It’s already clear that many elements on the right really don’t think much of the NFL players who have taken a knee in protest of widespread police brutality. To Donald Trump, they’re “sons of bitches.” To Steve Bannon and his friends at Breitbart, they’re “degenerates.” To others, like Joe Walsh, they’re “ungrateful.”
But the most loaded smear of all may have come from a member of one of the most exclusive clubs in America–black conservatives who have bowed down to Trump. One of them went as far as to denounce kneeling during the anthem as an act of treason.
If you listen to black conservative pastors long enough, it will become apparent that they are trying really, really hard to ape their white counterparts. After all, the religious right is using the same playbook with black born-agains that they used with white born-agains, especially in the South–use social issues to wedge away people who otherwise have no business voting Republican. A textbook example of this is E. W. Jackson, a black conservative pastor from Chesapeake, Virginia. He was once a Democrat, but became a Republican in the 1980s because he thought the Democrats were trying to push God out of the country.
Since then, his morph has been so total that if you close your eyes when he speaks, you’d think you were listening to Lance Wallnau, Franklin Graham, or Pat Robertson. For instance, he thinks that if you don’t want kids to be force-fed Christianity in public schools, you hate God.
Possibly an even better example came on Monday, when he took to Facebook to hurl some of the ugliest comments yet about players taking a knee from someone not named Trump. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch got a clip.
Jackson started going off the rails from the start, when he blasted Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin for chewing out lineman Alejandro Villanueva’s supposed decision to break with the rest of his team and stand outside the tunnel at Chicago’s Soldier Field for the national anthem. In truth, Villanueva wanted to watch the anthem from the tunnel–and did so with the full backing of the team captains. While Villanueva apologized for making his teammates look bad, Tomlin said there was no need to apologize.
He then blasted players like LeBron James, Michael Bennett, and others for calling Trump “nasty, vulgar names” and “disrespecting the office” of the president. Um, E. W.? If you expect people to remain silent when the president of the United States calls you a “son of a bitch” for exercising your rights, your moral compass is as warped as Trump’s.
Jackson must have known he was digging a hole for himself. While he said that he wouldn’t have used the language Trump used, he claimed that Trump “expressed the sentiment of millions of Americans, including yours truly.” So riddle me this, E. W. Are you saying that you’re okay with the president of the United States using harsher language for peaceful protesters than he used for the Nazis and racists who descended on your own state last month–a crowd who was actively spoiling for violence, murdered an innocent woman, trashed her online, planned to crash her funeral, and bombarded her mother with death threats? Sure sounds like it.
Jackson hasn’t watched an NFL game for some time because he believes the protests have ruined the game. He had particularly harsh words for the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars for taking a knee and locking arms before their game at London’s Wembley Stadium. To Jackson, Americans have no right to “go to a foreign country and use the platform you have in a foreign country to criticize your own home.” He believed that most of the players almost certainly knew better, but had been “caught up in this leftist politics nonsense.”
Jackson believes that by taking a knee in London, the Ravens and Jaguars had committed treason.
“I know treason is a legal term, but it’s treasonous in its import to go to another country and use the platform of another country to criticize your own.”
He was particularly angered that the players stood for the United Kingdom’s anthem. As far as Jackson was concerned, any player who thinks they should take a knee during an NFL game in a foreign country shouldn’t bother coming home.
“If you’re going to do it, have the courage of your convictions and don’t come back! Stay there if you think that’s so great. Stay there if you think America’s so bad.”
He had the same message for those in this country who won’t stand for the anthem.
“Now, I’ve said this jokingly. I’ve said this tongue-in-cheek. But I’m saying it now seriously. Those of you who won’t stand for our flag, you won’t stand for our national anthem, who hate our country so much–just leave. I mean, you sports figures have enough money. Just leave. Renounce your American citizenship, and go somewhere else. Go find the country that you think is so just and live there, and live there and leave us alone.”
No, E. W. It was never about disrespecting the flag. It was about standing against police brutality–and doing so in a peaceful manner. You can disagree with what they say, but don’t you dare say they have no right to say it as long as they’re doing so peacefully.
(featured image courtesy Mark Taylor, available under a Creative Commons-BY license)
