole thing was to bring attention to social injustice, correct?” Jay-Z said at a press conference to announce the deal. “So, in that case, this is a success; this is the next thing. ’Cause there’s two parts of protesting. You go outside and you protest, and then the company or the individual says, ‘I hear you. What do we do next?’”
Sounds to any reasonable person like the NFL is trying to create a space for political matters for its players, overseen by a figure who commands great respect among young black men. This is . . . bad?
Yep. Because Jay-Z is a traitor to the cause, someone who “chose to collaborate” with the NFL, writes Hill. I’m not sure whether the echo of Vichy France is intended, but I have a hunch it is. Work with the NFL, which provides the most popular spectator sport and the most-watched television event of the year, and that makes you a bit of a Nazi sympathizer. Hill also says Jay-Z is “being used as cover. Or, at best, a buffer. The league can point to its partnership with Jay-Z whenever anyone brings up the fact that several of its owners are Trump supporters.” Whoa, the goalposts just got up and took a stroll. How did Trump get into this discussion? Kaepernick knelt for the national anthem during the Obama administration. Are we now to direct obloquy at the NFL because some of its owners are Republicans? Has there been a single day of the NFL’s existence when many if not most of its team owners voted Republican?
Jay-Z once displayed allegiance with Kaepernick by wearing the QB’s jersey during a Saturday Night Live appearance. But times does move on. Was Jay-Z supposed to never be involved with the NFL again, even after Kaepernick settled his lawsuit? If Kaepernick and the NFL are done with each other, is everyone who felt sympathy for Kaepernick obliged to participate in a forever boycott of the league? That is apparently Hill’s view. A source close to the ex-football player told her that he spoke to Jay-Z after the new deal was announced but “it was not a good conversation.” Kaepernick also hinted in an Instagram post that he considers matters far from settled. “My brothers [Eric Reid, Kenny Stills, and Albert Wilson II] continue to fight for the people, even in the face of death threats,” he wrote. “They have never moved past the people and continue to put their beliefs into action. Stay strong Brothers!!!”
If Hill and other Kaepernick fans think Jay-Z should turn his back on the NFL forever, this is fairly childish. Nobody can talk to my ex anymore, because I’m still mad, and planning to remain mad forever. It’s past time to move on. Jay-Z gets it. Just about everybody else does too. “Everyone heard and we hear what you’re saying,” Jay-Z said at the presser, referring to Kaepernick, “and everybody knows I agree with what you’re saying. So what are we going to do? So we should, millions of millions of people, and all we get stuck on [is] Colin not having a job. I think we’re past kneeling. I think it’s time for action.”
What’s this NFL they’re talking about?
Perfect example of being “held back” by those who are determined to “help” you......
The NFL has found their Uncle Tom.
I’m sure Kapernick has moved on in football terms. It’s the MSM who hasn’t.
Ah, I haven’t watch for 2 years, I think.
But it was my favorite sport and pain/headache issues keep me home more than I want to be.
It would be something to enjoy at home.
I will give the games a chance this year and the first sign of nonsense i’ll hop back on FR :)
I just don’t relate to these players.
Case in Point, Ezekiel Elliott. Here’s a guy who cost his team by getting suspended, yet he thinks he deserves a new contract, even though he still has two years remaining on his current contract.
Colin drops back the ghost of offensive (offensive to football sensibilities) hand check on que the opposing rushers who give him a double Joe Third man career ing tackle. Second string QB gotta Nowhere Univ taken 205 in the draft leads them from second to Superbowl runners up!
That’s the “Joe Thiesman” treatment. Hate this phone spellchecker...
Another shakedown, what a loser. Can't play the game, sue the NFL.
Foozball is the Debil!
Kaepernick was an enormously successful athlete.
He succeeded in having my whole family move away from NIKE products forever.
Freepers, vote with your dollars. Stay away from NIKE and Gillette.
Why support companies who hate you and, in the case of NIKE, produce overpriced crap?
AGREED.
And let’s be frank, a small town or suburban town kid made good from a working class neighborhood is fun to watch.
How many players fit that bill?
Most come from tough backgrounds and have a system of values that are different than mine and that DOES take away from it.
But there are some pretty good guys that do some pretty good things. Just not enough of them.
I’m telling ya, and it’s not written in stone that i’ll watch this year as I haven’t watched any pres season games...ONE thing that I don’t like and the TV goes off.
Commie ball is still commie ball, and it still sided with a communist agitator diplaying pictures of Fidel Castro and Che Guivara.
The only people going back to the NFL after that are people who are intrinsically okay with Fidel and Che.
Period.
No sale.
Wasn’t whole point of Colin of settling with the NFL is to go away?
Then, he posts a workout video a few months ago trying to show that he is fit for the NFL.
Kap didn’t obviously understand that he was supposed to go away.
Obviously trying for another shakedown.
Just go away Colin. Take your business elsewhere. You are no better than Jesse Jackson and Rev Al Sharpton.
Any big time team would have to be bat shit crazy to hire this loser...for anything.
If the NFL is smart, they will use Colin as an example.
Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Dummy made it to the big time and blew it.
This isn’t about Jay Z siding with the NFL. This continues to be about the NFL siding with so-called Black Lives Matter and every other phony social justice fashion of the Progressive left.
No freeper should be watching the NFL.
No conservative should be watching the NFL.
Only whores and johns should be watching the race pimping NFL.
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