While on the socials, we've come across the twitter thread by Bree Newsome Bass. Bree came into national prominence when she climbed up and took down a South Carolina confederate flag in 2015.
Why are we posting this?
Of all the great messages, writeups, and explanations out there, Bree's thread is the best we've seen so far. This discusses the NFL, Kaepernick, Jay-Z's involvement (plus recent news that he may soon be part-owner of a team), and America. We 100% agree with this.
So we decided to share it below. Please read it in its complete entirety:
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Black people are still being murdered by police who are then permitted to remain on the force.
The white nationalist president told the white NFL ownership to "get that son of a b***h off the field," and they did.
What have we moved passed exactly and why?
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A reminder that Kaepernick was forced from the #NFL because he made a personal decision, based on his beliefs, to not stand for the anthem at the start of the game. This simple action, also an issue of free speech, sparked an entire national disruption. Why?
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The central issue was always racism & police brutality. That was the issue before K being barred from playing was an issue. The controversy centered on K being outspoken on these topics & behaving like a defiant Negro when they told him to stop.
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He sat, they told him to kneel. He kneeled, they told him to stand. He didn't stand, they pushed him out. The white nationalist president told the NFL's white ownership to "get that son of a b***h" off the field," and they did. Again, why?
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Had he abused or raped a woman? No, everyone knows that's not a career-ender or barely a controversy in the NFL. Yet getting Kaepernick in line or otherwise pushing him out was critical to maintaining the white-owned NFL & reinforcing the fragile culture of white supremacy in this moment.
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If a Black NFL quarterback can be defiant in this way, anyone can. Can't have that b/c it poses challenges to both labor dynamics in the NFL & the racial caste system in the US. Many people joined in K's nonviolent protest of racial injustice, sparking further racist backlash.
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The kneeling protest movement set off a cultural firestorm b/c of how it managed to land at intersections of race, capitalism, militarism & the NFL. Kaep is in a long line of famous Black athletes who faced retaliation from the US white power structure when they spoke up about racism
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How Kaep settles his personal employment dispute is an important
but INDEPENDENT ISSUE
from how the white power structure has used the blacklisting of Kaep as a way to suppress anti-racism protest and normalize the white nationalism of the Trump admin.
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Jay-Z cutting a deal with the NFL lands at these same intersections of race, capitalism & militarism but to the opposite effect. Here it's about reviving white capitalism for the 21st century with a new brand of corporate-based social justice "solutions"
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This is happening everywhere in various forms now. Corporations & brands are hopping on the social justice bandwagon--not for the purpose of dismantling systems of oppression-- but as a marketing strategy, to ensure they keep making profit.
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I was recently told of an NFL team being interested in supporting #bailfunds for people who can't afford cash bond. But when I asked if they were willing to publicly advocate for the end of cash bail itself, there wasn't an answer.
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Jay & other billionaire capitalists are clearly approaching "criminal justice reform" as a new form of business venture while marketing it as "justice." If we aren't careful we will be facing another 50-100 yrs of this attempted upgrade to the white supremacist capitalist system
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This upgraded system will promise superficial reforms while ensuring the fundamentals of the system remain intact & the white ownership class--joined by token nonwhite figures like Jay--will continue to profit from the exploitation & brutal oppression of poor Black communities.
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Again, there is no independent system of "Black capitalism". There is one system, white supremacist capitalism, and it's organized around the generational enslavement & exploitation of Black ppl. A separate thread on that:
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The idea that we overcome systemic racism via wealth or by having token Black figures among the white ownership class is fatally wrong. Having a Black person own a slave plantation didn't make the slave system anti-racist or diminish its brutality.
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How does Jay Z having part ownership in a $billion industry that profits off exploiting Black men represent progress for Black ppl as a whole? It doesn't. Police still kill us, we face state violence when we protest & a Black man joining white ownership class doesn't change that.
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If anything, it only reinforces white capitalism by creating another token figure that people point to as an indication that racism is over. Meanwhile Eric Garner's murderer is still on the force & systemic racism continues to kill Black ppl at every income level.
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The hope is that we'll accept anti-Black racism as a norm in our daily lives in exchange for living vicariously through figures like Jay Z, Oprah & Obama, that we will abandon hopes of collective liberation in exchange for a couple of folks having wealth & proximity to whiteness.
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The hope is we won't question why gaining wealth & physical proximity to whiteness is presented as a solution to white supremacist violence when it obviously isn't. The hope is that forcing Kaep out & propping up Jay will encourage us all to be less defiant, more compliant Negroes
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If you grow up in the fields of a plantation and your response to that experience is not to abolish slavery but rather aspiring to be among the white masters in the big house who hold the whips and chains...... yeah. I don't know what to tell you but I can't trust you.
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The organization of race & labor in the USA is a direct outgrowth of slavery/Jim Crow. If u can't see that & truly think ur an individual who just happens to be Black chasing the American Dream™ in a post-racial era where "anyone can make it"... I don't know what 2 tell u. That's "clown" territory.
(you can follow Bree here)