I take exception with your comparison between consent adults choosing to participate in the combine, knowing full well that they will measured and evaluated with the possibility of being offered millions of dollars to play a child's game and one of the two most horrible atrocities committed by this country (the other being genocide of the indigous peoples)
Slaves did not elect to be auctioned. One must fill out paperwork to be drafted.
Slaves did not get to keep the money paid at auction, their kidnappers did. Football players are paid quite nicely.
Football players can retire at any time, slaves worked until their death. Football players have a great health care system, slaves had none. Slaves did not get paid, football players are very rich. No football player has starved to death. No football player has died on the bus or plane ride to the combine. An untold number of slaves died during the middle passage.
There may be flaws in the CBA. But to compare slavery to football is down right lunacy. It trivializes a significant and horrible period in our history.
How can you trivialize something when it still exists but exist in a different form? The only difference is that it's psychological and includes EVERYBODY. What the hell do you mean no comparison? It is what it is.
Believe it or not, even your average "White man" has to deal with bullshit in the form of psychological control from different angles, hence the term "Angry White Man".
I know several NFL players that object to the way players really are treated. LIKE DAMN OBJECTS! Listen to some of the comments on this board. Damn what Jason Taylor does off the field, just have your ass on the field. No insight or other angles included. No regard for what the guy has done for 11 years through some horrible regimes and if it appears that he says something controversial, he's OUT OF LINE.
The guys handsome, has talent and is pursuing other avenues. In other words, he's is out of his place and it's a valid point and you know it. 11 years of training camps, playing hurt (getting shot up with drugs to play regardless of whether you think players have a say so or not), dealing with crappy coaches and a crappy owner and he's looking at life after football and the "regime" is playing hardball? He requested a trade right after the season and the "regime" is holding him and that's not slavery to you? They half-assed made an attempt to deal him? He could have been dealt by now with many teams needing an impact defensive end.
How would you like to have somebody poke, prod and psychologically manipulate you and when does money deem that you're not a slave? I know rich people who are in more bondage than a homeless person. Let me ask you something, what do you think the NFL combine is for?
And basically, you don't know a damn thing about slavery other than what the US History books told you. Let me give it to you as an AFRICAN-AMERICAN. This shit is in a different form still exists today. It exist in sports and in corporations all over America but this is psychological and spiritual not physical. This damn country hasn't changed a bit. The only difference is that it touches all, black or white.
That's the problem with this country. People think that the amount of money that you make equals success.
You're telling me that the NFL in some parts doesn't resemble a slave system? What about these guys that pioneered the game that can't get benefits from the NFL now. Some are living on the streets because their pension didn't cover things. You could say that some squandered their money, fine but most didn't have an adequate pension and did go back into the workforce. You've got Hall Of Famers like John Mackey suffering from dementia, on and on, theres a list one hundred miles long.
Now you have a multi-billion corporation that can't look back and provide former players a good pension plan but built the league on their backs and thats' not slavery? What the fuck is slavery to you then? When a person is JUST in physical bondage? You wouldn't have a god damn clue because the establishment in America always wants to sweep this shit under the rug.
What do you call a damn NFL draft? It's close to an AUCTION! What do they based the draft on. A players physical presence and skills. Same slave system and players ultimately lose in the end. Only a small percentage go on to productive lives and the ones that don't, it's not always from drugs.
And for your fucking history, coming from an African-American, not all African-Americans WERE slaves. The numbers have been inflated. Only 2% of African-Americans can trace their lineage to Africa. The rest were either here or migrated from the islands. That number was inflated to overwhelm African-Americans and of course White historians wrote that. The first Transatlantic railroad was pioneered by a black man. Miami wouldn't exist without a woman named Julia Tuttle.
And there were white slaves too. Black slave owners too that were actually worse that white plantation owners.
So don't give me this bullshit about the comparison is asinine. If you don't own it, then you're subject to it. Millions of people in this country are "psychological" slaves to some kind of system.
We have a saying in music publishing. If you don't own the masters (your original music) the master owns you!
Notice I said "black and white" not just black and I'm not a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton fan. And also, one of the problems with most Americans is that you don't want to rectify shit! Sweep stuff under the rug when it's never been properly dealt with not from a standpoint of confrontation but from a standpoint of dialogue.
Okay, up in New England. As long as Randy Moss catches touchdown passes and as long as Tom Brady throws them, their okay because they are seen as "objects". Let something happen between Brady and Moss dealing with management and see how fast the fans turn on them and discard them like trash. You can ask Tony Eason about that.
And then for African-Americans, sports and entertainment is the ONLY way out and don't give me that bullshit about "Affirmative Distraction". A minorities and women still have a glass ceiling in the corporate world and a black man still has a hard time climbing the ladder and if they get in positions of prestige, they basically must give up who they are to "fit in" instead of being themselves. This is coming from an AFRICAN-AMERICAN who had to work with 82 people and only 3 white guys and I wouldn't play fucking golf with them. I had an attitude problem being me.
A basically, IT"S EVERYBODYS FAULT THAT THE SYSTEM IS THE WAY IT IS. BLACK, WHITE, MEXICAN. EVERYONE'S FAULT.
And people jump on Ricky Williams because "he's different" and he doesn't "say the right things like a football player". Williams may have a problem with weed but he's smart as hell. His problem was trying to seperate himself from the "system" and deal with the system at the same time. As long as Williams was that machine busting out 50 yard runs, people were in love with him, couldn't get enough of him. As soon as he was trying to save himself from a dumb ass coach (Wannstedt) and try to find himself, he became a dope head, a malconent (I've actually read on this site and others Williams being compared with Chris Henry?) and a fool. The message was, "you're and object making millions! You're stupid! Get your black ass back out there and run the ball! Damn your mental problem and your struggles. Your ass in supposed to be out there scoring touchdowns and trying to find a hole where there isn't one! Not many people saw past that and saw a man struggling.
And you might want to read Jim Browns' biography and North Dallas Forty by Peter Gent as well as some articles by Dr. Harry Edwards, the psychologist for the San Francisco 49ers talking about this stuff in sports.
Money does not make the individual. An individuals spirit does and that's what's wrong with this country. The vice (money and the American Dream) is what comes back to choke it.
It is what it is. There is still a slave system in many parts of American society. The only difference is that it's psychological. Talk to any NFL player and they will tell you that.
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