{"id":52845,"date":"2017-03-24T18:48:11","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T18:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=52845"},"modified":"2017-03-24T18:48:11","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T18:48:11","slug":"the-nfl-has-effectively-blackballed-colin-kaepernick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=52845","title":{"rendered":"The NFL has effectively blackballed Colin Kaepernick"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NFL has effectively blackballed Colin Kaepernick<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a>
\n2017-03-23<\/p>\n

Kevin B. Blackistone<\/strong><\/a>, Visiting Professor
\nPhilip Merrill College of Journalism
\nUniversity of Maryland<\/em><\/p>\n

A week before Christmas 1996, Craig Hodges<\/a>, who twice during his 10 NBA<\/a> seasons was the league\u2019s best three-point shooter, filed a federal lawsuit against the NBA. He charged that the league colluded to end his career four seasons earlier.<\/p>\n

Hodges contended the league was upset that he showed up at the White House<\/a> with Michael Jordan<\/a> and his other teammates from the 1991 NBA champion Bulls<\/a> draped in a dashiki<\/a> \u2014 a traditional West African tunic popularized here during the Black Power movement<\/a> \u2014 and exercised utter audacity by presenting their host, President George H.W. Bush<\/a>, with a two-page letter calling for the plight of people of color and the poor in this country to be prioritized<\/a> in Bush\u2019s domestic agenda.<\/p>\n

A week into 1998, the court dismissed Hodges\u2019s complaint. His career effectively died when the Bulls<\/a> waived him following their second championship in 1992.<\/p>\n

But Hodges\u2019s story was revived with the advent of this NFL<\/a> offseason\u2019s free agency period. He\u2019s been reincarnated in Colin Kaepernick<\/a>. To be sure, Kaepernick managed the 17th-best quarterback rating<\/a> last season among starters while coming back from injury. His touchdown percentage<\/a> was 13th best, better than Washington\u2019s<\/a> Kirk Cousins<\/a>, who wound up in the Pro Bowl and with a new franchise-tag contract worth $24 million next season. His interception percentage<\/a> was sixth, just behind Aaron Rodgers<\/a> and just ahead of MVP<\/a> Matt Ryan<\/a>…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t just that Kaepernick last season dramatically protested the extrajudicial killings of mostly unarmed black men in this country by police who rarely get charged for their actions, let alone prosecuted or convicted. It was that he chose the anthem as his platform. By kneeling during its rendition, he appeared to mar the package of patriotism the NFL put together over the last half century that helped it overtake baseball as America\u2019s sporting pastime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,8,23674,20],"tags":[24878,26671,8952,26669,26670,26672,18329,7222,2875,2581],"class_list":["post-52845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-media-archive","category-social-justice","category-usa","tag-colin-kaepernick","tag-craig-hodges","tag-football","tag-kevin-b-blackistone","tag-kevin-blackistone","tag-natonal-football-league","tag-nfl","tag-sports","tag-the-washington-post","tag-washington-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52845"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52846,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52845\/revisions\/52846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}