Who's Your Bully?

President Trump is under fire for stating that he believes that professional athletes, particularly NFL players, are being disrespectful of their country with their National Anthem protests. He even took it further, suggesting that NFL owners fire these ungrateful miscreants. Although they have the right to free speech and can express their displeasure with any perceived slights they believe are afflicting Americans of color, the fact remains that President Trump is correct in his view. Athletes that have the skills necessary to perform on the public stage and earn a considerable amount of money for doing so, have to keep in mind that, although Charles Barkley may disagree, they are examples for those that pay to watch them, particularly young people, who can be unduly influenced by their actions. So, back to the question at hand, who is the bully? President Trump who speaks his mind and has an opinion, shared by a majority of citizens of these United States, or athletes that use the public stage to promote a reality that, truly, no longer exists?

Over the last 8 years we were exposed to President’s Obama’s opinion of unequal race relations in this country. From the Cambridge police officers questioning a black professor attempting to break into his home without the requisite identification on his person that were deemed to be “acting stupidly” by our commander in chief to his divisive comments about the police after the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and his suggesting that if he had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin. Personally, I believe that President Obama’s outspoken criticism of the police has driven the spike in violence against police officers including the shooting deaths of 5 Dallas officers and any number of police that have been ambushed by persons of color that somehow believe that every white police officer begins his tour of duty with the intent to kill as many persons of color that he can. President Obama’s views on racial inequities could not be further from the truth.

Having been a police officer for 29 years, I think I have a clearer understanding of how law enforcement in conducted. Every time force of any nature is used by a law enforcement officer it is thoroughly investigated. Any use of deadly force is referred to the District Attorney’s office and if the officer is deemed to have used an unlawful level of force, he/she will be subjected to the appropriate criminal charges and the courts will prosecute. Video recorders on squad cars and on the police themselves, document almost all of the police interactions with citizens, to be used as evidence against the perpetrator, even if it is the police officer. Records of police interactions with minorities are monitored by the Justice Department and any agency with an inordinate number of contacts with minorities will have action taken against them. After Ferguson, out of 17,985 US law enforcement agencies, only 21 departments, including St. Louis and Ferguson, were under investigation by the DOJ due to civil rights complaints, amounting to just over .001% of all police agencies in the country.

Have all racial biases been erased? Not all, but claims that minorities somehow are being targeted by police has no factual basis. Take the incident involving Seattle Seahawks player Michael Bennett and the Las Vegas Police. Police responded to a shooting in progress. Everyone in the casino was ordered to lay down on the floor with their hands in front of them. Bennett decided to hide and not comply with the officers. He then thought it appropriate to try to flee on foot. I’m sorry, but he is extremely lucky that the officers had the prudence to refrain from assuming that he was the bad guy by shooting him and eliminating the threat he presented to them and the public. Now he has the temerity to complain and threaten a civil rights lawsuit. Talk about the world turning upside down. Then you have Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors vacillating about not attending a white house visit because he doesn’t like President Trump. President Trump says fine, then I’m rescinding your invitation and the left and media (I repeat myself here) goes on another “hair on fire” rampage. Now the whole team will not attend. Great, that will open up the calendar for President Trump so that he can continue to advance the people’s agenda.

For many, sports are an avenue to escape from the harsh realities of this out of control world. If I want to listen to politics, I will tune in to Fox News, CNN or any other news channel. I don’t need to be lectured to by any celebrity, including athletes, that don’t have the intelligence or can’t or won’t properly inform themselves. (See LeBron James, Leonardo DeCaprio, etc….) I think we can look no further than NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s response to President Trump. “Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.” Talk about calling the kettle black. And this is coming from the man presiding over the NFL’s fall from grace! These “protests” by NFL players are simply showing a lack of respect for the country that gives them an opportunity to become rich playing a game. This is the ultimate insult to all those who contribute to the money they make. Even if you do not watch or attend, you are paying, when the cost of items you purchase rise, in part, because of the advertising on the networks that broadcast those events.

Unqualified and erroneous “facts” are repeated over and over by the left and they attack anyone who fails to share their opinions. See illegal immigration, global warming, and especially the University of California, Berkeley and any number of college campuses that will use any means necessary to squelch any conservative speaker with the audaciousness to schedule an appearance at these “so-called” bastions of debate and free exchange of ideas, unless it fits their progressive, liberal agenda. Who is it that is really engaging in hate speech? The real bully is becoming more and more apparent, and he does not live in the White House.