I&I Editorial
The officer who shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has been tried and convicted by Democrats, the media, and truth-be-damned activists before the case is resolved. It’s a mirror image of the Michael Brown shooting (the officer was cleared) in Ferguson, Missouri, and the death in Minneapolis of George Floyd (the officer has yet to go to trial). The difference is this time, pro athletes, pampered and well-paid, joined the mob.
They should be ashamed of their behavior. They quit on the employers who pay their soaring salaries, and estranged themselves from their fans, who provide the dollars the owners use to compensate the players.
The facts about the Blake case do not show a group of white officers taking advantage of a crisis situation so they could shoot another black man. Reports indicate a starkly different story – the policemen were there to protect a woman, a black woman, we’re assuming, based on what we’ve learned, from Blake.
Here’s what is being reported:
- Police were called to the scene because Blake was violating a restraining order, says the union that represents Kenosha officers.
- The restraining order was in place due to allegations Blake had sexually assaulted a woman after breaking into her home.
- The criminal complaint also said Blake also stole the woman’s automobile and debit card.
- State investigators found a knife on the driver’s side of Blake’s vehicle, where he was shot.
- The union says he had the knife in his hand when he was arrested.
- A still image from a video taken before he was shot shows Blake with something in his left hand that could be a knife.
- Before the shooting, Blake resisted arrest, fought with officers, placed one in a headlock, and was tased twice, in an effort to use non-deadly force to prevent the escalation that occurred.
But the players couldn’t wait for the facts. The NBA postponed three Game 5s on Wednesday, because professional athletes refused to meet the obligations of their contracts. The league resumed play Saturday. Several MLB teams walked out Wednesday, as well. The National Hockey League canceled all of its Thursday and Friday playoff games because the league supported the players’ decision to not play, and at least three NFL teams canceled practices on Thursday.
On Tuesday, two days after Blake was shot, Los Angeles Laker LeBron James said “maybe” the officer who shot Blake “left the house saying that today is going to be the end for one of these black people. That’s what it feels like.”
James also said, “for black people right now, we think you’re hunting us.”
If that’s the case, it’s because the media and the Democrats have fueled the flames of divisiveness, looting, and riots. They could present the facts. But they won’t because it kills the false narrative that officers shooting black Americans is a common occurrence. If they’d report the truth – “There Is No Epidemic of Racist Police Shootings” – rather than letting a lie run wild, then maybe black Americans wouldn’t be afraid, as James says they are.
There’s a temptation to think the high fevers will eventually cool down, that American life and sports will return to the normal we knew before. We want to be optimistic, but we can’t bet on it. As sports journalist Clay Travis tweeted when the players quit on their fans and employers, “the NBA never said no to the players,” when they returned to play after the pandemic shutdown. “They okayed everything – political messages on jerseys, kneeling for the national anthem, political messages on the court itself – and it still wasn’t enough. And now their business doesn’t exist. Lesson: you can’t ever be woke enough.”
Rioters, revolutionaries, and malcontents always want more. They extract concessions, then once secured, make further demands. They can never be placated.
Average Americans are turned off by the players’ rush to be woke, as well as the glaring double standard. They know if they walk off their jobs to make a point not related to their work, they will likely be fired. They know if they protest while on the clock or during business hours they will at least be punished, if not relieved of their duties. Yet multimillionaires are celebrated for walking away from their commitments.
Travis was off a bit when he said the NBA players’ “business doesn’t exist.” They’re back on the court. But all major league players are in danger of wrecking their businesses and losing their paychecks that have two commas before the decimal point if they continue racing toward elevated wokeness.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Love Hockey and Baseball, but they have changed. Don’t need them anymore.
Yeah! There’s your role model, a person who was up on a sexual assault charge! Splendid choice nba, mlb, and nfl. Just what I would expect from you!
Birds of a feather, how many pro sports athletes have similar charges?
Martius, there’s a reason that the initials NFL just happen to also spell out ‘National Felon’s League’.
the NBA like all sports leagues has a problem with declining revenues and attendance – the failure of the players is on full display and it is hypocritical one – people who won the genetic lottery making scads of money lecturing the rest of us about race relations when they are above the fray – wondeer if they know the same thing other minorities know and that is they are being played by the moderna day walking boss with whip in hand and left-wing politics driving the beatings – like Biden said: “you aint Black if u dont vote Democrat”
Chris, I agree.
Look at these organizations, the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, ‘Noosecar’…. what do they all have in common, and where do they All get their money?
Television.
It seems to me that the Television Network paymasters are the ones calling the shots ‘Behind the Green Curtain’. If the TV people had told Kraper-nik to knock it off of get lost back when he first started disrespecting the American flag, then it would have stopped right there.
But they encouraged and pushed what he was doing.
Now they can All go Pound Sand….. right where the moon don’t shine.
These people are Not heroes.
These people are Not essential.
These people are all overpaid Entertainers.
Hey TV moguls….. watch this!…..”Click!”
I suggest they make plans to move, permanently, to China!
I am a hockey player and fanatic. It’s been so disappointing to watch the NHL go down this path. I have not watched or followed the NHL playoffs since they postponed the games and decided to virtue signal at every game. It’s another really depressing situation that just adds to the already giant pile of crap we’ve been served all year long. It seems as if it will never stop because it’s never enough for the people incessantly lecturing us. I am so bummed that I am lost to the NHL.
Yep – I have as well. I initially was looking at a two day ban but am considering just saying enough for this year. I watch sports to be entertained, not lectured to. Especially by my moral inferiors.
