While it troubles me, I know that oppressed people have, as far back
as the Written Word, turned to a "Higher Power", in their search for a
better life. And what better Being to turn to than God? Look at how
well He is caring for the rich and powerful. Surely He must have a
small part of His compassion available for us.
Religion also offers us the ability to accept that which we have no
control over. But so often people see that as not having any ability
to work for a better life...just sit back and wait to go to that
Promised Land. Religion is one more tool in the hands of the Ruling
Class. It takes the edge off efforts to make real changes in society.
We can all hold hands and pretend together.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/13/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I notice, when reading posts on various blindness email lists, that there
are an incredible number of people with signature lines which include
religious quotes of various kinds.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Sunday, August 13, 2017 10:12 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: For the football fans on this list
Hi Abby and All Sports Fans Everywhere!
In the sense that blind Americans are more often found in the ranks of the
Working Class, or the Unemployed, and like most of us in those categories,
have little political power, then yes, my refusal to pay allegiance to the
Flag is indeed a statement in support of blind people. But even beyond that
point, I am hard pressed to associate my name with so much that this
government is involved in, and of which I have no control. Certainly I
understand that my singing or not singing, praying or not praying at public
events will change nothing.
Bombs will still fly through skies and murder little children huddled in
their bombed out hovels, disease and starvation will continue to run rampant
as a result of the destruction of infrastructures in pathetic little nations
we have dubbed "Terrorist Infested". So all I can do in standing among
people lustily singing, "God Bless America..." is to silently think of just
what sort of God these folk around me are singing to.
But after saying all of that, I haven't attended a sporting event
since...gads!...I guess around the year my dad died, 2001. But each year I
do attend the Washington Council of the Blind state convention, and in 2005
I was in Los Vegas at the ACB conference, and time and again we stood
together and thanked God for all He hath done for us.
I stand quietly. What would I gain by shouting out angry rants like, "Can't
you blind people see that this God you pray to is taking better care of the
Rich and Greedy, than He/She does for you?"
Boy, that would sure get folks to jump up and say, "By golly Carl, you are
so right! Why didn't we see this without your pointing it out to us stupid
Beings?" No, right or wrong, my opinions are just that, mine. Yours belong
to you. Imposing my beliefs on you is exactly what I protest by refusing to
sing or pray to that Star Spangled Banner.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/12/17, Abby Vincent <aevincent@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Sports are not meant to be patriotic events. I don't know the history
of games starting with the national anthem. God Bless America in the
seventh inning stretch started after nine eleven.
So Carl and Miriam, your non-participation isn't because of the
oppression of blind people.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2017 7:08 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: For the football fans on this list
That's good.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/12/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, I, also will stand like everyone else. It's my quiet personal
protest.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2017 9:25 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: For the football fans on this list
It took me a bit longer, but I also do not sing or speak when asked
to please stand and...
As I say, I do stand when requested. But I do that mostly in order
to not become a point of distraction. I am not attempting to start a
conversation, or to convert others, I am merely following through on
my commitment to myself that I would not pledge allegiance until that
flag truly did represent Freedom and Justice for **ALL.
And of course the same is true of the national anthem. Singing,
"...Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave, o'er the Land of
the Free and the Home of the Brave." I will return to singing when
the last words apply to All Americans.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/12/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Is football patriotic? Is baseball? Anyway, I am a blnd person and I
stopped saluting the flag and saying the pledge of allegiance during
the Vietnam war. I never resumed either practice.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Abby
Vincent
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2017 6:03 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: For the football fans on this list
My spectator sport is baseball.
When the umpire says "play ball", I want to see baseball, not politics.
Anyone know of a blind person, famous or not, who protested the
status of blind people by refusing to take part in a patriotic ritual?
Abbby
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam
Vieni
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2017 2:08 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: For the football fans on this list
But the article raises another question in my head. When are all the
good hearted American people going to stop watching a sport which is
the cause of such devastating injury to the brains of young men? Is
the answer the same as to the question, When will people stop
supporting warfare?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl
Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, August 12, 2017 3:18 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: For the football fans on this list
When Donald Trump is finally nothing more than a chapter in the
History of the United States, and has been relegated to the place of
America's most outrageous president, Kaepernick will be a footnote
nestled among the chapter entitled, "Bravest and Most Fearless
Americans". Frankly, after a long lifetime of traveling among Trump
Clones, I would far prefer the company of those courageous heroes.
They are the "beautiful people".
Carl Jarvis
On 8/12/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The Electronic Intifada
Colin Kaepernick pays price of standing up for justice
Michael F. Brown Activism and BDS Beat 11 August 2017
Outspoken quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been bypassed by
inferior players in Trump's America.
(Jasen Vinlove / USA TODAY Sports)
All-Pro Seattle Seahawk cornerback Richard Sherman is right.
National Football League (NFL) owners are telling Colin Kaepernick,
"Boy, stay in your place."
