Philadelphia freedom
11th June 2018 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
It wasn’t enough that NFL owners flat-out disrespected NFL football players last month by telling them that they can refuse to stand for the playing or the singing of the national anthem as long as they do so in the privacy of the team locker room.
Essentially, these billionaires whose wealth and power likely resulted in part from the kidnapping, trafficking, breeding, sale and enslavement of African human beings, are telling these modern-day gladiators who risk their lives and limbs to entertain a mostly white NFL fan base that they can exercise their First Amendment rights however they want to in the locker room as long as the owners and the fans don’t have to watch them do it.
Then, before the profundity and magnitude of that insulting rule change could really be fully processed, President Donald Trump adds insult to injury by disinviting the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles from visiting the White House a day before their scheduled June 5, visit.
In response, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said Mr. Trump’s decision “only proves that our president is not a true patriot, but a fragile egomaniac.”
Mr. Trump issued a statement Monday evening saying the full NFL team would not be coming after several players indicated they wouldn’t participate.
“They disagree with their president because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country,” the statement said.
The Eagles posted a statement in response saying they are “grateful for all of the support we have received and we are looking forward to continuing our preparations for the 2018 season.”
Soon after, Mr. Trump then took to Twitter reiterating that “only a small number of players decided to come, and we canceled the event” and added “staying in the locker room for the playing of our national anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling.”
Even though my brain knows that I should not have been surprised by President Trump’s efforts to block the Philadelphia Eagles from tweeting about him, I have to confess that it caught me off guard a little bit.
It wasn’t the fact that he pulled such a ridiculous stunt — it was that he took me back down memory lane. Waaaayyyyyy back down memory lane to my elementary school days when those engaged in verbal altercations would say things like “I’m rubber and you’re glue. It bounces off of me and sticks onto you!”
But, as I noted, we were in elementary school. This man is in his 70s and had the privilege of attending private schools.
He ought to know better.
Then again, he ought to know a lot of things that he clearly doesn’t know, like the history of the U.S., how to bite your tongue, and how to win friends and influence people, that sort of thing.
You can expect a lot of references to Philadelphia this summer and fall from Trump, though he won’t likely mention the abolitionist movement or its rich history of Black freedom fighters. He’ll probably talk about the cracked Liberty Bell, the eagle as a symbol of American freedom and greatness and the legacy of the Founding Fathers.
Is it possible that the City of Brotherly Love has more going for it than cheesesteaks, a statue of Rocky Balboa, abolitionist landmarks, the Philly Sound and a cracked Liberty Bell?
Is it possible that while Philadelphia is still haunted by its past and grappling with age-old issues like race, genocide and equity, there might also be some lingering positive karmic energy from the nobler elements of its abolitionist and freedom-fighting past?
Philly is a city of glaring ironies. It’s a place associated with the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, but it is also the city where wealthy white males came together to create a republic that favored wealthy white males, placed no value on the lower economic classes, women or people of color and saw nothing wrong with the trafficking, sale, enslavement and exploitation of African people.
President Trump might have chosen to pick a fight with Philly in order to revisit the issue and use the city and its patriotic symbols like the eagle and the Liberty Bell in the rapidly approaching mid-term elections that will likely make or break Trump and his cronies.
Just as he needed to fan the flames of bigotry, anti-immigrant sentiment, distrust, confusion, paranoia and cultural disrespect during the 2016 presidential campaign, he will need to fire up his supporters for the mid-terms and distract them from the less than favorable job he has been doing with regard to U.S. foreign policy, reducing gun violence and economic growth.
Stay woke, y’all.
This article originally published in the June 11, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
