Everything is bigoted. Everything is misogynistic. Everything is homophobic. Everything is racist. Nowadays those words are hyperbolized and misused by liberals and social justice warriors everywhere.
There’s no such thing as individualism in America now and the misnomer is this epidemic began under President Donald Trump but the black lives matter movement began under former President Barack Obama.
And an NFL star perpetuated and reinforced the aforementioned notions when he claimed his white colleagues don’t understand what it’s like for “black men in America.”
The Boston Red Sox won the 2018 World Series and like any team that wins a championship; be it a major collegiate or professional team, they’re invited to the White House to celebrate it.
It’s a tradition that former President Ronald Reagan originated back in the 1980’s and has carried on until present day; except for several exceptions like when President Trump disinvited the Golden State Warriors because of a comment by star Steph Curry made and when certain other teams boycott like the University of Virginia Cavaliers just did.
The Red Sox just attended the White House late last week to celebrate their victory and nearly every person of color refused to attend.
Lemon asked him why his white teammates – those on his New England Patriots squad when they won Super Bowl LI – attended the White house championship celebration. Keep in mind too, this was a year when Tom Brady couldn’t attend because of complications with his mother’s illness.
But Bennett also skipped this White House event.
Bennett shared, “As we started taking our stance, guys were taking the knee and all these different things on every team I played on — there were conversations. And the main conversations were they just couldn’t grasp why we cared so much when we were separated from as far as wealth, well-being and who we are had nothing to do with them. They couldn’t understand that when we said like, ‘No, these are my cousins. When I look at these people, these are my cousins, these are my brothers. Yeah, I may not get pulled over today, but I’m still a black man in a Mercedes-Benz.’”
We’re all Americans. We should all be brothers and sisters despite race, color, creed, religion or political affiliation. But that’s unfortunately not how it’s viewed by certain people, which becomes a toxic perpetuation because particular faction groups look to celebrities for this kind of nonsensical advice.
Bennett also said about his white teammates, “They couldn’t understand or grasp that even though we have money, we’re still black men in America. They don’t really get what that means and what we go through just from that. They thought we separate it to another level. But we never separate ourselves from where we come from. We are still black to the end of the day. I’m no longer playing sports, but I’m going to a black man forever.”
There are a lot of intersectional parts of America. It’s not just minorities versus white people; it’s also poverty, gender, education, religious beliefs and you can even argue social status hierarchy like being famous.
It’s these kind of intersectional parts of society that should make people think in terms of individualism first and not blaming white teammates – those you were down in the trenches with – for not empathizing with hatred when you oversimplify the social constructs of society down to “my white teammates don’t get being an African American in America.”