by Ijeoma Oluo
According to the indictment, Bennett pushed past a sixty-six-year-old disabled female security guard at a New England Patriots game that Bennett had attended to support his brother Martellus, who played for the Patriots. Houston police chief Art Acevedo held a bizarre press conference demonizing Bennett. “You’re morally corrupt when you put your hands on a little old lady in a wheelchair,” he said. “That is morally corrupt… morally bankrupt. He’s morally bankrupt. There’s no excuse for that.”49
Much about the indictment and the theatrics around it seemed suspect to Bennett and many observers. The alleged incident had occurred over a year earlier, and yet the matter was shelved by police until Bennett came forward about his altercation with Las Vegas police in September 2017. It was only then that police in Houston began investigating the complaint and, with no video or photo evidence tying Bennett to the assault against the security guard, decided to press charges—just as he was about to release his book, which discussed in detail his assault by Las Vegas police officers.50
Equally disturbing was Acevedo’s press conference itself. Police are not supposed to make disparaging comments about defendants in public, lest they taint the jury trial. And yet here was the chief of police in a major city calling Bennett “morally corrupt.” The level of vitriol was also unusual for a crime that appears to have only wounded a person’s shoulder. Acevedo exaggerated the assault for the cameras, stating that Bennett deliberately pushed an elderly woman and her wheelchair to the floor in his haste to get to his brother. Officers had to later clarify that, no, the woman had not been pushed to the floor, and that with her motorized wheelchair weighing eight hundred pounds, doing so would have been almost impossible.
To many, myself included, it appeared as if Bennett had been made a target by a police department for daring to speak out against police brutality. Bennett, however, saw what had happened to him as simply part of what happens to Black people around the country.
“At first it felt like a conspiracy, but it just happens to be what a lot of Black people go through in America—especially Black men,” Bennett explained to me. “We get charged, and if you have a great lawyer you can win and if you don’t you end up in jail. I think I was just part of the system and part of what happens to a lot of Americans.
“Your freedom is everything, and if you don’t have freedom, what are you supposed to do? You won’t be able to take care of you kids.… It was just a heavy weight,” he continued, reflecting on the year and a half he spent in legal limbo. “When I look back—I think it’s just overwhelming when I look back and think about all that.”
When Black people threaten white authority, even mildly, there is often a price to be paid. I do believe that Bennett was targeted by police in Harris County. Whether it was because of his protests, or because he spoke out about his treatment by Las Vegas police, or a combination of both, I don’t know. But I know that the police in Harris County were willing to waste a lot of money and resources to publicly take on a case that never had any real standing, when the only potential benefit to them would be the damage it would do to Bennett’s name and career.
Bennett would live in legal uncertainty until April 3, 2019, when all charges were dropped, citing insufficient evidence. While Bennett was fighting for his freedom, the NFL was still struggling to find a way to get players to stop protesting. With every new protest, Trump would take to Twitter, firing up his angry supporters to attack the NFL. He started telling football lovers to walk out of games if any players protested. Goodell was trying to figure out how to get the league to support racial justice in a way that would make players feel like they could stop protesting.
Although a lot of white commentators decried the athletes’ protests, demanding that the athletes “focus on the game,” it is important to remember that social causes are not new to professional sports. Professional leagues, including the NFL, have given money and time to raise breast cancer awareness, to fight hunger, and to provide toys to poor children. When we look at the response to peaceful, unobtrusive protests against the killing of unarmed Black men, we need to ask ourselves why so many white Americans saw these protests as an insult.
Kaepernick took a knee to protest a racist system that devalued Black lives. His specific targets were our social and political systems, which were harming people of color. Black athletes who joined the protest spoke repeatedly about the reasons why they were participating—and the reasons pretty much all revolved around their need for equality and safety in a world that was harming them. That this was so easily reinterpreted as an attack on America and therefore an attack on whiteness speaks to how closely many white Americans identify with our racist, oppressive systems.
Members of the Players Coalition met with Goodell, and they began discussing an $89 million commitment from team owners toward social justice issues. It is natural that some players would be skeptical of the NFL’s motives for offering up the money, given the way that Kaepernick continued to be treated. Goodell assured the players that it wouldn’t be contingent on the cessation of protests, but he stated a hope that players would be satisfied enough to begin standing for the anthem again.
Protests continued, if to a lesser degree, throughout the negotiations, and Trump continued to place public and private pressure on team owners to stop them.
The skepticism that some players had toward the NFL was justified when league leadership suddenly reversed course on the player protests. Many players felt stunned and betrayed when the NFL announced in May 2019, with no consultation with the players’ union, that they were banning protests. Any player who protested the national anthem would be fined or suspended. Players and the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) were outraged at this violation of players’ rights of free speech and of their collective-bargaining ability.
