On May 23, the NFL\u00a0took a hard stance on a big issue fueling America\u2019s culture wars: The league ruled its players must either stand during the national\u00a0anthem or stay in the locker room until the song\u2019s conclusion.<\/p>\n
Players who do not \u201cshow respect for the flag\u201d will be fined for their actions.<\/p>\n
According to media reports, all team owners who voted supported the new policy, but at least two abstained: Mark Davis of the Oakland Raiders and Jed York of the San Francisco 49ers.<\/p>\n
The Raiders Organization has\u00a0a long history of fighting for equality. They\u2019re\u00a0the first NFL team to hire black and Latinx head coaches and a woman CEO. And Davis made an eloquent speech about social justice to\u00a0fellow team owners.<\/p>\n
\n\nYork abstained from voting altogether, telling the Los Angeles Times\u00a0that he wants to have a\u00a0\u201cdeeper conversation with our players\u201d about the issue. He\u2019s also planning to suspend\u00a0concession sales during the anthem to hit the league in the pocketbook.<\/p>\n
\nOf all 32 owners, New York Jets Chairman and CEO Christopher Johnson have taken the firmest stance against the ban, saying he\u2019ll pay any fines incurred by his players.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not like imposing any club-specific rules,\u201d Johnson told Newsday. \u201cIf somebody [on the Jets] takes a knee, that fine will be borne by the organization, by me, not the players. I never want to put restrictions on the speech of our players. Do I prefer that they stand? Of course. But I understand if they felt the need to protest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nA few big-name NFL players who were vocal supporters of the on-field protests also spoke out against the NFL\u2019s new ruling.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins released an\u00a0impassioned statement clarifying the goals of the protestors:<\/p>\n
\nJenkins\u2019 teammate\u00a0Chris Long also spoke out, accusing the NFL of cowering before Donald Trump:<\/p>\n
\nSeattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin believes the whole thing comes down to dollars and cents:<\/p>\n
\nShare image by Johnmaxmena2\/Flickr and Keith Allison\/Flickr.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On May 23, the NFL\u00a0took a hard stance on a big issue fueling America\u2019s culture wars: The league ruled its players must either stand during the national\u00a0anthem or stay in the locker room until the song\u2019s conclusion. Players who do not \u201cshow respect for the flag\u201d will be fined for their actions. According to media…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}