Yes, your second suggestion is what I was getting at. I think that if players stay in the locker room for the anthem and then come out, people will still be mad/offended. The NFL has made it crystal clear why they would be staying in the locker room, so it will still be viewed as a protest/offense to god-fearing Americans everywhere.
It wouldn’t be as visible of a protest as kneeling out there in front of god and man, though. And it would be an obedient sort of protest - rather than openly acting in defiance of tradition to send an explicitly nonoffensive message, this would be quietly obeying authority to send an explicitly nonoffensive message. There is a material difference there.
Why do you think that? Do you think you can compel an employee to wear a “re-elect President Trump” button? I don’t. And I’m not sure there is a bright line between naming a candidate and using the candidate’s official campaign slogan, especially one that has received a Service Mark (like a trademark, but for a service rather than product).
emphasis added
Players who kneel are not expressing disrespect for the country. They are showing respect for the principles of our founding by protesting systemic failures to live up to those standards. Standing when a judge enters the courtroom shows respect for the rule of law, no matter your opinion of the specific judge. When the rule of law itself is systemically abrogated, protest is not only a matter of principle, it is a duty.
Maybe you misread and thought that I said that I could make an employee wear a MAGA hat.
That is not what I said, I said I can compel an employee to serve a customer wearing a MAGA hat.
To be fair, your sentence could legitimately be read either way.
OK. I did misread it as: I can compel an employee to wear a MAGA hat while serving a customer.
I think you’re right that you can compel an employee to serve customers even if the customer is visibly of a different political persuasion.
I’m not seeing any court cases cited in that article to back up that person’s claims. The fact that certain employers have allegedly used intimidation tactics to get employees to perform political actions does no mean that they are legal entitled to do so.
But that’s not even what my objection was. My objection was to the idea that there is no limit to what political speech an employer can compel an employee to engage in. If you know of a court case that says otherwise, I’m all ears.
The NFL allows at least one political activity and that’s standing for the anthem.
I think it’s one of those grey areas. It might be considered political speech, but it might be considered “ceremonial patriotism”. If it were up to me, I’d say it wasn’t political-- it doesn’t advocate for any particular politician, political party, or political issue. But I’m just not certain how the courts would rule.
…I can’t stand for very long. Its a health thing. So if a judge were to enter a courtroom I’d keep sitting down. And I’ve sat down when a bride enters the church. Thankfully I’ve never had to stand when the teacher entered a room, and “gentleman” standing for a “lady” is simply a ridiculous thing.
So if you didn’t know I was sick, and if I was sitting while the bride entered a church, your assumption would be that I was choosing to be disrespectful?
What is inherent in the act of standing that makes not standing disrespectful? And am I obliged to agree with your opinion?
They aren’t just “not standing.” They are taking a knee. The act of taking a knee, IMHO, is deeply respectful. The implication that it is a calculated move to show disrespect doesn’t match any of the public statements made by any of the players. Are you accusing all the players who have chosen to take a knee of lying?
I’m not pretending. Stop pretending that I am.
The notion that Trump was offended by this supposed lack of patriotic decorum before someone told him to be is risible considering that his emmigrant wife had to remind him to put his hand over his heart during a rendition of the national anthem at a White House function. The concept of Donald Trump, a five times draft deferee who has never served the public in any capacity other than giving his family name to a fraudulent real estate school and being the host of a reality television show, being some qualified arbiter on what is and is not patriotic (and who should or should not be allowed in the country) is like considering Elmer Fudd as an expert on hunting.
As for Ashtura, who stridently insists this is all just ‘bad optics’ and has nothing to do with race (except it is a protest by predominately black atheletes about the systematic shooting of black men), it may well be that he is simply incapable of grasping the explanations provided to him, or that he is inflexible in his unwillingness to consider that there is a deeper context to kneeling rather than just giving offense, but it may be observed regardless that nobody ever challenged an entrenched cultural bias without offending someone, for the very reason that people who don’t want their biases challenged but are nonetheless embarassed about them will find some ancillary issue to be upset about.
