LAST week, the National Football League, a powerful organisation overseeing 32 teams worth a combined $80bn, announced that it would bar its employees from engaging in a peaceable and silent protest at work: kneeling during the pre-game national anthem. If they wanted to stay in the locker room “and out of sight during the anthem” that was fine. But “if they are on the field, they must stand”. The NFL also asserted its commitment to “advance social justice” and “promote positive social change” —precisely the goals of the kneeling protests. This is only the first of several contradictions inherent in the policy.
Roger Goodell, the NFL’s commissioner, rued the effect of the protests on the image of players. “It was unfortunate that on-field protests created a false perception among many that thousands of NFL players were unpatriotic,” he said in a statement. “This is not and was never the case.” But if the players weren’t unpatriotic then and still are not, why the major change in between?
In 2016, during...Continue reading
Source: United States https://ift.tt/2J2MJ56
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