NFL policy requires on-field players and personnel to stand for anthem
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Lord Camomile
Yipchaa!
As someone on Facebook said: forced patriotism isn’t patriotic, it’s fascist.
Also, you can be sure that a substantially large portion of those backing this will be 2nd Amendment devotees. As always, their "I believe in freedom, no-one can tell me what to do" rhetoric only goes so far.
The counter is, of course, that the NFL is a private employer and so can set whatever rules it likes. Doesn't stop it being bollix, though.
Also, you can be sure that a substantially large portion of those backing this will be 2nd Amendment devotees. As always, their "I believe in freedom, no-one can tell me what to do" rhetoric only goes so far.
The counter is, of course, that the NFL is a private employer and so can set whatever rules it likes. Doesn't stop it being bollix, though.
Treacle Toes
Time
'Take the knee' and the fall out/sanctions from that has been going on for a good while.
Treacle Toes
Time
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
For a country themat prides itsel on freedom of speech and self expression they don’t seem to like it much when it’s blacl people.
Anyway. Everyone knows the true way to deliver an anthem in sport. Sing the first line and s half with gusto and then mumble through the rest.
Anyway. Everyone knows the true way to deliver an anthem in sport. Sing the first line and s half with gusto and then mumble through the rest.
Treacle Toes
Time
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
why do they have the national anthem at these matches anyway? the only (non-fa cup final, non-international) football match i've been to where the national anthem was sung was rangers - arsenal, richard gough's testmonial. and it was only sung by huns anyway.
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
If they have to stand, I reckon some of them might go for the black power salute or Wakanda forever crossed arms.
AnnO'Neemus
Is so vanilla
And yeah, it's bullshit that in the so-called land of free speech that black people can't speak freely.
Lord Camomile
Yipchaa!
I imagine there will be no shortage of crowdfunding to pay the fines of anyone who doesn't stand, and no doubt from some fairly prominent donors.
<edit: I don't know the salary of your average NFL player. I'm sure many of them get paid squillions, but there may well be players further down the pecking order who are on relatively low wages, and I don't know what the fines will be in comparison to wages.
Regardless, it's more the principle of the thing, I guess>
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
‘Cos their Septics. Obvs.
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
Treacle Toes
Time
The frothing conservative c-nuts would have shit fits if this was the alternative!
...hopefully this is representative of many coaches and generally within the NFL...
Ted Striker
Foot's on the other hand
Treacle Toes
Time
Oooops I seem to have borrowed this, slightly reworded it and posted it elsewhere. Well said.
Sorry kind of wrong forum but seemed the best place to put it.
Before Colin Kaepernick, There Was Eartha Kitt
How the entertainer was blacklisted for standing up to the President
Medium 07/06/18
Before Colin Kaepernick, There Was Eartha Kitt
How the entertainer was blacklisted for standing up to the President
Medium 07/06/18
The theme for the luncheon was: “Why is there so much juvenile delinquency in the streets of America?” a topic Kitt was particularly suited to discuss, given her extensive work with youth groups across the country. So the White House flew her out to D.C., put her up at the Shoreham Hotel, sent a limo to collect her in the morning.
But when Kitt arrived at the luncheon, taking a seat at a table on the second floor, inside the Johnson’s private family dining room, she found no one was interested in talking about juvenile delinquency in the streets of America. They were more interested in the menu (chicken breasts, crab bisque), and whether or not the President would make a surprise appearance (he would).
After dessert, LBJ took to the podium and spoke briefly about how more police were needed on the streets, how there was “a great deal” that could be done to ensure “our youth are not seduced,” and that “the place to start is in the home.”
When the President was done speaking, Kitt stood up, physically stood, walked over to him and said: “Mr. President, what do you do about delinquent parents? Those who have to work and are too busy to look after their children?” The question took the President by surprise. He hemmed and hawed about a Social Security bill, about day-care centers, and then he quickly left the room.
But when Kitt arrived at the luncheon, taking a seat at a table on the second floor, inside the Johnson’s private family dining room, she found no one was interested in talking about juvenile delinquency in the streets of America. They were more interested in the menu (chicken breasts, crab bisque), and whether or not the President would make a surprise appearance (he would).
After dessert, LBJ took to the podium and spoke briefly about how more police were needed on the streets, how there was “a great deal” that could be done to ensure “our youth are not seduced,” and that “the place to start is in the home.”
When the President was done speaking, Kitt stood up, physically stood, walked over to him and said: “Mr. President, what do you do about delinquent parents? Those who have to work and are too busy to look after their children?” The question took the President by surprise. He hemmed and hawed about a Social Security bill, about day-care centers, and then he quickly left the room.
Kitt sat back down, and remained sitting and quiet, as the lunching women spoke, mostly about the First Lady’s intention to “beautify America.” Finally, after Lady Bird asked for Kitt’s opinion, Kitt said: “I think we have missed the main point of the luncheon. We have forgotten the main reason we have juvenile delinquency.”
Then, Kitt brought up the war.
“You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed,” Kitt said. “They rebel in the street. They will take pot…and they will get high. They don’t want to go to school because they’re going to be snatched from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam.”
