A Change Is Coming

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!