The University of Missouri football team is exactly what we
should hope a group of 18-22 year olds would be in a similar situation. What
they did took bravery and that cannot be overlooked. Yet as soon as the announcement came that they
would halt any football related activities came down I’ve heard so many people
spouting how ungrateful and entitled these young men were.
My beef with the NCAA has been shared here numerous times. I
think it’s a corrupt institution designed to keep these kids poor and dependent
upon them. The argument against paying the student athletes has always been the
same: “you’re being paid in an education!” Ok, well the same people who spout
that nonsense are the same people telling these guys that what they are doing
is wrong.
So let me try and understand the logic behind this. For
years minority students have complained of racial incidents happening on
campus, for years they were ignored. So what do the students decide to do after
years of being ignored and not having their very valid concerns at least
acknowledged? They begin nonviolent protests including a hunger strike calling
for the negligent president of the school to resign. After not gaining the
traction they hoped the football team in an act of solidarity joined in and
announced until the students’ needs were addressed they would halt any and all
football related activities including not playing their next game which would
lead to the school having to pay Brigham Young University one million dollars.
Within 3 days both the president and the chancellor had stepped down.
So now the story has become how the football players are
entitled brats who should not have threatened to take their precious football
away. I don’t understand how one can be entitled when all you’re asking for is
incidents of racial prejudice to be investigated, to be treated as a human, and
when that was ignored they used the only bit of leverage they had to make the
administration listen to them.
I have seen posts of how protests of today should be like
they were during the Civil Rights era, well here it is. You got what you asked
for. You have young people mobilizing together for a common goal using nonviolent
means and a work stoppage to have their voices and needs met. Hearing the talk
of how they should be “honored” to just play football there smacks of “shut up
and play football nigger, you’re lucky we let you on campus.”
So now the conversation has predictably shifted to everything
from “what about black on black crime” to “you didn’t say anything about
Chicago.” If that’s your line of defense then first off you’re racist because
it’s unimaginable to you that in the age of a black president there can be
racial prejudice, and secondly you don’t give a damn about black on black crime
or Chicago. Because if you did you would know that you can be upset about more
than one thing. I can be upset about a child being murdered in Chicago and also
be upset about swastikas being drawn on a college campus. I guess I’m complex.
Alright, I am getting too worked up on this. I guess all this
was to say is I have the utmost respect for the Mizzou Tigers football team and student body and haters can
have all the seats. I’ll leave you with
the greatest celebration that could have happened in the wake of the president’s
resignation…THE SWAG SURF!
