February 7, 2019

NFL’s Kaepernick Still Calls Criminal Justice System ‘Racist’ — Despite Reform Action and Lack of Evidence

Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s attorney accused the musical group Maroon 5 of crossing the “picket line” to perform at the Super Bowl and called the explanation by Adam Levine, the lead singer of the musical group, a “cop-out.”

Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s attorney accused the musical group Maroon 5 of crossing the “picket line” to perform at the Super Bowl and called the explanation by Adam Levine, the lead singer of the musical group, a “cop-out.”

Kaepernick, when he played in 2016, kneeled during the national anthem to protest what he considers an unjust criminal justice system that he believes allows cops to systematically “oppress” blacks. Kaepernick said: “There’s a lot of things that need to change. One specifically is police brutality. There’s people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. The cops are getting paid leave for killing people. That’s not right.”

No one doubts the existence of bad cops or of cops who make poor decisions or who use poor judgement. But where’s the evidence of “systemic” racism? When black Harvard economist Roland Fryer conducted a 2016 study of police use of force, he expected to find widespread evidence of police officers disproportionately using deadly force against blacks. Instead, he found the opposite. Police, he concluded, were more hesitant to use deadly force against blacks than against whites. “It is,” he admitted, “the most surprising result of my career.” This tracks another study published in 2014 by researchers at Washington State University, who reached the same conclusion, finding “there was significant bias favoring (emphasis added) blacks where decisions to shoot were concerned.”

According to the Manhattan Institute’s Heather Mac Donald: “In 2016, the police fatally shot 233 blacks, the vast majority armed and dangerous, according to The Washington Post. The paper categorized only 16 black male victims of police shootings as ‘unarmed.’ That classification masks assaults against officers and violent resistance to arrest. Contrary to the Black Lives Matter narrative, the police have much more to fear from black males than black males have to fear from the police. … Black males have made up 42 percent of all cop-killers over the last decade, though they are only 6 percent of the population.”

While most people can name several recent high-profile police killings of unarmed blacks or deaths that occurred while in police custody — Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, to name some — few people can name a single instance of an unarmed white who was killed by police or died in police custody. Yet the police kill more unarmed whites than unarmed blacks.

As to the claim of “institutional racism,” government studies have debunked this. In 2013, the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice, examined traffic stops by race, as traffic stops are the most common reason for a person to interact with a cop in any given year. Seventy-five percent of blacks stopped by police admitted that, in fact, the cops had a “legitimate reason” for stopping them. The NIJ study found that blacks were disproportionately stopped by the police, but that any numerical disparities resulted from “differences in offending” in addition to “differences in exposure to the police” and “differences in driving patterns.”

Since Kaepernick began his protests, voters elected President Donald Trump. Trump posthumously pardoned former boxer Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight champion, who was arrested and convicted on a bogus morals charge. Trump commuted the sentence of Alice Marie Johnson, a black woman serving a lengthy sentence after being convicted for involvement with drug traffickers and illegal drug money laundering. Trump also publicly asked the NFL protesters to provide names of those “people that they think were unfairly treated by the justice system.” Trump promised to review their cases and, if warranted, he would “pardon them, or at least let them out.” To date, the protesting players have yet to give him the requested list of names.

Also, Trump, with no input or participation by Kaepernick, signed a wide-ranging criminal justice reform bill. Even Trump critic Van Jones of CNN, a black pundit who attributed Trump’s 2016 election victory to “whitelash” attended the Oval Office signing of the criminal justice bill that Jones called “a Christmas miracle.”

Yet many players still support Kaepernick and feel that but for his political activism, he would have a QB job in the NFL. Really? NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana, who once played for Kaepernick’s team, the San Francisco 49ers, and won four Super Bowl rings, sure sees it differently. In 2017, Montana called Kaepernick’s protest a “distraction” but said that it “comes down to his play as much as anything.” Montana said: “But what it comes down to is 40 percent completion or even in the low 50s. You can’t win in the league with that. You won’t be in the league very long.”

So, the cops do not engage in systemic, institutional or structural racism. One cannot have a meaningful discussion about alleged police misconduct without acknowledging the disproportionate amount of crime committed by blacks, which in turn results in the disproportionate interaction blacks have with the police.

Next season, how about we just enjoy some football?

COPYRIGHT 2019 LAURENCE A. ELDER

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.