Ray Lewis talking about Kap

[Chuck Williams]

As usual, Ray always has to make it about himself. The attention goes away from him and he had to bring this up.

Personally, I don't see this as a Ray or Kaep issue. They both represent everything that is wrong with Black America.

It's like when people are either Blue Lives Matter or Black Lives Matter. I don't like either. They can all kill each other for all I care.

[BustOfPallas]

It does sound silly that Ray and Steve are trying to figure out how to sign a player. All players still end up going through Ozzie and he's not even mentioned.

Oz has masterfully managed to stay completely under the Radar on this, Lewis is a public relations nightmare and Steve B has become a punching bag.

I think the less you talk or reveal the better in these situations.

[BustOfPallas]

I'm taking the bait. Please illuminate us how Ray is Stephen from Django as the tweet depicted.

Come on man. Have you been in Siberia the last 5 years? I guess you missed how this organization stood by Ray Rice and then had to drop him when his love spat video turned out to be him cold cocking then standing there remorseless with a blank stare over his unconscious fiances body. Is that equivalent to what Kapernick did. No not even close. It's what happened next that makes the situation relevant. Ray Rice then got together with a sleazy lawer and teamed up with ESPN to write a hit piece trashing the Ravens and savaging Biscioitti. This organization is still suffering from the damage Ray Rice inflicted with all our "boy scout" drafting and hires.

My feelings are summed up here nicely by Steven A Smith below.

http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=20604316

If she is going to send that tweet, how long before she starts going after other team mates or sabotaging Flacco i.e. "The only reason he's starting is he's white...etc. etc.".

How can you separate the man from his partner when she is dumb enough to send out a viscous tweet trashing her boyfriends prospective employer? He wasn't even signed yet and she couldn't keep from sending out an offensive tweet.

It was a dumb thing for her to do and if you can't see that and how her actions could be extrapolated into future trouble than that's your problem. What Smith is saying is Kap did nothing to mitigate it either which is not good.

I like Kap too. I wanted us to be the team that signed him but I can see how this may have tipped things the other way especially if you look at it through the lens of the Ray Rice betrayal. I think that hurt Bisciotti a lot and he was like, no thanks, never again.

[PerpetuallyBored74]

Wait, what? MLK held marches, sit-ins, and other forms of protests that were similar in it's non-violent approach. He was assassinated for it and the U.S. government was found guilty of conspiracy in his assassination during a civil trial. Before being assassinated, he was arrested regularly, beaten, had dogs and fire hoses turned on him, etc.

Ghandi was also arrested many times, since his forms of protests broke laws (unjust laws, but laws). And also similar to MLK Jr., Ghandi was assassinated.

The two were horribly hated during their actual protests and threatened with murder and arrest regularly, until they were killed. They also received fair more praise for their protests AFTER their deaths than they did during their actual protests, mostly by those who wanted them dead.

You're telling me Kaepernick should end his non-violent protest, that's consistently gotten people talking, although mostly for the wrong reasons, to take on the protests style of two men who were killed for their protests?

No. Obviously not, though I'm sure Kap has received death threats, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make bringing up their, MLK & Ghandi's, assassinations.

Look.
Did their message get lost in its delivery?

That's my point. That's my only point--which you've conceded as much:
"You're telling me Kaepernick should end his non-violent protest, that's consistently gotten people talking, although mostly for the wrong reasons"

So, you agree with me that whatever their intentions, it's clearly not working as intended. So, what now, double-down on more of the same? Definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over because you expect the desired result to finally happen THIS TIME.

Once you get people's attention, then you steer them towards your message--and you want that message to be universal and thus all-inclusive, so that it resonates with the mainstream (moderates) since that's whose support you need--and you stay on point.

Don't make it about anything else, and don't let it become about anything else.

Which means once the kneeling had served it's purpose, getting everyone's attention, you end it, so you can keep the message at the forefront. Kap himself may have (finally) recognized this as he reportedly agreed to stop kneeling during the anthem.

Of course, that means you have to keep the message at the forefront--which means having a clear, concise message to begin with--and when everyone is not on the same page, you get the disorganized, unfocused, haphazard, hackneyed, ham-fisted, clusterfuck that is athletes kneeling and sitting, BLM, Antifa, calls for re-segregation on college campuses, the rise of fascism and race-baiting from all sides, anti-police rhetoric leading to assassinations of police, rioting and burning, innocents getting caught in the middle, etc.--which is all only going to serve in dissuading the mainstream from offering their support.

The mainstream prefers order to chaos. MLK understood this. He made sure that any chaos would always come from the enemy. Never from his people's side. All of their non-violence was done in a peaceful, orderly fashion. It only got chaotic when the police would attack with clubs, dogs, and hoses. That's how he eventually gained the support of the mainstream (back then, moderate whites) by them always being the calm, peaceful, measured ones, thus casting himself and the other activists, and by extension black people in general, in a sympathetic light when they were brutalized.

Say what you will, but by this point MLK and his people had just started making progress. Against far stiffer opposition, in a far more dangerous climate. They had to overcome SO MUCH MORE. Can you honestly say that this generation of protesters, who are all over the damn map, and sometimes even off of it altogether, actually know wtf they are doing???

[usmccharles]

You're telling me Kaepernick should end his non-violent protest, that's consistently gotten people talking, although mostly for the wrong reasons, to take on the protests style of two men who were killed for their protests?

