Here’s a letter that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should write to the players who want to make the National Anthem a political and racial issue:
Dear Players:
Let me assure you that the NFL takes your issue very seriously, whatever it might be. In fact, we take it so seriously that we want to give you a platform that is much better than demonstrating during the National Anthem.
I have asked each head coach to set aside time at the next team meeting or practice for each of you to write a manifesto of at least a thousand words, summarizing your grievances against society, the nation, the system, the man, or whatever, or whomever. The NFL will then collect these manifestos, type them verbatim with no editing, reproduce them, bind them in a booklet, and distribute the booklets to fans and the media.
Please use your college education to the fullest in writing your personal manifesto. Apply your learning in literature, exposition, history, sociology, economics, anthropology, philosophy, and logic to the task.
This should be your own work and not be written by anyone else. This exercise will be unlike your experience in college, where many of you had academic coaches to help you with homework and tests. It should reflect your own thinking.
For a greater impact, you should weave into the manifesto references to your favorite works of literature and history, your favorite moral philosophers, your favorite economic theories, your favorite political system, and your favorite sociological studies. If, let’s say, you favor Heidegger or Popper over Kant or Mill, explain why. The same if you prefer Karl Marx over Adam Smith, or vice versa. Likewise, you could expound on Thomas Piketty versus Milton Friedman, or Cornell West versus Thomas Sowell. Alternatively, if you subscribe to Black Liberation Theology, you could expound on that.
If your grievance has to do with the social and economic problems of blacks, then fans and citizens in general would be interested in knowing what you think of sociologist Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s scholarly research in the 1960s, “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action.” As you no doubt know from your college studies, Moynihan was a Democrat who worked in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and would go on to be a Democrat member of Congress. Interestingly, one of his staff members at the Labor Department was Ralph Nader. Equally interesting, Moynihan had raised the idea of a guaranteed income for everyone.
Was Moynihan correct in his prediction that LBJ’s Great Society and War on Poverty, as designed, would fracture black families by making fathers and husbands unnecessary as bread winners? Or, as some on the left have claimed, was he blaming the victims? Please back up your opinion with valid statistics.
If your grievance has to do with “Black Lives Matter,” then also use statistics to back up your opinion, such as statistics on the number of blacks and whites killed by cops over the years, the number of cops killed by blacks and whites, the number of blacks killed by blacks, and the number of blacks killed by whites, and vice versa.
Finally, if you think that the political and economic systems are broken, please explain how they should be fixed or replaced. What would your desired end-state look like?
Please keep in mind when writing your manifesto that most football fans do not have a college education and thus may not be as versed as you in academic subjects. After all, whatever your grievances, you were fortunate to attend a predominately liberal college that cares about diversity and social justice, and as such, didn’t sacrifice your education on the altar of college football. It would have gone against the core mission of a university for college administrators and faculty to put football revenue before academics. It also would have been gross hypocrisy. Fortunately for you, colleges are not hypocritical and really care about social justice—just as the NFL does.
Sincerely,
Roger Goodell
NFL Commissioner