Although Goodell called the new rule a “compromise” that all owners had agreed to, there was clearly some dissent. Jets owner Christopher Johnson said shortly after the rules were announced that he would not punish his players for peaceful protests and would pay any fines they incurred for doing so. Jed York of the 49ers said that his team had abstained from the vote on the new policy.
Whatever the reason behind the NFL’s sudden decision, the league appeared to have overstepped its bounds. Banning protest of any kind raised red flags with the NFLPA, as the right to protest and speak freely in the workplace has long been a foundation of union power. While the NFL could punish one man to set an example, any broad rules limiting player protest could also restrict union strikes down the line. The Players Association filed a grievance with the NFL, and the press lambasted the league’s poorly thought-through rules that were, in most legal experts’ opinions, unconstitutional.
The NFL quickly backed down, stating that it would continue to discuss a solution with players before implementing any new rules.
More than a year after leaving the 49ers, Kaepernick was still unsigned. Even the Seattle Seahawks, who had staged team-wide protests and whose coach had been vocally supportive of his players, canceled a scheduled practice with Kaepernick when he wouldn’t assure the team that he would quit protesting.
But Kaepernick did not back down, and he did not forget his promises. On January 31, 2018, Kaepernick announced that he had reached his goal of giving $1 million to organizations serving oppressed communities. Kaepernick had paired up with celebrities and community leaders, pledging to match their donations to boost the overall amount of his own contributions. Usher, Meek Mill, Serena Williams, Snoop Dogg, and Jesse Williams were each inspired to give $20,000 to $40,000 to community organizations.51
“With or without the NFL’s platform, I will continue to work for the people,” Kaepernick said when accepting Sports Illustrated’s Muhammad Ali Legacy Award in December 2017. “Because my platform is the people.”52
I asked Michael Bennett why he continued to protest and speak out, even after dealing with hostile management and teammates, angry fans and press, and possib
le police retaliation.
“At some point the silence is a sin against God—because you are required to be the person you want to be, you are required to speak up,” he explained. “We might run a mile in 4.2 minutes. We might run the hundred-yard dash in 9.6 seconds. But I think the true legacy is how we leave our people—what we do. What is really our obligation as human beings is to change humanity and change society. So as athletes we have to realize that we do have the power—more power than just dunking the ball.”
Many fans of football who were dismayed over Kaepernick’s protests may be quite pleased that he has been kept from their beloved game. But in punishing Kaepernick, and in stifling player protest, the NFL has maintained a status quo that has harmed all NFL players, of all races. The reactions to the protests at the University of Missouri and to the NFL protests have nothing to do with respect or patriotism. They have to do with power.
“It wasn’t about kneeling during the anthem, gimme a break,” said Dave Zirin with a chuckle when I asked him about the NFL’s reaction to Kaepernick. “It wasn’t even fear of alienating white fans or ratings, because their money is locked in from TV—from public money. They didn’t give two shits about that.”
Football is unique to American sport in that it can make superstars and millionaires out of its players while also fundamentally disempowering them by ensuring that the majority of money and power in the sport will always go to the institutions that own it. It begins in college football, where for many schools, the sport keeps the lights on. College coaches can make tens of millions of dollars a year at big football schools. Players are recruited with the promise of a chance at stardom, the education itself offered by the college often given a lower priority in courting these talents. Student athletes are asked to carry their class load, keep in peak physical condition, and risk life-altering injury every week—and they do it without receiving a cut of the hundreds of millions of dollars that their blood, sweat, and talent bring in. When the majority of the players are Black, it is hard to not see the racial implications of Black men physically toiling for free in order to make white institutions millions of dollars.
As Dave Zirin noted, “These football players at the collegiate level are both completely powerless and have so much power—and both of these things exist side by side. It’s all about whether or not they exercise that power.”
When Black student athletes at Mizzou seized control of the social power that their work and talent had provided them, how can we be surprised that the institutional power that seeks to harness the athletes’ physical power worked to ensure that student athletes would not attempt to exercise their power again? As with so many other institutions that were built to maintain white male authority, any change that threatens the power dynamic must be stopped—even if that change would also benefit white men.
Both the University of Missouri protests and the NFL protests were about labor—more specifically, about a controlled labor force. Entire college and university budgets are built off of the exploitation of football players, regardless of race. Players of all races are being injured, are having their lives irrevocably altered at the young age of nineteen and twenty, all for the remote chance that they might break into the pros. They are breaking their bodies—and often their minds—in order to make millions, even billions, for schools that will give them little in return.
If these athletes make it into the NFL, they will find themselves in some of the most exploitative contracts in professional sports. They will endure workouts at levels of intensity and frequency that doctors say are unsafe. They may suffer multiple concussions that could leave them permanently disabled, violent, or suicidal in later years. They will make good money for the few years they can play before they are injured. With no guaranteed contracts, they will be sent packing when the injuries are too inconvenient, or when a younger player comes along who is willing to risk injury for a little less pay. Then, they will be forgotten.
