Maybe Goodell is a racist. Pence certainly seems to be. It might be time for a players' strike if Goodell can't back them in seeking prison reform and ending the lifelong issue of poverty and prison.
The USA is not supposed to be setting policy for the NFL. Goodell doesn't have a backbone. I think it is time for the NFL to find a suitable African American commissioner.
October 10, 2017
By Mark Maske
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (click here) said Tuesday that team owners will discuss a plan when they meet next week for dealing with the raging national controversy over players’ protests during the national anthem, adding that while the league respects the right of its players to express their opinions, it believes they should stand during the playing of the anthem.
While stopping short of saying the NFL would require its players to stand, Goodell strongly suggested in a letter to NFL teams that at next week’s meeting the league would propose to owners that players be required to do so, while also providing a platform to recognize their community activism....
Some of the owners may be a big issue. Something has to impress them to honor their players both on and off the field. I also think the players need legislators that are willing and ready to pass changes in the law to ensure deaths of innocent Americans stop. The players' activism needs to grow outside the NFL. It needs to carry clout that the NFL can feel to know it is real.
October 10, 2017
By Dave Zirin
Donald Trump’s efforts to distract from his flailing agenda (click here) by demonizing anti-racist NFL players is finally bearing some fruit. Last week there were reports leaking out from NFL players that the owners of their franchises were telling them that the protests against racism and police brutality being staged during the anthem had to end. They were dropping the hammer, even though NFL.
Commissioner Roger Goodell had promised that there would be no reprisals.
Then we had Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who gave over a million dollars to Donald Trump and has signed players guilty of violence against women, DWIs, and even attempted murder, say, “If there is anything that is disrespectful to the flag then we will not play. You understand? If we are disrespecting the flag then we won’t play. Period.” (Jerry Jones, based on his personal life, absence of military service, and patriotic bromides, is basically Donald Trump with a worse plastic surgeon.)...
No one is telling White Supremacists to stand down. The Charlottesville mayor told the White Supremacists to go home. He is alone. This was as recent as 2 days ago.
October 8, 2017
By Charlie May
Alt-right leader Richard Spencer (click here) and his gang of white nationalist neo-Nazis emerged in Charlottesville once again on Saturday night. The group wielded torches and chanted "you will not replace us" as they stood in front of the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, which has been covered in black tarp.
In August, Spencer and white supremacists descended on Charlottesville and held a torch-lit march that poured into a massive rally organized by the alt-right the following day and resulted in the murder of peaceful activist, Heather Hayer....
The NFL is most visible right now, but, what is happening with other sports and their players. Where are retired NFL Superstars to stand up for the players today?
The issue is real. The movement needs to spread with spokesmen and women that continue the demand for of our social maladies. Poverty is a trap that breeds lives with dead ends into prison. The issues are huge and need to be addressed in a very real way.
Congress wants to talk tax reform, that is the least of the country's worries. There are lawyers that have represented Black families with members shot by police for no real reason. Unarmed Americans should not be shot by police. When Americans run from police it is more a reaction to the power of the police than real guilt. Police scare people, especially when the history is one like that of Ferguson, Missouri. When are the unarmed people going to be safe from death when chased by armed police officers? Never? Americans are going to die by armed officers when they never pose a real threat to anyone?
It isn't enough to point to a case here or there where families were paid for their losses; the deaths have to end. We are not Afghanistan.
This site lists all deaths by police. There are entries whereby police are shot by the person that now is dead.
Killed by police (click here)
2013 - 779
2014 - 1114
2015 - 1218
2016 - 1163
So far in 2017 - 1163
I am sure there will be more this year. These numbers are Americans gunned down by police. It does not account for deaths that occur in prisons. The problem is widespread and once they are dead, who is going to speak for them so their deaths prove to end a trend that should never exist.
When is the law enforcement profession going to address these deaths? They aren't supposed to happen. Got that? They aren't supposed to happen. Police gun down unarmed people. That is never supposed to happen. Police have guns to protect themselves from armed individuals, but, when are the deaths of innocent people and unarmed people going to stop?
The starkest reality to this issue is the death of Tamir Rice. Dear, God, what are they thinking? That child didn't have a chance and his parents never knew he would be in that level of danger. It all has to end and the NFL players are the people that carry the message. They have every reason to be proud of their pure desire to have this recognized and end it.
Goodell is wrong and needs to stand aside from becoming part of the problem. Silence won't solve anything.
