Saturday, as was politely reported in many places, a Camden, N.J., high school football coach, Preston Brown, invited his players — kids — to join him in kneeling during the pregame national anthem, further fueling Colin Kaepernick’s protest of America’s oppression of blacks and other minorities. Only a few kids chose to stand.
Camden, a city approximately 50 percent black and 45 percent Hispanic, has for years been laid low, then lower by dilapidated homes, shuttered businesses, crime, gangs, drugs and murders.
In 1994, Camden elected a black mayor, Arnold Webster, who in 1998 pleaded guilty to fraud. His successor, Milton Milan, Camden’s first Hispanic mayor, in 2001 was sentenced to seven years in federal prison on bribery and racketeering convictions.
Camden suffers from a paucity of children born to two-parent, nurturing homes. Its children often join gangs as family surrogates. How many kids on Coach Brown’s team know or knew people, including other kids, who were shot or murdered? Who shot them? Who murdered them?
You don’t know about any of this, Coach? Then you’re not “keepin’ it real.”
Sunday, as more widely and also politely reported, Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters, inspired by Kaepernick, raised a black-gloved fist during the national anthem.
“I come from a majority black community, Oakland, California … so the struggle, I seen it,” explained Peters, a University of Washington man. “I still have some family in the struggle. All I’m saying is we want to educate those, the youth that’s coming up.”
Couldn’t agree more. Educate the youth of Oakland. But tell them the truth, those that can inspire legitimate, think-about-it, act-on-it change instead of poor-us victimization by those who have done you no dirt.
Try teaching this, Marcus: During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, Oakland was among America’s most Afro-centric cities, one demanding “Black Power!” Oakland then elected consecutive black mayors who served from 1977 though 1999 — 22 straight years.
How did that work out? Come the 1980s, Oakland became — and remains — synonymous with blight, drugs and shootings. The same black-on-black oppression that helped paralyze Camden has incapacitated Oakland.
The children of Oakland are oppressed by fathers who ensured their “struggle” by abandoning them, often before their first breath.
Oakland’s black community is imprisoned within a culture of murder; detectives, black or white, unable to solve the murders of black citizens because the law is in the hands of gangs that target, maim and murder those even suspected of “snitching,” of pursuing justice.
Peters, from Oakland, knows nothing about this, hasn’t seen any of it? Come on, man!
But he’s such a socially sensitive activist — he chose the 15th anniversary of 9/11 for his conspicuous protest — he doesn’t have to answer such get-to-the-core questions because the nodding media are too frightened to ask.
How is it that America is so oppressive that the oppressed seek admission by all means, legal and illegal? America is so oppressive, yet few avail themselves of perhaps its greatest freedom — the freedom to leave.
The walls along the streets of Camden and Oakland — and Newark, Miami, Houston, Chicago, Baltimore, Birmingham and Detroit — carry spray-painted RIPs to the murdered homeboys. And Colin Kaepernick, aided by the media, no questions asked, has ignited a lemmings rush to look everywhere except within. Crazy.
What would Urban do? How about Tebow?
Funny how it works. Highly successful Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer now claims to be a devoted Christian after coaching a highly successful Florida program that annually recruited young criminals.
Meyer’s new sense of Christian ideals was seen in OSU’s opener, a 77-10 win over Bowling Green. Not content with the thorough slaughter and humiliation of a team of young men whose school was paid to deliver them to be badly beaten, Meyer’s men were still passing in the fourth quarter, one for a TD to make it 63-10.
His student-athletes threw 39 times, scored 10 TDs and compiled a school-record 776 offensive yards. Hallelujah!
At the same time, Tim Tebow, a decent young man and superior athlete able to pursue two pro sports, was back to being targeted by the media as a clown, for no other apparent reason than that he failed as an NFL quarterback and his openly devout Christianity.
Surely he would have escaped such media shaming had he been a successful pro quarterback who didn’t practice Christian charity and sportsmanship.
Urban Meyer? Great coach! Tim Tebow? Still pail bait for late-night monologues.
Networks all run in the same channel
This time of year, my email is loaded with releases from networks proudly trumpeting fabulous viewership numbers for their football telecasts. These hooray-for-us messages are designed to have those who cover TV pass the word to you.
That leads us to: Do they think that I think that you think that we think about which network the game’s on before deciding whether we watch?
Would a Giants fan be less inclined to watch a Giants game on ESPN or CBS rather than on FOX or NBC? Would we choose to watch a game because we prefer Kirk Herbstreit to Gary Danielson, Joe Buck to Al Michaels or CBS’s productions to FOX’s?
Still, networks act as if it has to do with them, thus you should know — even if it’s untrue.
Here we go again: Believe what you’re told, not what you see. Monday, the Steelers had a fourth-and-1 from the Washington 29, ESPN’s Jon Gruden: “Outstanding short-yardage back DeAngelo Williams. Expect him to run behind right guard David DeCastro.”
Ben Roethlisberger faked a handoff to Williams, then threw into the end zone for a TD caught by Antonio Brown. Gruden then explained that the call caught the Skins by total surprise — even if the live shot and replays showed Brown having to make a good catch vs. double coverage.
Does FOX analyst John Lynch know there’s a concussion crisis, one the NFL is trying to reduce by stricter enforcement of rules against headfirst play?
Lynch’s continuing calls for someone to “lay a hat on him” — lead with his helmet — remain barbaric, even if Lynch, as an NFL safety, was known as a headhunter.
At 20-19, Giants over Cowboys late, FOX’s Buck seized the moment: “It’s still a one-possession game.”
Reader Bill Chase of Albany asks if football teams have any “uphill runners” to augment their “downhill runners.”
Don’t ask me, Bill. The other day I thought I had bought a fan — even if the box read, “Air Circulator.” Score the basketball!