Protests have me at a real crossroads with the NFL

NFL must act now to keep fans like me

I am at a real crossroads with the NFL. The display I witnessed in person at the Panthers’ game and later on TV around the NFL was disgusting.

This unpatriotic behavior is causing me to explore walking away from the NFL. This is not a free speech issue because it isn’t the government restricting the rights to free speech. A private employer – the NFL – can.

Unless Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL owners do something immediately, the NFL will lose TV viewership, attendance, respect – and this PSL owner.

Don’t miss the point; it’s not about the flag

The NFL protests were never about disrespecting the flag or the military.

They are about the unfair treatment of African-Americans in this country. And now the president has fueled the fire with his adolescent tweets.

The players, as well as the coaches and owners, are simply exercising their First Amendment rights by standing up, or in this case kneeling down, for what they believe in.

Protest, sure, but not on NFL game days

No one is saying that athletes cannot have opinions on social and economic issues, racial divide, etc.

But game day is not the day to express it. Take a stand between games, speak out, hold press conferences, or actually get off your butt and go do something in society. Go to local, state, or federal forums and speak.

Game day was a respite from daily life. Not any more. It has become more of a divide.

Puckett’s logic on free speech is flawed

Mecklenburg County commissioner Jim Puckett suggests that anyone who receives money from the government has no right to critique government.

Guess that means about 49 percent of Americans have to give up their First Amendment right to free speech, since that’s how many receive Social Security, Medicaid, VA benefits or CHIP, work for some level of government, or serve in the U.S. military.

The number would go significantly higher if you count all the employees of government contractors.

It seems our president’s penchant for shooting from the lip is trickling down, unlike tax cuts for the wealthy!

Ignore distractor in chief; work together

Let’s face it, we already know whose face we’ll see on the front page of every news website on any given day – Donald J. Trump.

This is exactly what our president is aiming for – to distract. He wants to distract from the fact that just like every other politician before him, he has made big promises that he is unable to keep.

However, attacking him is not the answer.

Maybe it’s time we as Americans put the distractions aside and stop focusing on what we don’t want, and work together toward what we do want for our country.

Curry and his team could do this instead

Memo to the Golden State Warriors and Charlotte’s beloved Steph Curry: Invitations to the White House are few and far between.

Rather than refusing the invitation, I would suggest another response: Why not agree to visit the president, pose for the requisite photo-ops outside of the White House, then go inside, and with no cameras or microphones present, have a meaningful discussion with the president regarding your concerns about diversity, inclusion and discrimination.

Only through sincere dialogue, something woefully lacking in Washington, D.C. today, will real change ever occur.

End useless team visits to White House

We now have good reason to end the useless White House visits by sports teams.

They are not “historically” arranged, but grew out of President Ronald Reagan trying to lift his approval rating by appealing to Joe Fan. It led to cringe-worthy meetings.

Let the teams sweat, win, and get paid. Enough.

This story was originally published September 28, 2017 at 3:19 PM with the headline "Protests have me at a real crossroads with the NFL."