Opponents of the NFL players’ national anthem protest couldn’t have been more delighted with what they saw Sunday before the start of the game between the Carolina Panthers and the Philadelphia Eagles.
Once united as central figures in a movement started by San Francisco 49ers former quarterback Colin Kaepernick designed to shine a light on the shooting deaths of unarmed Black men by police, safeties Malcolm Jenkins of the Eagles and Eric Reid of the Panthers had to be separated before the game.
Reid called Jenkins a “sellout” after the game and accused him of hijacking the movement for players’ social justice causes, to which NFL owners contributed $89 million. Meanwhile, Reid has spent the last year campaigning to get Kaepernick, blackballed by league owners, a job.
Sadly, the message, which had united them and others, has been lost in the two years since Kaepernick knelt on the sideline in protest.
So there was Reid, huffing, puffing, eyes bulging in his head and looking very much like a 17th century prized slave-trained cock primed to fight mindlessly for his plantation owner. The stadium was packed, business was humming, and here was Reid — his once noble fight against police brutality a distant memory — ready to go full-blown gladiator against a one-time friend for no other reason than an inability to recognize – as Black folks have done through the ages – that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
It is well documented that there never was a Willie Lynch, the purported author of a speech delivered along the banks of the James River in Virginia in 1712. But the message – that the key to controlling slaves was to set them against each other and eventually they’ll perpetuate this behavior – remains a self-defeating mindset that African Americans, such as Reid, either can’t or refuse to unshackle themselves from.
Segregationist did everything in their power to prevent the March on Washington, D.C., from happening in 1963. However, African Americans, suffering under the weight of Jim Crow laws, were inexplicably working just as hard to usurp the moment.
The great Malcolm X labeled it the “Farce on Washington.” For Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, it was “a sanitized, middle-class version of the real Black power movement.”
Two key figures, the more moderate Bayard Rustin and firebrand SNCC President John Lewis wanted nothing more than to abolish Jim Crow laws and the mindset that created them. However, they had differing road maps to get to the same destination and their differences, just like those between Jenkins and Reid, became arbitrary focal points that in the grand scheme of things amounted to absolutely nothing.
Even minutia such as the musical acts became an issue as more radical African Americans wanted nothing to do with eventual performances by white singers Peter, Paul and Mary, Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.
Sacrifice and compromise eventually corrected things, history was made, and the movement had a moment, which continues to inspire millions across the globe. The biggest sacrifice, of course, was made by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who eventually lost his life to an assassin’s bullet in 1968.
What Reid needs to come to terms with — instead of wanting to brawl with someone like Jenkins — is that doing so only affirms the beliefs of those who never saw the protests as legitimate. Part of this also includes accepting that there is real collateral damage associated with any movement and in this case that loss is the likely end of Kaepernick’s career.
“I would never get up here and say anything bad about somebody who I knew whose intentions were real about helping their community, especially another Black man,” said Jenkins, striking the appropriate tone after being told of Reid’s comments. “I’m not going to say anything negative about that man. I respect him, I’m glad he has a job, I’m glad he’s back in the league and I’ll leave it at that.”
Reid, who says Jenkins co-opted the protests, might want to considering co-opting Jenkins’ more thought out approach. The continued infighting, the elevating of spectacle over substance, is the tactics detractors are looking to promote.
John N. Mitchell has worked as a journalist for more than a quarter century. He can be reached at jmitchell@phillytrib.com and Tweet at @freejohnmitchel.
https://www.phillytrib.com/commentary/columns/selling-out-the-cause-with-divide-and-conquer-mindset/article_9e55c6fc-2798-513d-a62a-60ad0d5cc984.html
About Post Author
