USWNT and race

lil_one: thanks so much for posting all these videos and for so helpfully noting exactly where to go to hear the comments by Ali Krieger, Kelley O'Hara, and Carli Lloyd. I was very moved by Krieger's statements.

 

YES! I was just coming to say the same thing. I was so impressed with Krieger's interview and comments. She is very bright.

 

What's Kaiya's full name? Unfortunate she had to leave the game - Where is the longer interview, we should all know the specifics of how the NWSL let their Black players down.

As for kneeling/the article - The political right misconstrued the act of kneeling to be an insult to our flag, servicemen and country. Some on the left are now doing the same, but from the opposite perspective - If you DON'T kneel, then you don't support Black players and your insulting our country. It's a false equivalency, just as kneeling is offensive to our country. (the author mentions this, but seems to want it both ways.)

The author, Carlisle, doesn't interview anyone on the team but feels entitled to speak for Black players on the team without a single reference or quote.

Crystal Dunn's view form this summer on kneeling @ 21:48: "I believe people should have the right to protest during it or not protest during it" (although she was clear she did appreciate when people kneeled. personally I agree. and agree with Krieger's statement)

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgMHBVJdKsw

Side note - Where are André Carlisle articles (or any articles for that matter) about the Men's national team not all kneeling? Is this another male double standard pointing fingers at women?

 

you cannot on one hand say - "we must be able to protest in anyway we would like" and then on the other hand say, "you did not protest to my standards". When you take away all the sensationalized media out, it's logic.

(the team was wearing BLM jackets on their official National team kits, the entire team was protesting)

 

It just isn't said enough: it's very important that everyone on the team is wearing Black Lives Matter jackets. I greatly admire them for doing so.

 

Since it seems the world is going through a reckoning with race/ethnicity/gender/identity/culture/religion, we should compile a list of countries whose athletes have staged national anthem protests during international competition. Feel free to add to the list.

I'll start:
1) USA

 

Does it seem that way to you? It doesn't to me. Maybe it's because no other country had Muss- I mean, trump as its leader. Feel fortunate to be where you are and stop worrying about what happens here. That's my best advice.

 

If you are refering to taking a knee before the game, Sweden WNT did that against Hungary. But I am pretty sure they didn't protest against the national anthem.

 

Nobody is protesting against the national anthem no matter how bad it may be.

 

I don’t think I would qualify wearing a jacket saying black lives matter as “protesting”. Curious that it’s taken that way. When teams wear pink jerseys for breast cancer I don’t hear it framed as them “protesting”.

 

Black Lives Matter IS a protest organization @JanBalk
It is, by definition, a decentralized political and social movement.

So yes, wearing BLM on the front of a national team jersey is using your platform to protest for a political and social movement.

Wearing Pink is used to raise awareness and often money for cancer research. Cancer and systemic racism are not the same thing.

 

Supporting a social movement does not equate to protest. That’s literally not what the word means.

 

I don't usually care to piggyback off other posters, but I do want to point out that, IMO, the discussion of whether the SSB is the target of the protest is neither here nor there. It's important not to care whether the "anthem" is being protested, defiled, insulted or not. It it stood for me more often, I might be more inclined to care enough to explain to the naysayers, but it doesn't stand for me, and neither do they.

 

BLM is a political and social movement and organization (you left out "political" your rebuttal).

Wearing pink is for health awareness, in support of broader Breast Cancer screening.

I also think you're trying to detach BLM from its years of history, in the context of thousand of political marches, peaceful and violent, from the legal and political demands made by the BLM organization, while also ignoring how BLM has been politicized as a protest movement by both the left and the right.

 

I look at it this way:

The United States was founded based on underlying ideals.

As a constitutional representative democracy with a separation of powers form, the United States has been, is, and always will be a work in progress towards the realization of its underlying ideals. Further, because humans are human, the United States always will fall short of the perfect realization of those ideals.

From time to time, individual citizens and citizen groups believe that the United States is falling short of its underlying ideals and seek ways of calling the citizenry and their institutions (government and otherwise) to face up to the shortcomings and to do better. The ways they choose to do this vary and may be well chosen, mistaken, counter-productive, or even contrary to the underlying ideals they purport to espouse, such is the nature of the work in progress.

Some athletes and groups of athletes believe that the United States is falling short of its ideals in the areas of human racial, sexual, and ethnic diversity. One of the ways they have chosen to call on the citizenry and their institutions to face up to this and do better is by kneeling for the national anthem when played at athletic contests -- and, along with the kneeling, explaining why they are doing it

In this context, the nature of what the athletes are doing -- whether they are right or wrong -- and that some people will not like it is characteristic of our underlying national ideals and our form of government. This is the way the process works and is supposed to work.

 

Right on the mark. All of this. The analogy to supporting breast cancer screening, breast cancer research, and breast cancer survivors (all admirable efforts), is ridiculous. In response to breast cancer support, no one expresses vehement opposition by screaming "Lung Cancer Matters."

Are the members of the U.S. women's national team engaging in "protest"? Should we have long debates about that word? No. They are public figures using their celebrity status to make a powerful statement of solidarity with a very controversial protest movement that many white people hate. And doing it TOGETHER as a team, game after game.

I have great respect for these soccer stars for doing so. And I have great respect for people on this board who express their solidarity. It's worth saying here, too: Black Lives Matter. And, as the WNBA players said together for an entire season, as they were working to get one of their owners out of public office and get Raphael Warnock elected to the U.S. Senate: Say Her Name: Breonna Taylor.