Ever obsessed with imagery over substantive policy, Donald Trump has been whining about the nation’s urgent need to hold crowded sports events. I can’t wait for Donald to get his wish… and to see an entire stadium crowd kneeling in protest of his fascism right alongside NFL players:
In discussing Saints quarterback Drew Brees’ comments on kneeling during the national anthem, Peterson said “without a doubt” he would take a knee during the anthem, and he expects several other players to join him.
“Just four years ago, you’re seeing Kaepernick taking a knee, and now we’re all getting ready to take a knee together going into this season, without a doubt,” Peterson said [Nick Selbe, “Adrian Peterson: ‘Withou a Doubt’ Planning to Kneel During National Anthem,” Sports Illustrated, 2020.06.07].
Trump is mad, of course, that anything he wants might be turned into a proud demonstration of resistance to what he wants and a demand for change from the awful status quo that he vulgarly represents.
Here in South Dakota, where sports are a deeper part of our civic religion than gatherings in the park, kneeling during our civic hymn in our temples of sport could be a highly potent demonstration of our will to change our society from a militarized police state to a social justice state. As our schools rush to remobilize their athletic activities, protestors should keep an eye on those revised fall calendars and prepare to bring their voices and their knees to our stadia and gyms to remind all of our neighbors that we have more important problems to solve than selling tickets to ball-throwing events.
SDHSAA put out state propaganda to member schools when Kap took a knee during the 2016 season. AD’s and coaches went along with the limits on limiting student-athlete demonstrations. I hope we see student-athletes follow their conscience this time and not the directives of the the ruling class. That would be a beautiful sight to see on a Friday night during football season.
Did the SDHSAA ban any kind of personal speech or demonstration? Penalize it?
Speech restrictions is school are trickier. Landmark cases Tinker 1969 and Hazelwood 1988 create a tension in which students don’t shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolyard gate but school officials still retain broader authority to restrict student speech than other officials have to restrict speech in other public places. Students who join protests at school events may face penalties… but Dr. King would remind them that exercising civil disobedience includes consequences.