In this case, ‘taking the knee’, which is in virtually any other context a sign of respect, has been twisted into some kind of attack on veterans and patriotism by people who have every reason to shut down the conversation behind it. The idea that it would be okay if Kaepernick just used his influence to talk softly about the problems (even though conservative pundits complain all the time about celebrities using their fame to publicize causes) or support charities, but it is unacceptable to make a public spectacle of it (even though the extensive displays of military pride and hardware at sporting events is about nothing but public spectacle in service of politics) is nothing more than telling protesters to shut up and go to the back of the bus. It is absolutely manufactured outrage in service of concealing bigotry and an unwillingness to address a systematic social problem.
Stranger
What school IS this? I taught at predominately white, conservative high schools, and whenever we discussed the Fourth Amendment, most students did NOT see cops as good guys but as teen-hating adults out to ruin their fun by “harrassing” them just for being teens. Every kid grasped why these protections were necessary. These are teens, after all, questioning, suspecting, and sometimes resenting authority.
I hope you’re scrupulous, as I was, about keeping your own political views from coloring your approach and language and about objectively and accurately presenting BOTH sides of issues and stories. Otherwise, discussions are less than honest. And if you cover current events, students might not realize, for instance, that Kaepernick’s shirt showed Malcolm X meeting Castro in Harlem when Castro came to address the UN and might not understand why Castro’s reception in Harlem was enthusiastic. I’m no fan of Castro’s, but I’m a big fan of ensuring students objectively understand why people do what they do before students make up their own minds.
It could even be read as k9bfriender is the hat wearer. But of course, that’s madness.
Some interesting points:
So…any objections to my mooning a passing Trump when they play Hail to the Chief?
Yep, I absolutely disrespect him.
Yep. I’m curious, though; when did the national anthem become a thing before sports events?
Just like “ceremonial deism”, there is no such thing as “ceremonial patriotism”. Standing for the national anthem, singing the national anthem, standing for the pledge of allegiance, and reciting the pledge of allegiance are all, in fact, political displays, to wit: patriotic displays.
Actually, it does: the issue of patriotic display.
Haven’t the courts been pretty consistent with finding against employers who penalize their employees because the employers don’t like the employees’ politics?
Well, here is more fodder for your hatred of him. Trump thinks that American citizens whose political actions he doesn’t like should leave the country.
Whether we like it or not, standing vs kneeling for the anthem is now a political issue. Some things become political issues that didn’t used to be, and some things that used to be political aren’t any more (say, whether the Native Americans should be exterminated). When the President explicitly and viciously attacks and smears protesters for not standing during the anthem, then standing/not-standing during the anthem has become an explicitly political issue.
Barnette isn’t about just the pledge. Its about compulsory participation in “patriotic ceremonies” Read the quote posted from the decision and tell me why that wouldn’t apply to the national anthem. It also isn’t specific to schools - although you could say that as a private organization, the NFL has some rights to compel behavior, the problem with that is that the NFL isn’t exactly a private organization. They benefit from some specific government policies (cough - stadiums built by tax dollars, for instance) that means that the court system can impose government standards on the organization. You could also say that since the NFL has said players can stay off the field, they aren’t compelling anything (I’m suspecting that is the lawyers covering their asses on Barnette).
I also tend to agree that if respect is so important to the franchises and the fans, then why are the concession stands open? Would it kill them to stop the sales of giant pretzels for the five minutes of compulsory patriotism? Why aren’t people up in arms about that? Is controlling the behavior of a black man important but so is making sure you can exercise your God given right to buy beer and spill it down the front of your shirt during “rockets red glare?”
Kneeling is a long established form of respect. In addition to kneeling in church, you traditionally knelt before a monarch, I think you still are supposed to kneel before the Pope. And that’s Western culture - Asians have even more kneeling in respect. Personally, I think its a far more powerful signal of respect, you place yourself close to the ground. It is more self abasing.