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Old Mon Aug 03, 2020, 10:43am
BillyMac BillyMac is offline
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What I Learned From A South Park Episode ...

I had a discussion today with an official buddy about a scenario where, with a racially diverse crew, a part of the crew decides to kneel and the other part decides not to, and how to handle that.

He imagines a game where the one entire team, players and coaches, kneel; and the other entire team, players and coaches, stand, with his racially diverse crew in the middle with at least one of the officials wanting to kneel.

Sports and politics have become very much intermingled, whether we like it, or not, which is why I decided to give my personal political take on this, of course moderators are free to delete, hopefully with no further penalty. These are my personal opinions. I promise to respect differing opinions from others. I'm not trying to start a political debate, I'm trying to prepare all of us for something that we may have to deal with this upcoming season.

While I support many Black Lives Matters issues, it’s a loosely organized umbrella organization with many leaders with many different issues. For example, while I’m all for non-armed experts dealing with the mentally ill and the homeless, I’m not 100% in for “defund the police”. While I’m all for decreasing school arrests in the name of discipline and slowing down the “school to prison”" pipeline”, I’m also a big supporter of school resource officers, they may be the only positive police presence in a school kid’s life. Demilitarize the police? While the “cop on the beat” (if there still is such a thing) doesn't need to be armed like a soldier, SWAT teams and such do for protection. Better training for police? 100% yes. Better supervision and oversight for the police? 100% yes. Better minority (and female) recruiting for police? 100% yes. Reparations for slavery? Not sure, but we still need some sort of “affirmative action” because we still don’t have economic equality in this country. Non-violent protests (maybe with some minor non-violent civil disobedience)? Yes. Violent (with destruction of property, including controversial statues) protests? 100% absolutely no. Legislative (legal) removal or relocation of controversial statues? Possibly, but only after much reflective discussion.

As a white male, in regard to race issues, I try to remember the moral of the South Park episode (With Apologies to Jesse Jackson) where Stan, even though trying to be very empathetic, finally understands why he doesn't get it. He tells Token that he will never understand how it feels to have the N-word used against him because he isn't black, which was what Token was looking to hear all along and they reconcile.

That being said, I’m supportive of kneeling protests, to me the flag, among other things, can be considered just a piece of colored cloth; and the anthem is a British song with a racist second verse. There are may ways of showing patriotism. One person’s patriotism can be demonstrated by respectfully standing during the anthem (as I've done my entire life up until this point), another's might be by wearing a pandemic mask (as stated by President Trump), and another's might be by joining the military. And, of course, a cloth flag is less important than our First Amendment rights (and other rights) that the flag represents.

To further complicate things, as a religious person I consider kneeling as a sign of reverence.

If I was sure that my kneeling wouldn't appear non-professional, and would not screw-up the teamwork chemistry between myself and my partner, and would not appear to be less than neutral to the players and fans, I would kneel. But that’s a lot of “ifs”.

My advice to my buddy:

Be proactive. Get advice from your local or state groups before the season starts.

Be proactive. Discuss it pregame in the locker room. Try to get on the same page. If not all do the same, discuss how the other(s) will handle it. Hold hands? Arms on shoulders? Maybe stay in the locker room?
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Last edited by BillyMac; Mon Aug 03, 2020 at 02:57pm.
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