Another Viewpoint: Give Kaepernick A Job

By Tim Lacy, Special to the AFRO

The NFL will get no rest as long as Colin Kaepernick is scratching at their door. Kap’s contract with the NFL was not renewed behind his efforts to expose minority injustices. This issue has been hanging around for a couple of years and we have visited it before. I am beginning to think that the NFL bigwigs believe that if they ignore these major issues, it will go away and things will be well again. They threw some money at the problem, but this bandage didn’t cover up the cut. 

After a quick google search, I found that Kap is supposedly sitting on a wallet stuffed with about $20 million and Nike has Kap under contract for a few million plus sales royalties. This is more than enough for Kap to buy a couple cashmere sweaters and a fancy car that won’t overheat in traffic, so, obviously money is not the issue.

Every day when you turn on your TV, stories of adults and kids gunned down are everywhere. It seems that law enforcement is having trouble handling the problem because they are busy choking someone or shooting an unarmed kid. In so many cases the guilty have to suffer the inconvenience of spending an hour in court before returning to business as usual.

It seems to me that instead of trying to stifle a voice, energy should be turned towards finding a solution for crimes that are in our faces every day.  

The NFL has enough problems trying to stave off the claims of abuse directed towards their stars every day. I am a firm believer that “where there’s smoke there is fire,” but I can’t help but wonder where these injured parties were when the perpetrators were broke. 

Instead of enforcing sanctions against a player trying to call attention to social injustices, why doesn’t the NFL devote that same energy towards finding answers to the problem. We are paying attention, and we see a player every week that should be spending time with a therapist instead of being on the field. 

This makes me wonder why a qualified person can’t gain employment with the NFL and free up time for bosses to devote energies to finding a solution to real problems. Give Colin Kaepernick a job and let’s move on.