Saints players and other key sports and public figures are angry at Drew Brees for his anthem comments (1 Viewer)

[HouseCall]

It's a minefield out there right now. Drew just stepped on one. I'm afraid he just stained his legacy by speaking his truth. You simply can't do that.

I won't be shocked if that NBC contract he signed for post-retirement suddenly goes away. He made a terrible decision for the current climate of things.

Now is a time for listening. Drew decided to talk and he's going to get shredded for it. It's the top story on ESPN. It is not going away any time soon. Especially after it cycles through all the afternoon programming and then again tomorrow's morning programs.

Payton might have a disaster on his hands. Ugh...

 

[DerrickB]

I wonder if Kristan Garic and Bobby will address this topic today.

 

[Louisiana Joseph]

From what I’ve seen, it’s just been disappointment in being tone deaf.

You can't be tone deaf for this any years and get a pass. Brees isn't the most aware person in the world obviously.

 

[SystemShock]

Grant Napier was fired from his radio station job for tweeting "All lives matter...every single one!!!" in response to DeMarcus Cousins asking him about BLM.

Perhaps it was the last straw... see, most notably, comments about Rod Sterling.

Exactly. People use "silence is compliance" if he says nothing, so when he speaks his mind...here we are.

Speak for yourself.

What's next? Are you going to try to say that those 19 white lives mattered?

No. I am going to say comparing number of deaths without taking into consideration population numbers is, at best, naive.

Then there are circumstances... how many "I can't breathe" videos have we seen resulting in white people dying? How many white people get 7 bullets fired at them because they inform the police officer he has a gun in his car? How many white 12 year olds are gunned down without warning at a park because they are playing with a toy gun? How many State attorneys omit to charge cops when 2 racist yahoos hunt and gun down a white man? I can keep on going, but ...

And don't get me wrong, yes, the police abuses white people too... but the abuse very disproportionate.

 

[Loco Hornet Fan]

I'm not sure why Michael Thomas gets to define what a protest he didn't create stands for but Drew Brees doesn't. Some people think it's disrespectful to our military/country as proxied by the flag. Some people don't think so. People get to disagree. Drew Brees has done more to help the majority black city of New Orleans than every person who's trashing this on Twitter combined.

Michael Thomas isn't the one defining it. Kaepernick himself, as well as countless others, have explained time and time again what this was about and why they chose kneeling as the action.

 

[Taker597]

You can't be tone deaf for this any years and get a pass. Brees isn't the most aware person in the world obviously.

He can speak well, but you got to remember that he is a football player not a lawyer or a doctor. Drew is super gullible too.

He needs a better publicist

 

[nola0723]

"racism works both ways though."

[/QUOTE]

It comes across like you think racism is a feeling (like "I hate purple people"). But this is about systemic racism. This is about the first "policing" in the US coming in the form of slave patrols, whose role was to capture enslaved people. This is about a history of brutality by police. I mean, those water hoses and dogs in the 60s were unleashed upon black people by police! And it goes on. And they are not held accountable. Because it's built into the system. It's systemic racism within policing. Which is not about a few bad apples. It's about a rotten system.

 

[SystemShock]

So only white people are in power

Overwhelmingly, yes.

But it is not just about that...

 

[Doug B]

I am horrified at us beating ourselves or being in our own way again. This does nothing for our team’s unity and the Bucs and Falcons have to be licking their chops watching our team at odds with our quarterback.

Speaking of: as high a profile athlete as Tom Brady is ... has he ever touched politics or religion with a ten-foot pole? I can't recall him ever publicly saying anything about much of anything -- and you know someone had to ask him about Colin Kaepernick at some point.

 

[St. PreDATor]

Overwhelmingly, yes.

ok and so that doesn’t mean only ... so when someone says the whites won’t listen is also racism because it’s not about white or black it’s about right or wrong

 

[perret318]

Hey remember when football was about football? Actually neither do I.

One of the things that ticks me off about this whole thing is that Brees was asked about this in the first place. The media wanting to drag the current issues into everything to sell clicks (and look at that - it worked).

We have a FINANCE institution asking a SPORTS figure what he thinks about a POLITICAL-CULTURAL situation. Quite frankly, Drew, I think you're the greatest QB the Saints have ever had and one of the greatest QB's the NFL has ever seen. But I couldn't give a tiny rat's behind what you think about people choosing to kneel during the the anthem. I think it's inappropriate for the media to ask you about it, and irrelevant for you to comment on it.

 

[Gumboman84]

All the crap this dude has done for New Orleans, both black and white, speaks to how he feels. If this bothers him, so be it.

The statement he made, seems he is not listening to the reason for kneeling. What is being taken from Drew by them kneeling? What is being taken from the black athletes when they are told to find another way to get your point across? Of course non people of color wouldn't understand it if it isn't happening to you. Imagine if they made Superman black, can you imagine the outrage......

 

[onanygivensunday]

How about everybody stands for the National Anthem and there is a 8:46 minutes/seconds of silence before every NFL game played from this point forward. Those wanting to kneel should do so during the 8:46 minutes/seconds of silence.

 

[nolaspe]

Malcolm Jenkins reacts... (language at the end)

 

[zorro37]

Extremely disappointed by the way he approached the question - above all that he went straight into here is what I think, here is my personal spin on things. Made it clear from the outset that he has no interest in hearing or being open to other perspectives. To not even hear him say something along the lines of "I fully appreciate and respect the reasons people are protesting..."? Really poor.

To then try and spin his answer round to equate his grandfathers fighting in World War 2 for the love of the flag with the Civil Rights Movement as if the Civil Rights Movement wasn't having patriotism and the idea of a pure America used as a stick to beat them with? Really really poor.

This is a time for people to educate themselves, get other points of view, listen to and amplify the voices of people of colour. Listening is key as tensions and emotions run extremely high. Brees did the opposite here and has dug himself a hole so deep it is going to be extremely difficult to get out of, no matter what PR stunts and charity donations he and the Saints organisation throw at it.