In America, there is a strong general insistence that an individual’s “freedom” is fundamentally linked to his wealth.
Much of the country views America through an aspirational, transformative lens, a utopia free of bias and colorblindness, where wealth conveys equality and serves as a panacea for social ills and racism. Once an individual achieves tremendous financial success, or so the message goes, he will “transcend” the scourge of economic and racial inequality and become truly “free.”
Parallel to this reverence for this blind version of the “American Dream” is the belief that economic privilege entails national gratitude. Across industries and disciplines, Americans are asked to love their nation uncritically and to be thankful that they are exceptional enough to live in a country that offers citizens the opportunity to reach astronomical levels of economic prosperity.
For the country’s black citizens, there is often an additional racist assumption lurking beneath the surface of these notions: the idea that black success and wealth require public silence on systemic issues of inequality and oppression.
They are sturdy and fragile ideologies that underpin the concept of the American Dream – sturdy because they are ingrained in the fabric of American culture (most Americans, including African Americans, have readily embraced these ideologies as assumed truths); However, it is fragile because it is all too easy to see that one’s economic privilege constitutes a poor buffer against individual and systemic discrimination and oppression.
As a result, Black people have also been among the most vocal challengers of these ideologies, as we saw recently with the Colin Kaepernick and #TakeAKnee demonstrations in the NFL. In a show of solidarity with the free agent quarterback, professional football players — the vast majority of whom are black — kneeled during the national anthem as a way to protest racial injustice and police brutality.
Watch: NFL players team up in defiance and solidarity
Over the past few weeks, the President of the United States has drawn renewed attention to the deep-rooted tensions that define “American Dream” ideologies with his repeated public criticism of kneeling NFL players.
“If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL, or other leagues,” Trump said in a recent tweet, “he or she should not be allowed to kneel.” President Donald Trump called the protesters’ actions “disrespectful” to the country, the flag, and the national anthem, called for players to be fired, encouraged a boycott of the NFL, insisted that the league pass a rule requiring players to stand for the national anthem and mocked the national anthem. Protesters as “sons of bitches.”
In a dramatic stunt worthy of a scripted reality TV show, the president gloated as he instructed Vice President Mike Pence to walk out of an Indianapolis Colts game the moment any player kneeled. This was a coordinated display of force and anger, intended to send an inflammatory political message given that Trump and Pence knew in advance that on that particular day, the Colts were playing the San Francisco 49ers — the team currently with the largest number of protesters. The NFL’s announcement this week that the league has no plans to punish protesting players is the latest event to draw the president’s ire. Speaking to social media early in the morning, he again equated kneeling with “total disrespect” for our country.
As many have pointed out, the president’s moral outrage toward NFL players is selective and deeply flawed — and his apparent patriotic allegiance has not stopped the billionaire politician from criticizing the removal of Confederate statues, attacking a Gold Star family, or mocking the Republican senator. John McCain’s military service.
NFL players and their defenders have Mentioned repeatedly The protests aim to highlight racial inequality and oppression. They also explained that their decision to kneel came from a desire to protest peacefully and respectfully after an ongoing conversation with them Military veterans.
Trump has chosen to ignore these justifications and the structural issues of inequality that motivate the protests and, instead, has presented a narrative exclusively concerned with public displays of American patriotism and the “privilege” of NFL players. As one of the president’s advisers explained, by aggressively targeting NFL players, Trump believes he is “winning the culture war,” having made black “millionaire athletes” his new target. [Hillary Clinton]”.
Read more: As ‘America’s sport’, the NFL cannot escape politics
It is a sarcastic statement, revealing the president’s perception of the chauvinism of his base of supporters who portray him as a fighter for American values and symbols.
By portraying black protesters as the antithesis of all this, Trump described the players as unpatriotic elites and enemies of the nation. For a president who has constantly floundered on domestic and foreign policy since his election, the culture war between the “hardworking” and “virtuous” working class, middle-class white Americans and ungrateful, wealthy black football players is a culture war. Audience distraction is welcome.
Trump’s attacks on NFL protesters are rooted in those competing tensions rooted in the American Dream: that wealth equals freedom; that economic excellence demands national gratitude; Most importantly, blacks’ individual economic prosperity invalidated their concerns about systemic injustice and required their silence about racial oppression.
Among critics of the protesters, this has become a popular line of attack, a way to disparage the activism of black NFL players by pointing to their apparent wealth. The fact that systemic racism is clearly real and that individual prosperity does not make one immune to racial discrimination seems to have escaped the protesters’ critics.
Their complaint suggests that black athletes should be grateful to live in this country; that racism cannot exist in an America where black professional athletes are allowed to play and sign contracts for large sums of money; that black players owed the nation their silence because America “gave” them opportunity and access; that black athletes have no moral authority regarding issues of race and inequality because of their individual success; And that the success of black athletes was never their right to earn, but instead, was given to them and could easily be taken from them.
This culture war being waged against black athletes is not new. Black athletes — and entertainers — have long been keenly aware of their privileged place in American society as individuals beloved for their athletic and artistic talents, yet have denounced the moment they use their public platform to protest systemic racial inequality. Similarities between the #TakeAKnee protests and the #TakeAKnee protests Muhammad Ali Or John Carlos W Tommy Smith easily visible; There are also important similarities with the case Paul Robeson.
Robeson was an outspoken civil rights activist, college and professional football player, lawyer, opera singer, and actor, and had his passport revoked in 1950 for his political activism and rhetoric, actions that nearly destroyed his career. The star athlete and entertainer, who “represented America’s upward mobility”, soon “became public enemy number one” as institutions canceled his concerts, the public called for his death and anti-Robeson mobs burned statues of him.
During a 1956 congressional hearing, the chairman of the House Un-American Activities Committee overcame Robeson’s familiar refrain, challenging the artist’s accusations of American racism and racial oppression. He said he saw no sign of bias because Robson was fortunate, going to elite universities and playing collegiate and professional football.
Read more: Poll: Americans divided on NFL protests
Black athletes, even the silent ones, largely realize that their economic privileges do not insulate them from the reality of racial discrimination. They also realize that their fortunes and success are precarious and often dependent not only on their athletic performance, but also on their remaining silent on issues of racial injustice, especially those that seem to question the “American Dream” or the involvement of the American public through an organization.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Colin Kaepernick, whose protests have turned him into a national pariah despite his talents on the field, has filed a complaint against the NFL, accusing the league and its teams of suspending him because of his political beliefs. . “Principled and peaceful political protest should not be punished, nor should athletes be denied employment based on partisan political provocation by the executive branch of our government,” Kaepernick’s lawyers said in a statement. It is not known whether the outcast Kaepernick will win his grievances, but it is certain that he and his lawyers have rooted their claims in the contested definitions of freedom and precarious economic privilege for straight-talking NFL players.
For the loudest critics of black protesters, in particular, candor amounts to betrayal, and is grounds for the harshest punishments. They might benefit from a careful reading of James Baldwin, who once said: “I love America more than any other country in this world, and for precisely this reason I insist on my right to criticize her forever.”