On Wed, Sep 13, 2017 at 2:59 PM, Kevin M. <[email protected]> wrote:
> > On Wed, Sep 13, 2017 at 10:52 AM Steve Timko <[email protected]> wrote: > >> See how Colin Kaepernick's mixing of politics and sports is affecting the >> NFL. >> > > Again, I fail to see why the white supremacists... I mean... Trump > supporters have chosen to latch onto what has to be the most gentle and > dignified form of protest one can possibly do. And the NFL has shown its > true colors (no pun intended) by catering to bigots. > > I've never understood the reasoning of playing the national anthem at the > start of any sporting events, or the underlying patriotism of rooting for a > player or team. Nobody sings before I swim laps at the gym. For that > matter, nobody sings before doctors save lives. Decades ago somebody made > the arbitrary decision to sing at games, and now people take offense when > somebody chooses that moment to protest. The media made it a story and the > bigots made it a bigger story. And now a guy is out of a job because he > took a knee. That's just unAmerican. > Re: the national anthem: as someone who attends many live sporting events I always felt the playing of the national anthem was superfluous. I recently heard a talk by Michael Puett, a Harvard professor of Chinese History who teaches a freshman class on ethics which is the most popular class at Harvard. I also read his book The Path, written with Christine Gross-Loh. In the book, and in his class, he interprets ancient Chinese philosophers for modern American students. One of his major points, which comes from the writings of Confucius, is the role of ritual in daily life. Our modern western philosophy is based on individualism and being authentic to your true self. Puett says we have to recognize the value of ritual, where we set our selves aside, and take on roles in ritual events. We come to football games as players and coaching staffs looking to dominate the other team or as fans trash talking the fans wearing the other team's jerseys. But before we do that we all face the same flag and listen to or sing the same anthem, thus making clear that we are all together before we go back to being partisans for different sides. Until I read The Path I would have been happy to see sports leagues abandon the playing of the national anthem. Now I am not so sure. This context makes it difficult for me to support Kaepernick's protest, but I understand the depth of feeling behind it. As time goes by and the administration pushes more racist policies I expect to see more protests from more players. As the owners are older, white, and wealthy Republican donors I don't expect them to stand behind the anthem protests. But they can't condemn them without condemning their own employees of color. Re: Jamele Hall: more than just the president, the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, HUD, and the fraudulent voter fraud commission are all making openly racist policies. A person of color who is an employee of a major media corporation speaks up on Twitter. What should the corporation do? If they fire the employee they make calling out racism a fireable offense. If they let it go they face losing racist viewers. This is a question that is going to occur frequently over the next few years. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