Kaepernick is the outspoken backer of the Black Lives Matter
movement who sat and then knelt during the national anthem last
year and cannot find a job for the 2017 season.
And the term "boy," used by white segregationists in the American
South to denigrate and belittle Black men, is no overstatement.
Team owners oversee a violent league with intense play that
frequently inflicts life-long brain injuries on players.
NFL players, nearly 70 percent of them African American, are used
by team owners and then discarded like unwanted property - often
with broken bodies and minds - after less than three years on average.
Reluctantly, the league has agreed to a $1 billion settlement that
could pay off the most injured players with as much as $5 million
for a tortured deterioration into dementia and suicidal depression.
Similarly, returning US troops face inadequate and inappropriate
treatment for depression, suicide risk and post-traumatic stress
disorder, but white fans who roar that Kaepernick is disrespecting
the troops appear to have far less to say about the wars and their
consequences for US military forces, let alone for civilians in the
invaded countries.
No doubt players and fans love the game, but questions are fast
emerging in the minds of both about the wisdom of involvement in
the sport and the morals of cheering as minds and bodies are
destroyed.
The treatment of Kaepernick is apt to concentrate the minds of more
players on the relative risks and rewards of football and how
willing owners are to abuse players' bodies while discounting the
substance of their views.
A year ago, Kaepernick, then playing with the San Francisco 49ers,
dared to protest during the national anthem, telling a journalist
with NFL Media his views on police violence: "I am not going to
stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black
people and people of color."
He added, "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 [police] getting paid leave and getting away with
murder."
Should the regular season begin on 7 September with Kaepernick
still unsigned, player leaders will have important decisions to
make about how to proceed.
Questions to the NFL Players Association from The Electronic
Intifada about Kaepernick's case went unanswered.
"Cowards"
Seahawk defensive end Michael Bennett, who this offseason said he
would "not be used" by the Israeli government in a planned
propaganda trip to Israel, argued that Kaepernick's treatment
"shows the racial divide in the league."
He added, "Racism is the biggest issue in America."
Malcolm Jenkins, a safety with the Philadelphia Eagles who stood
with fist raised during the national anthem last season, called the
NFL teams "cowards."
Jenkins dismissed the argument that Kaepernick is no longer good
enough to play in the NFL. "I think it's safe to throw out that
talent argument, and basically focus on the fact that he doesn't
have a job solely because he didn't stand for the anthem last year,
even though he already expressed that he planned on standing this
year."
Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the 49ers in March, but
has found no team willing to sign him to a new contract.
Racism in the NFL
Meanwhile, teams have signed inferior quarterbacks, supercharging
concerns of bias and even possible collusion.
Serious questions are being put to the Baltimore Ravens and Miami
Dolphins following injuries to their starting quarterbacks.
Baltimore, of course, has been much in the news of late on account
of the sort of police misconduct Kaepernick has highlighted.
And some fans of the Dolphins along with Florida-based sports
pundits have criticized Kaepernick over his views of Fidel Castro
after the quarterback praised Cuba's investments in promoting
literacy and universal healthcare, as opposed to incarceration, as
well as Cuba's support for the fight against apartheid in South
Africa.
The Dolphins chose to replace their injured quarterback with Jay
Cutler who is widely regarded as a weaker quarterback than
Kaepernick, albeit one who previously played for the Chicago Bears'
offensive coordinator Adam Gase, who is now the Dolphins' head coach.
Cutler's politics, in contrast to Kaepernick's, have proven to be
no obstacle. "I'm happy with the results," Cutler said after last
November's election. "I've supported Trump for a while. I'm not
going to dive into it.
I know it's a sensitive issue. I like where it's going."
These are telling and prescient remarks from a white quarterback
who would come out of retirement the following year to secure a
one-year contract worth $10 million in a hateful political climate
nurtured by a president who has repeatedly given nods to white
supremacists and has bad-mouthed Kaepernick.
But white supremacy is increasingly normalized in today's politics;
a quarterback speaking out against racial injustice is perceived as
a danger by too many NFL owners.
Of course, it is not recalling ancient history to remember that
this is a league that long stuck with white quarterbacks over
African Americans.
Black
players were kept in what The New York Times' Michael Powell termed
"apartheid positions." Seventy percent of the players in the NFL
today are African American yet discrimination remains a reality
when one looks at the quarterback position and coaching ranks.
Sending a message
Team owners - who are almost exclusively white - are also sending a
message to other players to be very cautious about speaking up
about police abuses and other issues not in line with the perceived
sensitivities of white fans.
Even if Kaepernick finally gets offered a contract this summer, the
message has been delivered to athletes: keep your mouths shut on
social justice issues, particularly when the national anthem is
being played.
Kaepernick is best known for his support of Black Lives Matter, but
has wide-ranging social justice interests. For example, earlier
this year he retweeted a message critical of Israeli apartheid.
