Jackson: Going from Picking Cotton Balls to Picking Footballs Without Freedom Is Not Much Progress
EXCERPT:
SHARPE: “How much impact do you think the protests have had so far?”
JACKSON: “It’s raised the consciousness about a lot of issues. For instance, the ownership of the league reflects the national IQ. It says a lot about the social strata. The song itself has a great meaning to us, the national anthem, but it’s written by a slave owner, Francis Scott Key. Another thing, the third verse, ‘No refuge could save the hireling and slave, From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave.’ That’s in the same song. It was never about the flag. That’s Trump’s issue. The issue was about racial disparity and the issue had to do with Rodney King beaten to death, Trayvon Martin killed and the killer walked free, Diallo killed in New York and the police walk free. So he knelt before the flag. He didn’t desecrate the flag, he didn’t try to burn the flag, he didn’t put up a Confederate flag which is an anti-American flag. My father had to sit behind the Nazi prisoner of war in the military bases with the flag flying. The flag — and this is not about the flag, but the flag must represent all of us and oftentimes it does not.”
REPORTER: Colin Kaepernick took a stand. not sure he realized he was risking his job, but it appears he has lost his job. What has he meant to you as sort of the face of this movement within the National Football League?”
JACKSON: “In the same tradition of Muhammad Ali who went and changed his name, and from his religious position against the war, they took his title. They said, ‘You can have the title, but you can’t have the championship.’ He said, ‘I won that.’ Curt Flood: ‘You cannot sell me.’ All the free agents around the world owe their wages and their benefits to Curt Flood who paid the price of rebelling against the system of oppression. And in many ways it is oppressive. To go from picking cotton balls to picking footballs and basketballs without freedom is not very much progress. It’s just a lateral move. What strikes me in football, the reason they have to stand up is when the President says ‘Fire them’ and calls them sons of bitches. These aren’t sons of bitches, they are sons of mothers who produce champions. He comes out strong and the President comes out strong. These guys have no guaranteed contracts. Unlike basketball or baseball, there are no guaranteed contracts. So you stand, but don’t play tomorrow. That’s workplace harassment. That’s illegal.”
(Via Breitbart)