Didn't he actually already "end" his protest during the season? (stopped kneeling because it already created the conversation)

[purple_city39]

No. Obviously not, though I'm sure Kap has received death threats, so I'm not sure what point you're trying to make bringing up their, MLK & Ghandi's, assassinations.

Look.
Did their message get lost in its delivery?

That's my point. That's my only point--which you've conceded as much:
"You're telling me Kaepernick should end his non-violent protest, that's consistently gotten people talking, although mostly for the wrong reasons"

So, you agree with me that whatever their intentions, it's clearly not working as intended. So, what now, double-down on more of the same? Definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over because you expect the desired result to finally happen THIS TIME.

Once you get people's attention, then you steer them towards your message--and you want that message to be universal and thus all-inclusive, so that it resonates with the mainstream (moderates) since that's whose support you need--and you stay on point.

Don't make it about anything else, and don't let it become about anything else.

Which means once the kneeling had served it's purpose, getting everyone's attention, you end it, so you can keep the message at the forefront. Kap himself may have (finally) recognized this as he reportedly agreed to stop kneeling during the anthem.

Of course, that means you have to keep the message at the forefront--which means having a clear, concise message to begin with--and when everyone is not on the same page, you get the disorganized, unfocused, haphazard, hackneyed, ham-fisted, clusterfuck that is athletes kneeling and sitting, BLM, Antifa, calls for re-segregation on college campuses, the rise of fascism and race-baiting from all sides, anti-police rhetoric leading to assassinations of police, rioting and burning, innocents getting caught in the middle, etc.--which is all only going to serve in dissuading the mainstream from offering their support.

The mainstream prefers order to chaos. MLK understood this. He made sure that any chaos would always come from the enemy. Never from his people's side. All of their non-violence was done in a peaceful, orderly fashion. It only got chaotic when the police would attack with clubs, dogs, and hoses. That's how he eventually gained the support of the mainstream (back then, moderate whites) by them always being the calm, peaceful, measured ones, thus casting himself and the other activists, and by extension black people in general, in a sympathetic light when they were brutalized.

Say what you will, but by this point MLK and his people had just started making progress. Against far stiffer opposition, in a far more dangerous climate. They had to overcome SO MUCH MORE. Can you honestly say that this generation of protesters, who are all over the damn map, and sometimes even off of it altogether, actually know wtf they are doing???

You're missing a key point in my post that you quoted. MLK and Ghandi were both hated DURING their protests. The same way people seem to have revisionist history in regards to Ali. Also hated DURING his protest. For all three, it was in hindsight of their protests that people started to give them the praise they garner until this day. While they protested, they were treated just like Kaepernick by practically everyone their protest didn't directly benefit.

You can talk about the change they made all you want and that's fine. Government's plotted on their lives while they were alive (sans Ali to my knowledge) and 2 of the 3 lost their lives. THEN people started to realize that their cause was a just one.

MLK did garner more support from non followers during his protests as time went on........and Kaepernick is also receiving more support as time went on. Hell, in recent weeks he's received verbal support, and even joined in protest, by players that aren't even affected by the issues he's protesting for (ie some white players like Clay Matthews, Aaron Rodgers, Jake Long, etc). Hate him in the moment, like MLK, but he's making progress......like MLK. And no, I'm not putting him on MLK's level as an activist (he's going the route of solo work as opposed to organizing groups, but to be fair there are others doing organization work). Simply pointing out a few similarities

[Ortizer]

dodged a bullet he can play for fidel

Is he even alive anymore?

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[Ortizer]

I personally had no problems understanding what the protest was about. I'm pretty sure most people understood what it was about and chose to make it about something else. That's on those people.

They were too busy crying about their wounded sensibilities

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[Ortizer]

I don't agree with this. Kaepernick isn't the first or only one to point at the issue in the last two years. LeBron and a few basketball players wore "I can't breath" shirts in warm ups. It received a little attention which was mostly people saying they shouldn't protests during sports. The Rams players came out with their hands up, so type of response. St Louis police even demanded the players be punished. Hell, Beyonce put some of the topics in a song, not even sports related, and people still basically said she should have "just did her job of entertaining and not gotten political".......basically the same response to athletes.

None of them "disrespected the flag/veterans" or wore pig socks. All of them still faced backlash that focused away from their actual focus.

Lol. People don't think music is political? Must not listen to the lyrics.

Hell, basically the entire genre of punk exists around politically charged lyrics.

System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine... The list goes on.

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[GreatWhiteNorthRaven]

Lol. People don't think music is political? Must not listen to the lyrics.

Hell, basically the entire genre of punk exists around politically charged lyrics.

System of a Down, Rage Against the Machine... The list goes on.

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Bob Dylan - Hurricane

U2 - Vertigo

Songs re: politics by more popular bands. A lot of music is about politics.

A hell of a lot of rap is about these types of issues.

[I Touchdown There]

Bob Dylan - Hurricane

U2 - Vertigo

Songs re: politics by more popular bands. A lot of music is about politics.

A hell of a lot of rap is about these types of issues.

I pretty much wrote a paper on politics in music when I was in high school. Most fun I had writing a paper!

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[boller4president]

As usual, Ray always has to make it about himself. The attention goes away from him and he had to bring this up.

Personally, I don't see this as a Ray or Kaep issue. They both represent everything that is wrong with Black America.

It's like when people are either Blue Lives Matter or Black Lives Matter. I don't like either. They can all kill each other for all I care.

Kapernick and his GF made it personal. Ray is just sticking the knife (pun intended) in Keapernicks already dead career.