“Mrs. Johnson,” she continued, “you are a mother, too…I am a mother and I know the feeling of having a baby come out of my guts. I have a baby and then you send him off to war. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot. And, Mrs. Johnson, in case you don’t understand the lingo that’s marijuana.”
Then, Kitt brought up the war.
“You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed,” Kitt said. “They rebel in the street. They will take pot…and they will get high. They don’t want to go to school because they’re going to be snatched from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam.”
“Mrs. Johnson,” she continued, “you are a mother, too…I am a mother and I know the feeling of having a baby come out of my guts. I have a baby and then you send him off to war. No wonder the kids rebel and take pot. And, Mrs. Johnson, in case you don’t understand the lingo that’s marijuana.”
The New York Times ran the story the next day, front page, a picture of Kitt, mouth wide open, Lady Bird looking on, bewildered, slightly terrified. The headline: Eartha Kitt Denounces War Policy to Mrs. Johnson, and: EARTHA KITT HITS U.S. WAR POLICY.
“A pale Mrs. Johnson rose and looked directly at Miss Kitt who leaned against a podium in the yellow walled Family Dining Room,” the Times reported. With her “voice trembling,” and “tears welling in her eyes,” Lady Bird told the room that just because there was “a war going on,” she saw “no reason to be uncivilized.”
“I took it,” Kitt would later write in her autobiography, “she was referring to me.”
The press ran with the story coast-to-coast, blowing it up, turning it into a tale of an ‘angry black woman’ making the sweet, gentle, white Lady Bird Johnson cry.
“Eartha Kitt’s story didn’t get told by journalists as a form of activism,” Sarah Jackson, author of Black Celebrity, Racial Politics, and the Press, explains. “It got told as this sort of… interpersonal gendered conflict instead.”
“A pale Mrs. Johnson rose and looked directly at Miss Kitt who leaned against a podium in the yellow walled Family Dining Room,” the Times reported. With her “voice trembling,” and “tears welling in her eyes,” Lady Bird told the room that just because there was “a war going on,” she saw “no reason to be uncivilized.”
“I took it,” Kitt would later write in her autobiography, “she was referring to me.”
The press ran with the story coast-to-coast, blowing it up, turning it into a tale of an ‘angry black woman’ making the sweet, gentle, white Lady Bird Johnson cry.
“Eartha Kitt’s story didn’t get told by journalists as a form of activism,” Sarah Jackson, author of Black Celebrity, Racial Politics, and the Press, explains. “It got told as this sort of… interpersonal gendered conflict instead.”
Lost in the furore of Kitt’s “disrespect” of the White House was the larger, more important point of why there was a need for a luncheon to begin with; why you couldn’t talk about young people in America without talking about drugs and poverty and race and war.
That story, that luncheon, sounded the death knell on Kitt’s career. Her bookings dried up instantly. Dates were canceled without warning or explanation. “One club owner told me he was sorry,” Kitt said to the Washington Post in 1978, “sorry, but ‘You’re a problem’.”
When Kitt left the White House that afternoon, she was alone and it was freezing. She hailed a cab on the street. There was no limo waiting for her this time.
That story, that luncheon, sounded the death knell on Kitt’s career. Her bookings dried up instantly. Dates were canceled without warning or explanation. “One club owner told me he was sorry,” Kitt said to the Washington Post in 1978, “sorry, but ‘You’re a problem’.”
When Kitt left the White House that afternoon, she was alone and it was freezing. She hailed a cab on the street. There was no limo waiting for her this time.
“It was really heart-breaking to her and very upsetting that her own government turned on her for something as simple as just giving an honest response to a question,” Kitt’s daughter, Kitt Shapiro, would tell reporters, years later. “And that was really something, I think, that she really never let go of, that disappointment.”
Eartha Kitt died on Christmas Day in 2008. She died knowing the CIA had, after being asked by the Secret Service back in 1968, produced an extensive report on her. No evidence of any wrongdoing had been found, but it didn’t matter. She had been blacklisted. The report came out one week after the luncheon.
Kitt was cremated per her wishes, her ashes interred, in a birdbath, at her home with little fanfare. She was survived by her daughter. She was beloved by so many. “I’m a dirt person,” Eartha Kitt once said to Ebony magazine, in 1993. “I trust the dirt. I don’t trust diamonds and gold.”
Eartha Kitt died on Christmas Day in 2008. She died knowing the CIA had, after being asked by the Secret Service back in 1968, produced an extensive report on her. No evidence of any wrongdoing had been found, but it didn’t matter. She had been blacklisted. The report came out one week after the luncheon.
Kitt was cremated per her wishes, her ashes interred, in a birdbath, at her home with little fanfare. She was survived by her daughter. She was beloved by so many. “I’m a dirt person,” Eartha Kitt once said to Ebony magazine, in 1993. “I trust the dirt. I don’t trust diamonds and gold.”
paulhackett
voiced by strother martin
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
Occasionally it is hilarious though - like a few years back when someone thought it would be a good idea to play the English national anthem at the Conference playoff final between Wrexham and Newport.
petee
no gods, no malarkey
i have no inside info but i'd wager it isn't.
kerr has a fascinating story on many levels, this is worth the whole read.
Steve Kerr - Wikipedia
