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href="http://sfbayview.com/2017/06/colin-kaepernick-philando-castile-and-the-lost-wisdom-of-roger-goodells-father/">http://sfbayview.com/2017/06/colin-kaepernick-philando-castile-and-the-lost-wisdom-of-roger-goodells-father/</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Colin Kaepernick, Philando Castile and the
lost wisdom of Roger Goodell’s father</h1>
<div id="meta-data" class="meta-data">
<div id="reader-estimated-time">June 25, 2017<br>
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<p><strong>The need for radical voices has never been more
pressing. Defending voices that are being silenced is
a task for all of us.</strong></p>
<p><strong><em>by </em></strong><a
href="https://www.thenation.com/authors/dave-zirin/"><strong><em>Dave
Zirin</em></strong></a></p>
<p><em>“I have come to see that our legal and political
institutions are dangerously unresponsive and
unyielding to the impassioned grievances of our own
people.”</em> – Sen. Charles Goodell</p>
<div id="attachment_69326" class="wp-caption alignright"><a
href="http://sfbayview.com/2017/06/colin-kaepernick-philando-castile-and-the-lost-wisdom-of-roger-goodells-father/badges-for-runaway-slave-patrol-police-officer-you-cant-ignore-your-history-tweeted-by-kap-061617/"
rel="attachment wp-att-69326"><img
class="wp-image-69326"
src="https://i2.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Badges-for-Runaway-Slave-Patrol-Police-Officer-You-cant-ignore-your-history-tweeted-by-Kap-061617.jpg?resize=400%2C400"
alt="" height="400" width="400"></a>
<p class="wp-caption-text">This is the picture Colin
Kaepernick tweeted on June 16, 2017, on hearing that
the killer cop who shot Philando Castile point blank
in a car for no rational reason in front his
girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter had been
acquitted. Had it been in the time of the Runaway
Slave Patrol, however, Castile might have been spared,
as he was worth more to his “owner” alive than dead.</p>
</div>
<p>When Philando Castile’s killer, Officer Jeronimo Yanez,
was found not guilty on Friday – despite the fact that
Castile’s murder was livestreamed on Facebook – shock
immediately spread from the streets to social media.
Some celebrities in the world of sports and
entertainment used their expansive platforms to spread
the (rather self-evident) message that a great injustice
had occurred. They decried the fact that a man had been
killed solely because of a police officer’s reaction to
the color of his skin, and there would be no penalty for
that killing.</p>
<p>But one athlete expressed something more serious, more
radical and more fitting for a political moment where,
to quote Naomi Klein’s new book, “No Is Not Enough.”</p>
<p>That athlete was exiled free-agent quarterback Colin
Kaepernick. First he expressed his sympathies, writing,
“My heart aches for Philando’s family.”</p>
<p>Then he sent another message: “A system that
perpetually condones the killing of people, without
consequence, doesn’t need to be revised, it needs to be
dismantled!”</p>
<p>Beneath those words, he posted a photo of<a
href="https://twitter.com/Kaepernick7/status/875832378501074944">
two eerily similar badges</a>: One, from the 19th
century, reads “Runaway Slave Patrol” and the other,
from the 21st century, reads “Police Officer.”</p>
<p>It was a bracing statement that spoke to our effort to
understand how the courts seem to have decided that cops
have a license to kill if their victim is Black. It was
also a reminder that political expressions like this are
precisely why Kaepernick is still without a job.</p>
<h3><span>That athlete was exiled free-agent quarterback
Colin Kaepernick. First he expressed his sympathies,
writing, “My heart aches for Philando’s family.” Then
he sent another message: “A system that perpetually
condones the killing of people, without consequence,
doesn’t need to be revised, it needs to be
dismantled!”</span></h3>
<p>NFL owners are set on punishing him for his anthem
protests, his <a href="http://knowyourrightscamp.com/">Know
Your Rights Camps</a> that teach young people “how to
navigate oppression” and his social media postings. He
wants us to confront the gap between what this country
purports to stand for and the lived experiences of Black
Americans.</p>
<p>For NFL owners, agitating for the dignity of Black life
– unlike spousal abuse, drunk driving or even murder –
is unacceptable. Quarterbacks with one-tenth of
Kaepernick’s résumé have been invited to training camps,
