If anyone has been wondering where I’ve been, I have written parts of three blog posts since my last one. It began with one about immigration once it was discovered that Molly Tibbetts was murdered by an illegal alien. Then all the Woodward book on Trump news came out and I started to write a fake news rant and about the overall state of our media. Lastly the Nike Kaepernick ordeal. I have about four pages written on Mr. Kaepernick, Nike, cops, and racism. I feel like I was heading down way too many rabbit holes. The anthem and Kaepernick are one thing, but I find it harder and harder to avoid an essay on cops and racism.
I’m uncertain how long a blog post is supposed to be, but the more thought I gave to law enforcement and racism, the more it seemed like I couldn’t flesh out everything I wanted to say without writing an actual book. This is an idea I have been toying with since the Michael Brown shooting. I have a few pages begun already with a tentative title. I think maybe I could pull off a decent non-fiction novel. I don’t know.
Mr. Kaepernick has stated, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
I have three or four pages written on oppression and sacrifice. It turns out though that I am not black, so as much as I think I understand what oppression looks like in the US, I really can’t know. They way I perceive his statement is that all police are oppressing all black people. I don’t feel like that’s the case, but maybe he means black people are sometimes individually oppressed by police officers sometimes. I’m not sure I can argue with that. I know that definitely in our history police have certainly gotten away with murder.
As oppression goes I can only speak to oppression I’ve seen around the world. For example, In Haiti as recently as 2015 people have been “lynched” by having car tires placed around their arms then one put around their neck which is then filled with kerosene or gasoline. In South Africa they call this “necklacing.” In 1994 I was called to respond to a “disturbance” in Port Au Prince at their white house. As we got there we saw a man burning to death with tires around him. Sometimes I can still smell his flesh burning and the sound of his screams.
Having the tire burning around your neck can take up to 20-30 minutes before you actually suffocate or burn enough to stop your internal organs. This way your punishment lasts longer. No matter what you do, a rubber car tire cannot be put out by any normal means and burns forever. Having the space of the tire around your head makes it take longer to suffocate from smoke inhalation. The man who was burned to death was a political rival of President Aristide who we had been deployed to put back in power after he was deposed in a coup. This man was a political dissident who had apparently had hurt no one. His crime was to speak out against his President. That sounds pretty oppressive. In 2015 a mob caught a rapist and burned him to death using tires. I actually don’t feel super bad for that guy. My point is this was not back before the Civil War or in the 60’s this is now.
I had a couple pages of a recent article from the Huffington Post laying out the abuse in Nike sweatshops in Indonesia. This particular factory is made up of mostly Muslim women who are made to work 10-15 hours per day for pocket change. If they mess up they are beaten and/or made to stand outside in the hot sun for hours. They are also hit with shoes which is a major insult in Islam. This is just one example of people being oppressed by Nike. This is after Nike claiming they cleaned up their act. You can Google it if you don’t believe me. If you want to boycott Nike I think this is a better reason.
Instead of adjudicating racism and law enforcement or whether kneeling for the flag is an appropriate form of protest, I am just going to talk about what pisses me off about the whole thing the most and that’s the tagline of, “Believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything.” Sacrifice is something I’m fairly familiar with. For example I have sacrificed tiny bits of my soul by witnessing things like oh I don’t know, someone being burned alive while people cheer, and not doing anything about it. Another favorite for me is being ordered to ignore United Nations “allied” troops sexually abusing young boys as it’s part of their Muslim culture and none of our business. That could be a pretty ugly blog post someday. I can promise you I have given up any hope of a peaceful eight hours of sleep ever. It’s not “everything” nor would I ever claim it to be, but it’s something.
The way the Nike ad is written/displayed it leads me to believe the company and Mr. Kaepernick believe he has sacrificed “everything” by kneeling and losing his job. He’s a multimillion dollar athlete in America. He could beat his wife, murder his wife, assault women in college and the pros, kill someone while drunk driving, abandon his children, do drugs, and on and on without ever seeing a day in jail. This is precedent well established in this country. Black and white athletes alike, as long as they were really good of course, can literally get away with murder.
As of this morning I have not read where Mr. Kaepernick has donated all his millions of dollars to black owned businesses/entrepeneurial ventures, charities and so on. Yes he’s donated some large funds, but especially with his new multi million dollar Nike contract, he’s not really sacrificed anything financially. His career was essentially done, so he didn’t really give up his career either. In fact, the Denver Broncos offered him a contract and he turned it down. He’s more popular than ever. He just sold out of his “I’m with Kap” jerseys on his website. He’s got more publicity and exposure than he’s ever had. I honestly hope he does something more beneficial to society than sell shoes and jerseys.
He could travel to police departments and host meetings between the black community and police. He could ride along with police and try to get an idea of both sides of the issues. He could join the police academy and become a cop himself. Putting your life on the line is real sacrifice as far as I am concerned. My cousin joined the Army and he sacrificed everything. Pat Tillman was an NFL star and after 9/11 he joined the Army and became and Army Ranger and was killed in the line of duty. That’s sacrificing everything.
Here is a small sampling of black people who actually sacrificed everything just in 2018:
NOTE: “End of Watch” means they have died on duty and this date was their last day on the job. It’s the worst call to ever hear on the radio. If you don’t think white officers heavily mourned their losses due to all that racism, you could not be more wrong. The toughest hardest civilian men and women you’ll ever know of all colors bawl their eyes out over the loss of a fellow brother or sister in blue. That’s because that is exactly how we see them, as brothers and sisters. There are many police partnerships that are stronger and last longer than most marriages. People I rode with or next to in the next beat, for a year or less, I would still take a bullet for today, tomorrow, till my deathbed. Many of them happen to be black.
Officer Glenn Doss, Jr.
Detroit (MI) Police Department
End of Watch: January 28, 2018
Cause: Gunfire
Correctional Officer Tawanna Marin
Florida (FL) Department of Corrections
End of Watch: June 18, 2018
Cause: Struck and killed by a vehicle while supervising an inmate work crew.
Police Officer Keith Earle
Huntsville (AL) Police Department
End of Watch: April 9, 2018
Cause: Vehicle Crash
Sergeant Mujahid A. M. Ramzziddin
Prince George’s County (MD) Police Department
End of Watch: February 21, 2018
Cause: Gunfire
Mr. Kaepernick may think he’s a man or some kind of hero by kneeling, and maybe he is. Not by my definition, but I do respect him for taking a stand in something he believes in. I think it’s the wrong way to go about it, but many have fought and died for his right to do so. I would never argue against his right to protest whatever he wants however he feel he needs to as long as it doesn’t physically hurt anyone else. I think however, he needs to put his money where his knee is, and put on a uniform and get in a police car and be prepared to take a life or give his own life. That’s sacrificing everything.
Jacked Up Dad 