Day: April 16, 2018

I have been a fan of the NFL for a long time and follow it year-round. It amazes me that Colin Kaepernick, who was cut from his former team, the San Francisco 49ers in 2016, still has yet to be signed by another team. Kaepernick created a lot of controversy when he began to kneel during the national anthem in 2016. It is because of this that many believe he still is unsigned. It was reported a couple weeks ago that Kaepernick was contacted by the Seattle Seahawks for a workout but, after Kaepernick refused to promise him that he would stop kneeling for the national anthem, the Seahawks canceled the workout. I find this crazy because there have been many players in the NFL this past year who kneeled during the anthem throughout the season, however, none of those players are out of a job for it.

There has been a lot of controversy in the NFL about the players kneeling and standing up for what they believe in. Many people in and around the NFL claim that professional athletes should not use their platform to talk about their political views or to protest. They claim that if the athletes do this it will hurt the NFL’s ratings.  I find this hard to believe for a couple of reasons. First, the NFL has been struggling with declining ratings for some time now. It has been an issue before players began to kneel. Secondly, according to Darren Rovell who is an ESPN reporter, the NBA’s ratings for the first playoff games this past weekend were up 17% and were the highest in five years. This NBA stat is important because the NBA has become known for allowing their players to stand up and speak for what they believe in. Considering this, it is hard to believe that players who kneel are really affecting the NFL’s ratings.

It will be interesting to see if Kaepernick, who is more than talented enough to be on an NFL roster will find a team this offseason. I hope the owners in the NFL will realize that players kneeling are not whats hurting their ratings and give Kaepernick a chance.

 

Since attending Kathleen Cleaver’s talk a couple of weeks ago, one point she made has stuck with me: the adoption of Black Power across the world. She mentioned, multiple times, that she would run into people in other countries wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the Black Power fist and captioned in their own language. In India, the lower castes picked up the tenets of the Black Panther Party for their own fight for liberation. Cleaver seemed to love that the idea of Black Power empowered oppressed people all over the world. Black Power didn’t call for radical changes completely unique to African Americans. It presented a solution to end inequality for anyone who was oppressed.

I think the dissemination of an ideology like this is powerful. People can find a common cause with each other, no matter how many miles or oceans separate them. And I believe that it’s this kind of cause–fighting for equality and justice–that makes the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements stand so strongly in history. They will always be relevant because they fought for something that all societies have experienced and will continue to experience, unfortunately, for many years to come.

After finishing Remaking Black Power and in my own research for the final paper, I have seen other examples of ideologies spreading across borders. From feminism to socialism, ideologies that present a solution to suffering will find support all around the globe, regardless if they were initially created to rally a specific group of people.

Near the end of her talk, someone asked Cleaver what it takes to be a Panther. She said, “You need arms, legs, a brain, and a heart full of anger and hope.” This paired nicely with her discussion on Black Power’s global impact. As long as one is able and ready to change the world, everyone is welcome in the fight for equality and freedom.