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He knocked without warning at 2 pm HE Friday: The NFL announced a ceasefire in its war against Colin Kaepernick; Both parties had reached a settlement of Kaepernick's labor grievance against the League. The stakes of the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback fight against the NFL have always been understood by those who have recognized the risk of a black athlete to challenge the NFL's power structure. And we feared for Kaepernick and his fight for equality – to fear that everything he defended was rejected, ridiculed and engulfed by a patriotic outcry. With this settlement, the NFL negotiated the end of this war and dethroned the king of the movement.
I find myself with a feeling of familiar disgust. The sports-corporate complex, supposedly one of our most meritocratic institutions, is run by well-established power brokers who want to leverage whatever assets are available to preserve their influence. It seems that the NFL owners have assumed that they could eliminate the threat of Kaepernick's protest against racial injustice by removing him from the game. When that failed, they used another trick in their arsenal: they negotiated. It is no wonder that he has never had a chance.
They are lawyers who put an end to the war. When they arrive, the money follows, the stakes change and the balance of power often comes back to those who have more money and more lawyers. Kaepernick's attorney, Mark Geragos, and NFL representatives stated that after the "ongoing dialogue" all outstanding grievances had been resolved. Kaepernick filed his collusion grievance under the league's collective agreement in October 2017. The resolution of the conflict that has been going on for years is now blocked due to a confidentiality agreement. Unless one of the parties wishes to bring back the lawyers, no one involved in any of the most important conflicts in the history of the NFL will tell how it ended. Although we do not know the terms of the settlement, the Kaepernick agreement can be considered a payment for lost wages and an inexpensive solution for a company that is not willing to accept the dissent of its employees. The NFL no longer wanting to pay Kaepernick for her work, so she bought her silence. He is unlikely to play again in the league, as his former 49ers teammate Eric Reid, who also settled his grievance against the NFL, said last Monday. "Knowing what I know, my hope tank is on E," Reid said.
Believing that Kaepernick could win a lawsuit for collusion against one of the country's most powerful private entities has always been a naïve dream. It is difficult to force companies to admit wrongdoing, but a settlement can be considered a tacit admission of guilt. Maybe the NFL thought there was a chance, no matter how small, to lose. A whites-owned business is designed to protect its power, not to distribute it to the class of privileged people.
The movement in football to fight for black lives is over with the resolution of a labor dispute? Much of Kaepernick's power came from his silence. He was greeted with unfailing support although he said very little publicly. This same silence is now debilitating. He was coopted. The silence that once incited people to protest in the streets and stadiums is now binding. It was still unlikely that Kaepernick would receive a favorable judgment, but I am in conflict with this result: he feels liberating and prohibitive at the same time. Has the power of the demonstrator been diminished? If Kaepernick and Reid have agreed to put an end to their grievance, are black bodies that joined them in protest subject to these conditions?
It is impossible to know what will happen. It seems that the goal of the NFL in this area has been to eliminate the expression of the players and to remove the disturbances. Kaepernick has yielded under this weight. And whatever compensation he has received does not matter. This dispute was about power and its influence on the individual. And power reigned supreme.
We do not know what happened during the negotiations between Kaepernick and the NFL, which is monumental in the way we think about the future of protest in football. The statement made by Kaepernick and NFL lawyers is based on a worrying "question". The joint statement says: "The resolution of this case is subject to a confidentiality agreement, so there will be no further comment to make."
Does "this case" mean that Kaepernick and Reid can no longer discuss protest? Does "this case" mean that they can not publicly oppose collusion with the NFL? Does "this case" mean that Kaepernick and his followers can no longer protest? This is not conclusive and this darkness benefits the NFL. This regulation is best understood by the way it allows the NFL to turn a controversy into a victory. It would be a desirable outcome for the NFL if Kaepernick never played again. Expelling a dissident from the American Athletic Church seems to mean more to the power brokers who protect football than any offensive explosion or disruption of television coverage. Likewise, it is a message: this black protest is, has been and will always be unwelcome, and any challenge to the established order will be faced with extreme force to eliminate the threat and dissuade anyone from taking sides for the cause. The NFL used the trade as a weapon to quell the black protest, for the sole purpose of protecting the shield. Kaepernick and his message were dangerous, and his censorship came at a price. But now, business can continue, without being bothered by the hustle and bustle of employees.
It is important to note how much the NFL owners wanted to get rid of the problem posed by the black protest. At a meeting between players and owners in October 2017, homeowners expressed concern over public anger over President Donald Trump's incessant protests and criticism of kneeling players at the national anthem, according to news reports. secrets obtained by The New York Times. The owner of Houston Texans, Bob McNair, said: "We can not let inmates run the prison," according to a report by ESPN Outside the lines. (McNair's apologized later.) "The owners still hold almost all the power of the NFL," said Ben Carrington, a professor of sociology and journalism at the University of Southern California, in a interview with Vox in September 2018. "The real threat posed by Kaepernick is not to draw more attention to police brutality or racial injustice; it will mobilize players and encourage them to enforce their rights in a similar way to the NBA. That's what really scares the NFL. "
Kaepernick scared the NFL, making its compromise so difficult to accept. If Kaepernick had managed to prove that his owners had been heard against him, the NFL should have bowed to the will of his players. If he lost, all the movement would disappear. His failure would have thwarted the actions of every remaining Protestant player. The powerful would become even more emboldened to make sure that his example would not be followed.
Kaepernick faced long difficulties; There was no precedent for his challenge in the NFL. He too must have felt that if there was a possibility that he could lose, it was crucial to settle rather than take his chances at arbitration.
Craig Hodges knows what it's like to be removed from a league because his politics are not in harmony with the white power structure that employs him. In his autobiography, Long Shot, he described how, in 1988, he was traded in the middle of the night by the Milwaukee Bucks to the Phoenix Suns, which, in his opinion, was a response to his efforts to encourage his teammates to meet with community leaders black to discuss oppression. The Suns immediately placed him in the reserve of the wounded.
"It was discouraging," wrote Hodges, who had a career of 10 years. "A young projects that scared the front office of an NBA team? The idea was difficult to understand. I felt that the structure had to be built on unstable foundations if someone like me could be perceived as a threat. "
Hodges then played for the Chicago Bulls, where he won two championships, in 1991 and 1992. He no longer played in the NBA after the 1992 season, which, in his opinion, was a punishment for his beliefs declared policies. In 1996, he filed a lawsuit against the NBA, alleging racial discrimination, but it was dismissed on the grounds that it had been filed too late.
Kaepernick, unlike Hodges, decided a truce. It is not a betrayal to reach a settlement in a dispute in which one of the two has been wronged. This is the most honest thing that can be faced with high probabilities. Kaepernick's grievance never concerned his desire to play, nor his ability to compete at a high level, nor the respect of the troops, or "The Star Spangled Banner" or the flag. That was an answer to a simple question: did the NFL violate its rules by preventing a black employee who protested against systemic racism from making a living because the league could not accept dissent?
It's easy to be angry at the NFL's behavior against Kaepernick, but the league's goalkeepers would fail if they thought the money could stop the move he put in motion. By taking a knee, Kaepernick drew attention to the struggle to improve the lives of blacks and inspired this period of activism athletes. Strong voices are suppressed because they often have the power to jeopardize the power of the oppressor. Kaepernick has been muted, but if the movement he emboldens continues, his silence will not be in vain. Imagine how disheartened Kaepernick's critics will be when they remember when he attacked the NFL's power apparatus and, by sheer force of will and conviction, bent the league on his knees.
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