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"Solidarity—and the Seattle Seahawks—Forever" (from The Nation)
"To paraphrase James Reston, it's a lot easier to to notice revolution than evolution. Well the evolution is here, and they're coming straight outta King County with a posse on Broadway. They are the NFC Champions going for back-to-back Super Bowl wins. They are the Seattle Seahawks.....But to make this a social-media story, or a narrative about the more relaxed nature at the top of the Seahawks organization, takes too much credit away from the courage of the players themselves. To have Seahawks linebacker Michael Bennett use the Super Bowl media scrum to slam the NCAA and say, "I think the NCAA is one of the biggest scams in America" and "I think there are very few schools that actually care about the players. Guys break their legs and they get the worst surgery they could possibly get by the worst doctors with the worst treatment" is more than someone sounding off. It's an act of solidarity.
To have Marshawn Lynch consciously try to control his own labor and by doing so, dredge up the worst impulses in the sports media aristocracy was, intentionally or not, a national service. Thanks to Lynch, we have seen a layer of sports writers regurgitate all of their suppressed bile against young black athletes—tweeting things like their desire for an "English to Marshawn dictionary"—and exposing the long-standing resentments older and mostly whiter sportswriters have towards the people they cover. When Lynch looked at the media and said, "Shout out to all my real Africans out there," you could almost hear the ventricles in the room constricting.
Yes, the team is owned by the wealthiest owner of them all, Paul Allen. But unless you are a fan of the Green Bay Packers, never stand with a team based on the owner. Look at the people on the field. This is a team that has had players speak out for the Black Lives Matter movement and a team that has felt no compunction against calling out a commissioner in Roger Goodell who cares more about public relations than the players and the families of players that the league employs.The Seahawks are also doing all of this while winning with a hell of a lot of style and flair....We can understandably shake our heads over the fact that the NFL—a brutal, damnable sports league—is now intimately connected to how we discuss issues ranging from violence against women, to workplace safety, to the movement against police brutality. But as long as that is the truth, we should want the people who hold that platform to be the most conscious possible participants in this discussion. This is reason enough, if you aren't from the Maine-to-Connecticut-corridor, to pull for the Seattle Seahawks. .But most of all, pull for that moment, as the confetti falls, when that walking, talking corporate crime spree Roger Goodell has to hand Marshawn Lynch the MVP trophy."
[url]http://m.thenation.com/blog/196601-solidarity-and-seattle-seahawks-forever[/url]
5 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Maybe after things have calmed down after all the hoopla of the day we can think about things from another perspective. I understand today is a big day for a lot of people, so enjoy your fun!
Livin' for the moment when I get to see Goodell hand that MVP trophy to Marshawn!!!!
