Prison Talk

Some problems just seem to never go away, and even when they do it seems more unresolvable problems stem from the solution of the former problem! That is the very predicament the NFL is currently in. Two back to back meetings between NFL ownership and the players association have resulted in absolutely no policy change with regards to the NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. Instead, the comments of Houston Texans owner Bob McNair stole the headlines during the meeting. Instead of positivity and agreement being the result of these meetings, more controversy erupted. He said “We can’t have the inmates run the prison” as an expression to relate the current situation in the NFL. An overall horrible statement in many respects.

First of all relating anyone to an inmate is offensive. Many of these athletes have never even committed a crime, and they’ve put in tireless work to get into the positions they are in today. Granted McNair used a figure of speech, but the absent mindedness for someone of McNair’s position to say this is astounding. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 37.9% of incarcerated people are African American, and according to the Huffington Post, 70% of athletes in the NFL are black. Similarly it hasn’t gone unnoticed that there are no black owners in the NFL. The semantics of the quote coupled with the facts just give off a bad feeling, no matter the true meaning behind his words. These facts merely exacerbate the poor figure of speech McNair used. It has led many to believe that perhaps NFL league owners are finally saying what they really think even if unknowingly.

These are free men, that feel like they are being controlled and owned by ownership. Relating them to inmates is degrading, and the popular feeling throughout the NFL is that owners have not supported the players for years. Conversely in the NBA, players seem to feel much more empowered, and this is likely due to the overwhelming support they garner from their individual organizations. In the NFL the players protest has been extremely unpopular, because it is seen as a business concern. Instead of supporting the players to possibly help the situation, they held a meeting to decide whether they would ban the protests. However, what these owners are failing to understand is that they own the team, not the individual men who are free citizens of the United States who deserve free speech just as everyone else does. NFL players have now been called “SOB’s” by our president, and “inmates” by NFL owners in the span of about a month. The division is widening, and the symbolic relationship between NFL players and their owners is demonstrating that the problems raised by the initial Kaepernick protests are very real. Relating men as inmates furthers the theme that there is an obvious racial divide highlighted by constant misunderstandings that can only be solved through unity.

Instead of raising awareness about the police brutality plaguing the nation and the social divide between blacks and whites in America, the debate is seemingly about whether or not players should even be allowed to demonstrate their personal views. Only a handful of teams have actually attempted to act on the views of players and donate money to charities enacting real change in communities. The goal should be to re-grow relationships between the police force and African Americans, rather than destroying other relationships whilst in debate with the original problem trying to be fixed.

Photo courtesy of SportingNews