(ThyBlackMan.com) As expected, a few National Football League (NFL) players have chosen to throw caution to the wind and continue their protests during the playing of the National Anthem despite stern warnings from NFL owners. In front of a nation of on-lookers, Miami Dolphin Wide Receivers Kenny Stills and Albert Wilson kneeled behind teammates, and Los Angeles Rams Defensive End Robert Quinn raised his right fist while standing during the National Anthem.
There is little room to doubt that the response to last night’s protest will not only be fast and furious but also another reminder that Donald J. Trump and his followers are operating out of America’s grandest tradition. The alluded to tradition is most succinctly summed up in the following sentiment, “It’s my way or the highway.”
The above sentiment conveys the vast majority of whites believe that they own this America and if African-Americans do not agree with the way things are done here, well, they should “Go Back to Africa.” From the average white perspective, even this nation’s most marginalized citizens’ should display unending gratitude for the “privileges and opportunities” afforded to them by a nation that has brutalized their ancestors and exploits them at the present moment.
There should be no doubt that Donald J. Trump’s haranguing of black professional athletes who dare to protest while receiving unconscionable financial benefits in “the land of the free and the home of the brave” reveals much about Trump and his supporters.
I was unsurprised when in the midst of a political rally in Huntsville, Alabama, that the embattled White House figure reinvigorated his base with the following statement regarding NFL players who have decided to kneel during the playing of the National Anthem.
Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b—- off the field right now. Out He’s fired! He’s fired!
Trump followed this sentiment with a tweet that read as follows,
If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!
Most reasonable people, regardless of racial identity, are not surprised by Trump’s antics as such actions should be expected from a person devoid of either a logical mind or a modicum of impulse control. However, more frightening than Trump’s flaws is the presence of supporters, also known as self-proclaimed “American Patriots,” who fail to realize that their demand for conformity serves as a principal contradiction to the U.S. Constitution that they profess to love. “American Patriots” are either absent fundamental insight or afflicted by cavernous blind spots that allow them to sleep well despite political viewpoints that are rife with contradictions and inconsistencies.
In many ways, the alluded to individuals remind me of that great American Thomas Jefferson who penned that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” while holding black men, women, and children in bondage on his grand plantation.
It is not surprising that Trump and his followers allow their rather juvenile expressions of American Nationalism to block founding principles whose very pillars provide allowances for the freedom of speech and right to protest that they seek to extinguish.
Such inconsistencies flow directly from the fact that America is romanticized as a mythical land where hopes and dreams are readily available to those who diligently pursue them. It is this false portrayal of America in venues from textbooks to films that sit at the core of self-proclaimed “American Patriots” illogical thought patterns and contradictions that serve as justification for their unamerican thoughts and deeds. The alluded to flawed reconstructions of our national past allows the alluded to individuals to boldly consider themselves the standard-bearers of a multi-racial nation whose history has been white-washed. So I am not surprised by Trump’s continuation of America’s grand tradition of telling those who protest injustice in this nation with the same vigor that the “Founding Fathers” did to shut-up and go back to Africa.
Maybe the National Anthem should be changed to Percy Mayfield’s “Hit the Road Jack.” It would, after all, be more fitting and representative of the thinking of those who consider themselves the only real Americans.
Staff Writer; Dr. James Thomas Jones III
Official website; http://www.ManhoodRaceCulture.com
One may also connect with this brother via Twitter; DrJamestJones.