But sometimes the ones who aren’t forgotten use their legacies to try to change the game. In the fall of 2018, a group of football greats—including legends like Jim Brown, Joe Namath, and Lawrence Taylor—threatened to boycott the annual hall-of-fame ceremony in 2020. In their letter to the NFL Hall of Fame, they discussed the great sacrifices they had made to help earn the league billions of dollars, and they demanded health insurance and an annual salary in return:
We, the undersigned Pro Football Hall of Famers, were integral to the creation of the modern NFL, which in 2017 generated $14 billion in revenue. But when the league enshrined us as the greatest ever to play America’s most popular sport, they gave us a gold jacket, a bust and a ring—and that was it.
People know us from our highlight reels. They see us honored and mythologized before games and at halftime, and it would be reasonable if they thought life was good for us. But on balance, it’s not. As a group we are struggling with severe health and financial problems. To build this game, we sacrificed our bodies. In many cases, and despite the fact that we were led to believe otherwise, we sacrificed our minds. We believe we deserve more.53
They do deserve more. I think any fan of the game could see that. For the joy they give fans, for the money they bring to the industry and to the cities they play in—all at such great risk to their physical and mental health—they deserve more than a few years in the spotlight and a lifetime of financial and medical struggle.
Student athletes at the University of Missouri were protesting for a better labor deal. They had signed on to play football, and in return they wanted the university to provide a more racially diverse, healthy, and safe educational and living environment.
Colin Kaepernick wanted to bring attention to the issues of systemic racism impacting his life and the lives of many of his teammates of color. But he was also fighting for the ability to control his image and decide what issues his celebrity would be used for. He wanted to be able to determine how to spend his social capital in a profession that regularly requires its athletes to use that capital for NFL benefit through interviews and public appearances.
College football players have been asking for years why they can’t get a cut of the billions of dollars they bring in to their institutions. Players from high school through the NFL have been asking for better safety protections and greater transparency around the medical risks of repeated concussions. Professional football players wonder why their contracts are less secure than those in the NBA and MLB, even though they are at greater risk of career-ending injury. They bristle at the media requirements placed on them outside the game to help sell the league to the public. Retired professional players are asking for a little care for their bodies that have been broken for the sport.
The Mizzou and NFL protests did not happen in a vacuum. At the time of the NFL protests, there had been increased talk about the exploitation of college players, the autonomy and career security of NFL players, and the racial power dynamics in both settings. Meanwhile, the NFL was preparing for upcoming contract negotiations during a very high-profile year: the hundredth anniversary of the league in 2020. American football could not afford to have a player body that realized the power it wielded over both public opinion and the NFL’s earning potential.
These are labor disputes. This is workers asking if they are being compensated fairly for the work they are doing and if their labor conditions are safe and healthy. In keeping tight control over its athletes—tighter than is exercised in just about any other professional sport in the country—American football can continue to capitalize on its vast popularity and on the athletes that make it so popular, while avoiding ceding any power to those athletes.
This manipulation is unsurprising when we remember that many NFL teams started as company teams as a way to pacify and control workers. Teams like the Decatur Staleys (which became the Chicago Bears) were developed to keep workers busy and happy, and to foster company loyalty during times of union upheaval.54
According to Dave Zirin, those teams we
re encouraged “as something for workers to do after work to keep them away from union meetings, to keep them away from political meetings, to give them a social space that doesn’t involve rebellion.” Today, where businesses once used football to distract white workers from their labor grievances, American football leadership now uses race to distract the public from the labor grievances of the players.
American football was founded as part of the elite white male preoccupation with maintaining physical power over a nation and its people. When that preoccupation cost too many lives, the sport became a tool for maintaining elite white male power by distracting dissatisfied white working-class men. It is now a tool used to control the football players who risk their bodies and their brains to make rich white men even richer. And through it all, an adoring public has embraced the sport as a symbol of American power and masculinity. When we look at how the sport has embraced violence, undermined workers, and exploited people of color—what could be more American than that?
CONCLUSION
Can White Manhood Be More Than This?
I was hiding away in a relative’s cabin in the woods trying to write when my phone lit up with a news alert. There had been another mass shooting. I had been up to my neck in white male violence while researching this book, and that day, August 3, 2019, my phone told me that a gunman had opened fire in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing twenty-two people. The gunman, a white, twenty-one-year-old man named Patrick W. Crusius, confessed to police on the scene that he had been targeting Mexicans. Prior to his deadly rampage, he wrote a four-page manifesto, declaring that he was going to carry out the attack in “response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”1
The process of writing this book, analyzing the worst of violent racism and sexism in our history, all while living as a Black woman in this country, had been slowly wearing away at my soul. Reading stories of families fleeing another terrorist who was shooting and hoping to hit someone with brown skin felt like too much to bear.