Well, speculation about what he knew in advance is well…speculation.
Peyton Manning wore the colts jersey to promote Papa Johns, the pizza company that just threw it’s founder off the board because the PR company they hired to fix his image of being a racist asshole decided that they couldn’t work with a racist asshole so they quit and who he really is became public. Look at a 1 year stock chart for Papa Johns, then compare it to a 1 year chart for their competitor Dominos. His shareholders have a right to be able to seek returns without wading through a minefield of that kind of shit…if we’re talking about people’s responsibilities.
The NFL only recently became “for profit”. They were granted non profit status for the vast majority or their existence. I guess they switched that over about 2 seasons ago… Not sure how old this controversy is with this player, but I think the for profit thing may be actually a factual error in your post at least at the time this all started.
The thing about him wanting his job back…It seems pretty compelling for the case that he may be sincere in his beliefs and acting on principle, that he’s certainly not broke and is making ass loads of cash off the Nike deal.
Now onto the part about private citizens rights being revoked by the companies they work for…I’m not sure how I feel about that. Do you think that’s just? Does the NFL think that’s just? If they do, and they have a strong case that it is, then why not just come out and say, “we fired and blackballed this guy because he’s protesting in uniform. Here is a convincing argument that doing so is just.” Why would they do something that they consider to be just and then not be forthcoming about doing it? Strange behavior indeed.
Now onto the main part of what I think gets a lot of people on this issue…
The US, has increasingly militarized it’s police. Mandatory minimums are tearing families apart and ruining people’s lives. The prison system is for profit. The police have been granted de facto rights to usurp the judicial system and administer justice on the scene increasingly. The internet has brought this issue to light and a great number of people…and an increasing number of people either know someone, or themselves have been on the shit end of a police encounter. Both sides of a highly polarized political environment for the most part agree that reform is necessary, and I suspect that it’s not happening because of a combination of profit motives, bureaucracy, disproportionate power in the hands of those who determine when and how those reforms occur, and a variety of other reasons not the least of which might be the historic reality that poor people, and people who are of minority races have traditionally not fared as well as wealthier people of majority races when they encounter the criminal justice system.
So this guy makes more money than he ever thought he would. He’s sitting pretty for the rest of his life. He decides that since in the recent past it’s become a broadly discussed issue that the things I stated above are occurring, or at least being publicized at increasing rate that he’s going to use the platform that he earned through his talents to bring light to it and attempt to add some legitimacy to the voices that agree with his take on the matter…that matter being the issue of police brutality and the disproportionate application of criminal law across varying demographics, and then all of a sudden, he’s vilified by exactly the people who benefit from things being the way they are. Crazy.
They come out on the news and start talking about the troops, and veterans, and whether America is a good country and they say that he hates the troops and America and all that sort of stuff.
But he was talking about police brutality and the disproportionate application of justice with regard to varying demographics. He wasn’t talking about any of those things.
Here’s the real kicker. You kneel to show respect for a king, or a god when you pray, in any other context this is an acceptable thing to do. When Tebow uses his platform to push Christianity, he’s a hero. When Kaepernick uses his to shine a light on police brutality, he’s anti-American and hates the troops.
Ridiculous.