An Interesting Chance to Compare and Contrast

Colin Kaepernick and lately  his imitators around the NFL have explicitly disparaged and insulted the United States and most of its people by  boorish behavior during the national anthem,  by making slanderous accusations against white people in general, and by  waiving clenched fists for black power or doing similar things  during games while on the job and representing the league and their employers.  In response to this the commissioner of the league and several owners of teams first offered them support and encouragement, and members of the traditional media treated them almost as heroes.  No owner and almost no major media people criticized them in public in the early part of the season.

A few days ago Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers, while on the job representing the league and his employer, made a stupid comment  to a female reporter who asked him a question about one of his receivers, calling it odd that a woman would ask  about  such a technical point.  Well, more than one ton of bricks fell on poor old Cam. He lost endorsement deals, was attacked all over  the media, and required to eat the requisite amount of dirt and crawl through the requisite amount of broken glass with a public maudlin, probably scripted, perhaps insincere apology.

 The interesting question is why people in power in the NFL and the sports media treated the two situations so differently.  Both  sets of behavior were offensive to many of the NFL’s customers and other  people (with less reason with Newton, since his actions lacked malice). Both were ill mannered and in bad taste.  Both Kaepernick (along with many of his imitators)  and Newton give the impression of being arrogant jerks. Any argument for  allowing players  to “make statements” on the job would seem to apply  equally to both cases.  Yet the responses were  completely different. 

There is a pretty obvious guess why.  Kaepernick’s copiers  did not violate the canons of leftist political correctness or bother people in the traditional media, while Newton did both.   So the owners and the commissioner  decided supporting the Kaepernick crowd was expedient while letting  Newton slide was not. That is enough for phonies and hypocrites to decide how to behave. Whatever the reason, it is up to the fans to tell the people running the NFL  that siding with Kaepernick and company is wrong and, far more important,  to teach them that it is inexpedient.  That seems to be happening, based on the commissioner’s  sudden change of course in the last few days.