By Wilbert Cordel Kizer Moore
During the height of the Civil Rights Movement, integration was the ultimate goal for many Black American activists. Martin Luther King Jr. had dedicated much of his life to the fight for integration, and became known for his iconic “I Have A Dream” speech where he detailed his vision for a world where everyone, regardless of race, could join hands and be treated equally.
In theory, integration seemed like a good idea, but what was it in practice?
Before integration, Black Americans had to focus our love on those who needed it most—ourselves. It was in this climate that some of the greatest resistance movements in American history were acted out. During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, for example, sparked when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus, the entire Black community of the city refused to ride the bus until the laws segregating the public service was abolished. This meant that most of these Black people had to walk miles and miles to work every day for an entire year, and they did so proudly because they believed in what they were fighting for.
Fast forward to today, where the forces they were resisting are still very much in place. Recently, the NFL announced a new rule that would fine any team if one of their players decided to take a knee (or perform any protest) during the National Anthem as a response to the growing trend of NFL protests started by Colin Kaepernick.
In 2017, after Kaepernick failed to be picked up by any NFL organization in what is widely believed to be punishment for his protests, Black activists called for an NFL boycott, urging all Black people to not watch any football throughout the season. While many activists followed through with the boycott, an even larger number of Black people were completely unfazed by the call and continued to watch, some even doing so to mock those who believed in the boycott. Now that the NFL announced the new rule to fine protesters in the NFL, the conversation to boycott the NFL has come up again, and unfortunately I believe that it will have a similar response as it did last year.
A reality that Black activists have to come to terms with is that we are no longer dealing with the same culture that past generations experienced during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Integration has completely warped the way many Black Americans deal with race issues.
The way integration was carried out in America was designed to make Black people desire white comfort. Instead of integrating all Americans into the same spaces, what actually happened was that the government simply forced Black people into white spaces without first creating opportunities for them to be able to compete with the already established white industries. This is why when schools were desegregated white children didn’t go to Black schools, but vice-versa. This was done without changing the systems that insured the white schools would consistently have more available resources because they already existed in wealthier neighborhoods.
Because integration reinforced the idea that white = better, many Black Americans considered newly available white establishments to be of higher quality, which allowed white business owners to become even richer by doubling their clientele while completely disrupting Black businesses.
Because integration brought Black people to white spaces and not the inverse, it was accompanied by pressures for Black people to make white people more comfortable. This has created a culture of Black people who at times willingly subjecting themselves to disrespect so that their white counterparts won’t be upset, while simultaneously creating a culture of white people who refuse to be held accountable for their disrespect because they’ve never had to be.
The NFL knows they will not suffer a great loss by forcing their athletes to stand during the National Anthem because most Black Americans simply will not boycott an organization if their only crime is racism.
Before he was murdered, Martin Luther King had become disillusioned with the concept of integration, being quoted by Harry Belafonte to have said, “I fear I am integrating my people into a burning house.” But King continued to say that if the house was on fire, it is Black people’s responsibility to become the firemen who put it out. Malcolm X, on the other hand, once said of this proverbial burning house that the difference between the house negro and the field negro was that if the master’s house was on fire, the house negro would try to put the fire out while the field negro would pray for a strong wind. Right now, the NFL players are in the burning house, and they have the power to become the firemen that King hoped for, or they could walk away while praying for a strong wind.
What’s most likely is that they will do neither, and simply comply with the new rule. This system that oppresses them along with the rest of Black America, also sustains their lifestyle. If Black people in the general public are so comfortable with this system that they will not fight it by simply missing a football game, it becomes unreasonable to expect the Black people who are being paid millions of dollars to be a part of the system to want it to crumble.
Colin Kaepernick is an anomaly that I have the utmost respect for because he was willing to lose his position in the NFL to risk something for what he believes in. What we now must push for is that this ideology of risking the comforts of whiteness we now have marginal proximity to spreads to more Black people, both in and out of the sports arena. The NFL will not be the last organization to create rules specifically designed to control their Black employees. This is only a continuation of when the NBA forced players to wear suits to games, or when the NFL banned touchdown dances. All of these were rules that were obviously targeted primarily at modifying the behavior of Black players.
This is a trend that has persisted since the beginning of this country, because there’s nothing more American than profiting from Black people’s labor while doing everything in your power to diminish their free will.
Suggested Reading:
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 2010
Wilbert Cordel Kizer Moore is a writer from Memphis, Tennessee. He’s a pro-black, pro-queer, pro-woman, pro-heaux activist that enjoys reading books and people.
