There has been a lot of media coverage of the NFL players attempts at protesting what they seem to think is white oppression.  The owner of the Houston Texans just last week put his foot in his mouth by stating “we don’t want the inmates running the jail.”  The most common version of this phrase is “we don’t want the inmates running the asylum.”  Would his remark have been less objectionable had he used the most common phrase and compared NFL players to mentally ill people as opposed to criminals?  He probably would have caught flack either way, but I’m sure the African American players were particularly incensed even though African Americans comprise a majority of the population of those who are currently incarcerated.  And that’s the issue, isn’t it, why is the black population the primary component of the penal system?

Guess what isn’t going to solve this problem?  Kneeling for the National Anthem.  Kneeling for the National Anthem does even less than someone taking a dump on the 50 yard line while the Star Spangled Banner is being played.  At least taking a dump on the 50 yard line is the type of behavior that you don’t want repeated.  Who gives a shit if a bunch of over paid professional athletes refuse to stand for the National Anthem?  If all the players took a shit not the field during the anthem that’s 106 people shitting on the field per venue (all teams have a 53 man active roster).  I’ll say this my 4 and 6 year olds take some epic shits and they only way a combined 90 pounds.  After they have taken a dump I have often wondered how did you fit all that in there?  But then I think back to what my wife is able to cram in her purse and realize anything is possible.  However, when you do break it down what kind of damage do you think the Cowboys offensive line could do?  Those guys probably eat a lot of bbq’ed meat during the week and they alone would likely create a toxic epicenter that FEMA would have a tough time cleaning up.

Am I really advocating for NFL players to drop a Duce on the field?  While I think it would accomplish more than kneeling, it still falls significantly short of accomplishing what the players seem set out to do, rectify the racial inequity in society.  For example, do you think a police officer now after the latest protests by NFL players thinks twice when he follows a car full of African American teens for no real reason but for the color of their skin?  Hold on, wait a minute here, I really shouldn’t be doing this, those NFL players are going to keep kneeling for the anthem if I don’t quit this type of unconstitutional behavior that could possibly be perceived as racial profiling.  Nonsense, cops are going to keep doing what they have been doing for one specific reason.  Just like any other job in order to move up the food chain you need to perform.  You’re not going anywhere if you sit in a parking lot eating doughnuts all day and looking at porn on your phone, granted that’s much less dangerous than chasing alleged criminals, but rarely does such conduct result in a promotion.  So in order to move up the ladder and get a better gig with better hours and a more lucrative financial package you need to make arrests, preferably big arrests.  Now if I want to see naked women dance on a stage where do I go?  Not to Byron Center where there is a church on every corner, I go to a “gentleman’s club”.  So, as a cop do you go to Byron Center? (the whitest suburb in all of West Michigan, which is saying a lot because there are a lot of white suburbs to choose from). No, you go to the inner city where the action is.  Is this on it’s face what these players are bitching about?  I hope not, it’s what happens after these cops get into these neighborhoods that seems to be problematic.

I’m not going to go into all the racial injustices I have personally witnessed carried out at the hands of the police, but there have been quite a few.  However, I am going to go into better solutions to solve the problem than the mere lip service the NFL players are engaging in as a protest to perceived improper conduct by law enforcement across the country.

The first solution that would have the most dramatic impact on things is if the players said fuck it, we aren’t playing anymore until there are some changes.  This would have the white billionaire owners and their douche bag yes man, Roger Goodell, scrambling.  I love how the owners for the most part pretended to care about the players when this started and responded to Donald Trump’s questionable comments by joining the players on the field for the National Anthem.  “Ok, we can do this one time, but we are not going down there more than once, I can’t be that far away from my luxury box, I need to have fresh caught jumbo cocktail shrimp, caviar, and beautiful women around me at all times, not smelly athletes who have tattoos and untamed facial hair.”  So, if the players said we aren’t playing this Sunday, and did it, say on Saturday what would happen?  The owners wouldn’t get replacement players, they tried that once and it didn’t work.  The owners would actually be forced to use their influence, which they probably have quite a bit of since they are all billionaires, to attempt and rectify the racial injustices in American society.  Guess what?  They aren’t going to do it, in all reality, even though they engage in one of the manliest sports on this planet, risking life and limb every time they strap on a helmet, they can’t handle the thought of losing their game checks.

They will kneel for the Anthem but there’s no way they are going to take on financial hardship to prove a point.  Furthermore, what if they didn’t show up to play and the owners did nothing?  They would have to do the same thing the following week until there were legitimate changes. Eventually an absence of football would lead every one to realize what I already know, the NFL is terribly boring and for every good game there are dozens of unwatchable games.  The referees suck, the coaches suck, and a lot of the players suck.  It’s not a quality product and on top of that every five to seven minutes of play is followed by five to seven minutes of commercials and dead air.  Now I’m not saying the NFL is as boring as going to a pumpkin patch with your family on a Sunday afternoon, no, I would never take that stance, at least you can drink and fold laundry while you watch football, but as far as sports entertainment goes, it has to be one of the least action packed sports for its fans.

My second offering is the more likely way to have an impact on racial inequality in our justice system.  Currently, most African Americans are shuffled through the justice system without the financial resources to obtain their own legal counsel.  Often times they are appointed an attorney who has a heavy case load and they are not given the time and attention required to thoroughly explore the options that are available to them as they work their way through the system.  Once these people end up in the system they typically make their way back into the system and it creates a vicious cycle with the ramifications for their actions increasing significantly every time they reappear.  However, NFL players make millions of dollars and the owners make billions.  The financial resources are there to set up a defense fund in all 50 states that could have a dramatic impact on how these cases turn significantly impacting the lives of the people caught up in the system.  Is it idealistic to think that this will remedy the problem?  Yes, however such a fund can have a positive impact on the lives of the oppressed by giving them advocates who have the time and resources to combat some of the intolerable behavior that is at the root of the players well meaning but entirely ineffective protests.