On the President, Peaceful Protests, and Professional Athletes

So, just to clarify: waving a traitorous Confederate flag and chanting anti-Jewish slogans during an alt-right white supremacy march is constitutionally-protected free speech and makes some of those participating in the march “very fine people,” but African-Americans silently and peacefully kneeling during the National Anthem in protest of white supremacy and police brutality against people of color makes them “sons of bitches” who should be “fired” from their jobs.

This is the stated logic of the present President of the United States, Donald Trump.

You can’t call for peaceful protests and then call the peaceful protesters “sons of bitches” that “ought to be fired.” Because black athletes (and white athletes, and Latino athletes, and Asian athletes, etc.) always respond well when you call their mothers “bitches.” Right Mr. President?

 

On Friday, Sept. 22, 2017, at a campaign rally in Huntsville, Alabama, in response to African-American athletes taking a knee during the National Anthem to protest police brutality against African-Americans, President Trump said, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now! Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!'”