“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.” –Bill Shankly
Right now, that’s not true. Five of the six Major League Soccer games scheduled on Wednesday were postponed because of the players’ wish to bring attention to a matter much more serious and to some–a matter of life and death. Other sports are doing the same right now.
Can you justify shooting someone in the back seven times for not immediately following police orders? Can you honestly claim that the 17-year old who drove 30 miles to Kenosha, WI with a AR-15 he was not supposed to have even in an open carry state like Wisconsin and killed two protestors did so in self-defense? If the answer is anything other than ‘no’ to either or both questions, then you’re a part of the problem.
Violence and looting is not going to solve anything. We get that. Neither will doing nothing or pretending that what happened to people like Jacob Blake, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Laquan McDonald, ad infinitum is not a major societal problem. Racism did not end the moment Barack Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009. On the contrary, it has been exacerbated because of matters like the current president saying that the white supremacists in Charlottesville were “very fine people”, even in the face of counter-protestors (one of whom was fatally run over).
The current situation reminds me of this tweet from former NASCAR driver and current NBC Sports contributor Dale Earnhardt Jr:
All Americans R granted rights 2 peaceful protests
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable-JFK— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) September 25, 2017
The irony of Wednesday is that it was also the four-year anniversary of Colin Kaepernick first protesting the mistreatment of Blacks by police. It was fitting that it would be a team from Wisconsin that would trigger what we have seen over the past 30 hours at the time of this writing.
Indeed, some people already have had a problem with it such as Real Salt Lake owner Dell Loy Hansen. The rebukes were immediately and deservedly swift.
He needs to sell the team then. I’m involved in a group that’s ready to purchase it. Time for change. https://t.co/ETiM3YUyxr
— Jozy Altidore (@JozyAltidore) August 27, 2020
This is supposed to be a soccer news website. Yet, the past several months have seen us write about a pandemic, riots, and now de facto strikes because there are things more important that football that in some cases are a matter of life and death. None of these issues, not to mention other issues such as climate change, are going to go away because you wish them to. These are not problems that one man alone can fix. They will likely still be problems after November 3rd.
To suggest that Jacob Blake or George Floyd should have obeyed the police or to justify the actions of the 17-year old from Antioch, IL makes you a part of the problem. To suggest that athletes should just “shut up and play” makes you part of the problem. We do not encourage in the slightest looting, starting flames, causing damage to city property and local establishments. Yet, as much as the cost of the damage can indeed be great, the cost of doing nothing constructive towards the problem at hand will most assuredly be greater.
What happened earlier this week in Kenosha, WI is part of a major societal problem, one that has required all of us to pay attention and at least have a discussion on how to rectify this no matter how uncomfortable that might be. The football can wait. This means more.
