On Friday the NFL finally had to turn over that bag to Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid as both parties decided to settle their collusion case against the NFL before it actually went to trial. We’ll never know just how much bread the league had to pay them but in my Don Cornelius voice, “You can bet your bottom dollar” that they got PAID!!!
The NFL owners didn’t want to get drug through the mud on this one so it made sense to settle. Cats like Roger Goodell, several owners and at least two other NFL executives, were selected to be deposed in this case. They were also asked to turn over all cellphone records and emails.
Boyz weren’t ready to give up all of that and for it to become public knowledge. Do you know how bad this foolishness would have gotten for the NFL? They wanted no part of that so settling out of court made all of the sense in the world.
Listening to some NFL analysts, namely Teddy Bruschi, on Friday being mad that they settled out of court because there is obviously a confidentially agreement in place. Therefore, we’ll never know the details of what Reid and Kaepernick actually got paid. However, it doesn’t matter what they received just understand that the league had to give them a truck load of bread to make it go away. It sends a message to rich folks that think they can’t treat people any ole kind of way and get away with it that they can’t do that anymore.
Let’s keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1st! The name of the game is money. If people start losing money for being insensitive or racist then it changes the way they operate. Until they get hit they’ll continue to operate under the guidance of foolishness.
In December of 1955 Martin Luther King Jr. along with the Montgomery Chapter of the NCAAP with the help of Rosa Parks started the Bus Boycott. They hit the public transit system in the pockets. No blacks road the bus for darn near a year essentially bringing the transit system in that city to it’s knees for making black folks give up their seats to white folks.
In November of 1956 the Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional and the boycott successfully ended. Nobody was standing around asking about how much the transit company of Montgomery loss Teddy Bruschi. They lost enough to beg for forgiveness to get those black patrons of the public transit system back on those buses. Money is the name of the game.
I just read a few days ago about the sporting goods store, Prime Time Sports, in Colorado Springs going out of business after 21 years because the owner decided that it was a good idea to stop selling Nike apparel after they made Colin Kaepernick the face of their 30th Anniversary campaign. The store owner, Stephen Martin, says that he can’t afford to stay open any longer.
Ole boy told KOAA-TV that “Being a sports store without Nike is kind of like being a milk store without milk or a gas station without gas.” His personal biases and foolishness didn’t allow him to see all of that until he got hit in the pockets. Now it’s too late. We don’t care how much he lost. We just know that he lost and now he’s paying for not being open minded enough to want to understand what folks that don’t look like him deal with in this country on a daily bases.
We all live in this country together, in the same neighborhoods many times and we breathe the same air. However, we don’t live in the same world. What people of color have to endure in this country is not the same experience that our white counterparts have. So it’s time that people understood that it’s not the same for everyone and that it’s time to do something about it.
Trying to dismiss Colin Kaepernick for kneeling in protest of police brutality, racial and social injustice and getting away with it sounded good at the time because there were no repercussions for doing it. Now there is. So I bet the NFL owners won’t pull that type of stunt again. Who cares what they loss in the settlement just know that they loss. Money is the name of the game.
I don’t really care if folks are treating people of color equally because they think that it’s morally the right thing to do. Just treat them fairly and equally because the law says that it’s necessary. I don’t really care if you like stopping at red lights as long as you do. By doing so it saves lives and makes for a better driving experience for everyone traveling. When you don’t follow the rules of the road you get a ticket and it suddenly forces you to follow the rules. Why? Because money is the name of the game. In my WuTang Clan Method Man voice, “Cash Rules Everything Around Me-CREAM-Get the Money, Dollar Dollar Bill Y’all.” Stop me when I start lyin’!