Yesterday the NFL owners and the NFL players association reached an agreement to, do all but, end on field protest. In an attempt to reconcile the differences between both parties, the NFL owners will donate money to African American social causes, such as United Negro College Fund, Dream Corps, and half to the Players Coalition for players to put toward individual causes. Here is a statement from Bleacher Report’s Alec Nathan:
According to the Washington Post's Mark Maske, the framework of the deal, which needs to be ratified by NFL owners, states the league and its teams will "provide approximately $90 million to $100 million between the onset of the arrangement and 2023 to social causes deemed important by the players, focused in particular on African American communities.
-Alec Nathan, Bleacher Report
The on field protest was started by Colin Kaepernick. Choosing to sit, later kneel, for the National Anthem, became headlines across the country at the start of last years NFL season and continued for the 2017-18 season. Kaepernick justified his actions by saying, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color” But his protest unfortunately became misconstrued. Instead of being about racial inequality, the conversation was changed to disrespect of the American Flag, and the US Military. The President of the United States called for Owners of the teams to do something about the NFL players protesting. Owners, who are majority white, older men, jumped into action. Some owners openly called out players, others found a way to please both sides, with players kneeling before the National Anthem was sung, and then stand for the anthem. Overall the original message of Colin Kaepernick was watered down. And by the end of this demonstration, Colin Kaepernick was no longer apart of the NFL, nor was he apart of these negotiations.
The news feels cheap. Accepting an offer, to quite frankly “shut the fuck up” is not what should have ended this protest. In fact, the owners had nothing to do with this protest, it was America as a whole, using the American pass time, football to speak on another American pass time, racism, to an audience of predominantly white male Americans, who historically, been the oppressors. And the backlash of this protest should show everyone following that his point was valid.
Colin Kaepernick is no longer in the NFL, and his protest was highly criticized. He was demonized and ostracized, for standing up for a group of people who haven’t had anyone stand up for it a long time. Historically men and women who have stood up for African Americans, no matter the creed, race, or ethnicity, have been killed. And this isn’t an exaggeration. So when Colin made a stand and in return, he was told, by the people who are the main culprits of oppression, that he is causing too much trouble. He was then effectively blackballed by the NFL, and as history have shown us, once a leader is killed, the movement will cease.
The idea of paying for silence isn’t nearly new, in fact, it is kind of an American tradition. The rich and powerful use it as a crutch, but in this instance, giving money really shows just how far off the mark the owners are in this discussion. This was never about money, it was about awareness, black men and women are being killed in the streets by law enforcement and are giving no sentences. Blacks are being incarcerated in mass numbers, and sentenced to unfair prison sentences when whites commit the same crime and given shorter time. He never asked for money, he never put the NFL owners in the middle of this crisis, Donald did that. All he asked for, all black have been asking for the past four centuries was equality.
Sidenote
Money Breakdown
At first glance $100 million sounds like a lot of money, but it isn’t under these circumstances.
The deal says that the NFL owners have until 2023 to pay all of the money. That is six years, and each team takes on the bill.
There are 32 teams in the NFL, so each team is responsible for paying $3,125,000 in six years, which equates to $520,834 a year.
Now to us regular people, that is a lot of money, but the owners are Billionaires, Jerry Jones, Stan Kroenke, Stephen Ross, Shahid Khan, Paul Allen, Robert Kraft, and Terrence Pegula have a combined net worth of $51.5 billion and this is only 7 owners.
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