Though on a San Francisco team that struggled mightily throughout
last season - which likely contributes to undercutting Kaepernick's
perceived value - the quarterback's off-the-field work was
enthusiastically received in many communities.
As law professor Khaled Beydoun noted, Kaepernick held 'know your
rights'
camps for youth, pledged $1 million of his own money to nonprofits
working against oppression and helped fight famine in Somalia.
Yet so far, many fans calling sports radio and writing letters to
the editor have indicated they would rather field a quiescent team
and lose than one calling for equality and win.
"Racial attitudes had a notable relationship to white opposition to
athletes' protests," Tatishe M. Nteta, Brian Schaffner and Matthew C.
MacWilliams wrote in The Washington Post in April.
The three political scientists said their polling demonstrates a
strong relationship "between holding negative stereotypes of Blacks
and strong opposition to the protests."
Powerful tradition
Kaepernick's calls for social justice and against police misconduct
follow in the powerful tradition of athletes addressing important
issues of the time. These protests have been fitful because of the
powerful backlash they face.
Muhammad Ali, whose image can be seen emblazoned from time to time
on a Kaepernick T-shirt, was one of the most famous of these
protesters and paid a heavy price. Ali, a conscientious objector,
was first stripped of his heavyweight title and then fined $10,000,
banned from boxing for three years and sentenced to up to five
years behind bars.
He managed through appeal to stay out of prison.
Ali's words from the time, however, live on: "I ain't got no
quarrel with them Viet Cong." A supporter of Palestinian rights,
Ali - first debilitated by Parkinson's disease and now just a
vibrant memory - is currently heralded by mainstream media that
spoke against him half a century ago.
Eminent sociologist Harry Edwards, who advised Kaepernick last
season, said in May: "Ali created a conversation."
He added: "when the world champion steps forward and says, 'No Viet
Cong ever called me a (expletive), and we have some issue we need
to deal with here, not over there in a war that make no sense,' it
moved the discussion to another level."
According to Edwards, Kaepernick similarly "sparked a national
conversation about race."
Trump takes credit
For all the talk of the American "meritocracy," there is seeming
satisfaction in Trump's America with whiteballing a superior
athlete on account of his upholding the rights of African Americans
and other people of color.
Even the president has not been silent on the case. Apparently
peeved that Kaepernick dared to call the Republican presidential
candidate "openly racist" - at the time, Kaepernick also criticized
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her racially
charged "superpredator" comment
-
Trump told a radio program that perhaps Kaepernick "should find a
country that works better for him."
As president, Trump also played to the crowd by indicating NFL
owners were afraid to sign Kaepernick lest they be on the receiving
end of a Trump tweet.
"It was reported that NFL owners don't want to pick him up because
they don't want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump. Do you
believe that?" As the crowd's roars of approval subside, Trump
exults, "I just saw that. I just saw that."
Trump has not lacked for support from NFL owners. Team owners Dan
Snyder of the openly racist Washington Redskins, Stan Kroenke, Bob
McNair and Shahid Kahn all contributed $1 million for inauguration
festivities. So, too, did Robert Kraft who has been active in
promoting propaganda trips to Israel by current and former NFL
players.
Trump-connected Woody Johnson, owner of the Jets, for his part
signed a weaker option in Josh McCown to play quarterback for his
lackluster team.
According to The New York Times, the team owner "opined that he did
not think much of Kaepernick's protest." Notably, Johnson will be
the next US ambassador to the UK.
Writing in the The Hollywood Reporter, retired basketball superstar
and former US global cultural ambassador Kareem Abdul-Jabbar raised
concerns about the political leanings of NFL owners as a factor in
Kaepernick's
situation: "Perhaps a contributing factor is that the NFL owners
tend to contribute more money to Republican political campaigns and
therefore have more of a philosophical interest in not wanting to
hear the players'
messages about social injustice."
The owners undoubtedly have a friend in Trump. Not only does the
president extol the virtues of getting rough with people detained
by police, but he scoffs at football concussions as "a little ding
on the head" that should not stop players who are supposed to be
"tough."
He is moreover surrounded by advisers who engage in racism and are
dismissive of social justice concerns.
Next steps
It remains to be seen whether we have reached a tipping point for
players concerned not just about brain injuries, but their right to
speak freely.
Will players such as Kaepernick, Martellus and Michael Bennett, and
Malcolm Jenkins continue to speak out and find more teammates to
support them or will the retaliation against Kaepernick have a
chilling effect?
Edwards, the sociologist who advised Kaepernick, says, "If they are
stupid enough to make a martyr out of Kaep, it's going to get even
more interesting."
Civil rights groups and filmmaker Spike Lee have announced a rally
outside NFL headquarters in New York on 23 August in support of
racial justice and free speech.
An online petition to boycott NFL games until Kaepernick is signed
to a contract has already garnered over 150,000 signatures and is
growing quickly.