while he and his spectacular 2016 4:1
touchdown-to-interception ratio remain at home.</p>
<p>It’s a blackballing, and to deny this is to deny the
existence of the nose on your face. It’s having someone
spit in your eye and tell you it’s raining.</p>
<p>Despite this, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell rejected
on Friday the idea that any kind of blackballing was
taking place. He called the NFL “a meritocracy,” <a
href="http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/19656525/roger-goodell-disputes-claims-colin-kaepernick-remains-unsigned-anthem-protests">saying</a>:
“If they see an opportunity to get better as a football
team, they’re going to do it. They’re going to do
whatever it takes to make their football team better.</p>
<p>“So, those are football decisions. They’re made all the
time. I believe that if a football team feels that Colin
Kaepernick, or any other player, is going to improve
that team, they’re going to do it.”</p>
<p>This is absurd and utterly at odds with the facts. It
is also Roger Goodell performing his central job: being
“a flak-catcher,” the face to get punched, when his 31
bosses behave in repugnant fashion. It would be so much
better if Goodell would stand up to them and tell the
world the truth: that Kaepernick is being punished for
his politics. It would be so much better if he had half
the backbone of his father, Sen. Charles Goodell.</p>
<h3><span>Quarterbacks with one-tenth of Kaepernick’s
résumé have been invited to training camps, while he
and his spectacular 2016 4:1 touchdown-to-interception
ratio remain at home. It’s a blackballing.</span></h3>
<p>Charles Goodell was a Republican senator from New York,
appointed after Robert Kennedy’s assassination in 1968.
Charles Goodell was something alien to today’s
Washington, D.C.: a Republican of conscience.</p>
<p>He made President Richard Nixon’s enemies list by
becoming the first person to propose legislation that
would cut off all funds for the war in Vietnam. After
being driven from office by the Republican
establishment, he wrote a remarkable 1973 book called “<a
href="https://www.amazon.com/Political-prisoners-America-Charles-Goodell/dp/0394478827/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497731676&sr=8-1&keywords=Political+Prisoners+in+America.">Political
Prisoners in America</a>.” The book is about the
importance of defending dissenters as an essential part
of American democracy.</p>
<p>Charles Goodell wrote: “I have come to see that our
legal and political institutions are dangerously
unresponsive and unyielding to the impassioned
grievances of our own people …. When words of appeal
fall upon a seemingly inert system, words give way to
action.”</p>
<p>He passionately argued that squelching dissent is an
autocratic act, at odds with democratic norms. He also
wrote that the actions of people in power resistant to
dissent are insecure in their own ideas, and their
inability to see the world through the eyes of others is
a sign not of strength but weakness.</p>
<p>These words of Charles Goodell from 44 years ago could
have been written today to describe the situation with
the NFL, Colin Kaepernick and Goodell’s son. They also
speak to the importance of defending radical athletes
with giant platforms in an era when Philando Castile’s
killer could somehow be found not guilty.</p>
<p>Roger Goodell doesn’t have to agree with Kaepernick,
but he could be defending Kaepernick’s right to not be
exiled and prevented from making a living. If the NFL
commissioner disagrees with me, I know a book he could
read that might change his mind.</p>
<p><em>Dave Zirin is the author of several books,
including “</em><a
href="http://www.haymarketbooks.org/hc/The-John-Carlos-Story"><em>The
John Carlos Story</em></a><em>“ (Haymarket) and his
latest, “</em><a
href="http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Brazils-Dance-with-the-Devil"><em>Brazil’s
Dance with the Devil</em></a><em>,” and sports
editor for </em><a href="http://www.thenation.com/"><em>The
Nation</em></a><em> magazine, where </em><a
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/3-lessons-from-university-of-missouri-president-tim-wolfes-resignation/"><em>this
column</em></a><em> first appeared. Visit and
contact him through his website </em><a
href="http://www.edgeofsports.com/"><em>EdgeofSports.com</em></a><em>.
Follow him on Twitter </em><a
href="https://twitter.com/EdgeofSports"><em>@EdgeofSports</em></a><em>.</em></p>
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