Personally, I think a football player sitting during the anthem is ineffectual. It’s less effective even than temporarily adding an overlay to your Facebook avatar after a crisis.
If the people who sit want to help the cause for which they protest, they should do so in a way that matters. You can’t show solidarity to the BLM community by sitting unless the camera notices you doing it and the media jumps up and down accordingly. So I think the people who sit should be ignored, because it deflates their method of protest entirely.
It’s similar to how Trump wouldn’t have won the primary had he not been given all the media attention. Just ignore them, and their opinion becomes moot.
A player sitting during the anthem is so ineffectual you think the media should ignore it (instead of jumping up and down accordingly) - so it will deflate their method of protest entirely?
Erm… what?
His argument is that if people and the media stop making a big deal out of it, they will eventually stop protesting the anthem and move on to some other sort of protest.
Yes.
No, the protesters likely won’t - or shouldn’t stop protesting during the anthem - they should keep on whether the media report/censor/ignore it or not - though they may take other different forms of protest too. Media suppression of an incident can help that protest in itself.
We on here may be talking about the sitting thing in the main - but I hadn’t really a clue about any of it (from the UK, not an NFL fan) - did a little research and now I know the reasons why, and researched it further - others will likely do (or have already) the same… and the point of the protest is made.
Others, especially those around the world (that are allowed to do so) have no qualms protesting against symbols of their own Govt or country when it is failing it’s citizens, or there is an inequality perceived to be taking place with no-little appetite for change.
The raising of awareness for a cause is one of the first and most important steps in the long, slow and difficult road to implementing change. Media suppression or censorship certainly does not help that.