I am not interested in the player’s morality or really anything other than their views of the game itself. I think their actions speak more to their utter lack of knowledge and wisdom. I am sure the leagues will survive the complete decent into unconscious unreality but I plan to continue to leave the NHL behind me until reality returns.
I followed the Flyers for 10 years. I was thrilled they were in the playoffs. Then they made their decision and I made mine–no more NHL for me ever. Every time I wonder how they are doing in their games, I think of Blake’s victim watching the man who sexually abused her made out to be a hero and getting over a million dollars in donations and I feel sick. I no longer care how they do.
I do believe that black lives matter. But why do so many black men simply throw their lives away? Look at the rap sheets of these “martyrs”. No evidence that they valued God’s gift of a life in this greatest of all nations.
To a Democrat only Politically Useful Black Lives Matter.
Children’s Defense Fund: “44,038 Black Children killed America’s Inner Cities between 1979 and 2013” [George Floyd’s death resulted in riots. The deaths of 44,038 Black children results in Democratic Party/BLM crickets.]
Black voters are starting to speak out about Black on Black violence:
Chicago Tribune – August 21, 2020 “On Sunday, Black Lives Matter activists took advantage of a misunderstood confrontation between an armed black man and police in the Englewood suburb of Chicago.
On Tuesday, Englewood residents stood up to Black Lives Matter activists, saying they did not represent locals and were giving the neighborhood a bad name. The locals succeeded in ousting the opportunistic BLM activists from in front of the police station and drawing attention to their duplicity.
Darryl Smith, president of the Englewood Political Task Force, castigated the protesters with a microphone, noting the duplicity of the “Black Lives Matter” slogan. Black lives matter, it seems, only when the police are at fault, not when a black man, woman, or child is murdered by a black criminal. “Y’all don’t come out when a kid gets shot. Y’all come out when it’s got something to do with the f—— police,” the local leader declared, scathingly.
Few athletes are reknowned for their wisdom and brainpower, especially in areas not involving their expertise – sports. Some of them know this and keep their mouths shut and play. But others can’t resist the urge to inform the world of their foolishness. Sadly many of the owners and management fall into this category, too.
“…we think you’re hunting us.”
Phony LeBron.
Numerous blacks are shot every weekend in Chicago, but not a word from you or the other “concerned” types playing a kids game for a living.
How selective of you. Being selective, it’s very difficult to take your opinion seriously.
I’m not sure that these thugs and anarchists realize that the police aren’t really there to protect “us” from “them”, but to protect “them” from “us”. The rule of law, as represented by officers, is the buffer to street justice. With no rule of law, with no buffer, then they get dropped on the spot.
Have loved the STARS since they moved to TX. No more.
As Spartacus said, Kill them all. Let everyone of the Major sport franchises die. Let these pampered snowflakes live life without seven figure paychecks and the roar of the crowd. Let the Democrats burn their cities down. Just get the great reckoning over so we can flush the progressives and their poison out of our lives and start to rebuild. (Maybe even soccer will catch on this time. )
If you think that, every day, 880,000 law enforcement officers strap on their guns and go out to kill unarmed black men but were only able to find 10 in all of 2019 to kill, you are as bright as LeBron James.
Well birds of a feather flock together. Jacob Blake is like many of the professional athletes themselves: http://www.nflarrest.com
Dwayne
in my lifetime, i’ve needed parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts uncles and cousins, friends, teachers, coaches, tutors, nurses, doctors, lawyers, mechanics, carpenters, police firefighters emt, any and all first responders at some point…
don’t remember once needing an athlete or celebrity.
You didn’t explain why he had to shoot him seven times.
You try it in a fraction of a second when your adrenaline is through the roof, the person does not stop moving, they have something in their hand or appear to be reaching for something, and they are within reach of three small children. Try it.
Well, they tased him twice with no effect AND he’s still alive after seven shots in an effort to stop him. If they wanted to kill him one shot to a vital area would have done the job.
Police are supposed to shoot (in extremis) to incapacitate, and how many rounds that will require is unknowable (one reason pistols hold 15+ rounds, nowadays). Besides, how many rounds fired would BLM approve of? Six? Five? This, of course, is a mug’s game.
Real Salt Lake went on strike for a game last Wednesday, the team owner dared to criticize his whiner players the next day, and now he has been cancelled and is being forced to sell the team. Have been a 5 year season ticket holder, but I am now done. Was a Jazz season ticket holder. I am done. I was holding out for the NHL to be the last bastion of apolitcal sports entertainment. Nope, they caved too. So I am finished with all of them.
it’s the Russia investigation all over again. Just keep saying it. And saying it. And saying it. Keep telling that lie, Keep telling that lie. Why are all their heroes communists?
??? According to the Dems it’s Trump who is getting help by Russians aka “the tommunists” (Republican perspective)
Seems you didn’t understand something.
Since these sport teams are so hung up on “racial” justice I suggest a solution. Make up all teams based on the percentage of racial types in the country. That would look a bit like this: White team members: 76%, Black team members: 13%, Hispanic team members: 17%, Asian team members: 6%. Now that’s racial justice. Put up or shut up Lebron and the rest of you basketball whiners!
I think the sportscasters are the problem. Some of them are out and out Black racists.
When I watch sports I am not paying attention to the race of the players. And in general I am not interested in their views on anything other than the sport they play.
But the inmates are running the asylum so that is what we get.
I support racial justice but I don’t think we get there by getting people increasingly upset.
Easy solution to all of it. Boycott EVERYTHING Major League, and watch the sports industry crumble and take these whiny losers with it. Maybe they can play ball in Italy or Croatia or somewhere. See how those countries tolerate their temper tantrums.