To The Rest of The World, The NFL is a Barbaric and Racist Enterprise
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Urgent reform is needed.
No one does razzmatazz like the Americans.
Yesterday or depending on which part of the world you reside (much earlier today for me), the NFL put on quite a dazzling show. One that was replete with the very finest in the world of entertainment.
Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, Anderson Paak and Eminem(who took the knee), all shone like a billion stars.
The elaborately constructed sets allowed these mostly middle-aged men and woman to bring back the hits of the years past and amply demonstrated to the world that no one does show business like the United States.
And yet, in the midst of the partying, music and general euphoria, it was so easy to forget that the NFL is to all intents and purposes, a modern day plantation for people who look like me.
For it seemed like a long time ago that Colin Kaepernick took the knee to protest the wanton killing of Black people and it does feel like a lifetime ago when the likes of Rihanna, Adele and Cardi B, chose not to perform at the 2017 Super Bowl in solidarity with Kap.
But to millions of Americans — Brown, White and Black — all that mattered was the show that was put on yesterday by the entertainers and the athletes, not the current wranglings with Brian Flores or with former players blowing their brains off.
To those of us on the outside in Europe and elsewhere, what exactly is the problem with the NFL?
American football is a sport in which Blacks predominate in roles which require the excessive use of brawn, but not in roles where guile, strategic nous and cunning are required.
A sport where you can get away with beating up your spouse and commit other acts of violence but cannot dare to protest the killing of harmless citizens. The names, Greg Hardy, Chad Wheeler, Reuben Foster, Cayleb Jones, Ray Rice, Jonathan Dwyer, Ray McDonald, Chris Cook, Tony McDaniel and Kevin Williams, all come to mind.
A sport which knew the dangers of the hits that its employees were taking to their heads and bodies and yet did absolutely nothing to address the problem. It took Bennet Omalu…
