If you’re following the Colin Kaepernick national anthem drama closely, you already know we are now at the point of the controversy where we talk about what other people have said about The Thing that happened what by now feels like months ago. Now we have Skip Bayless going in on Trent Dilfer‘s “plantation mentality” in his criticism of Kaepernick’s silent protest against police brutality.
Kaepernick himself has already responded to Trent Dilfer’s warning that backup quarterbacks should know their place in football is quietly standing beside less woke teammates during the national anthem. Dilfer has already defended his stance, saying in a radio interview Wednesday that “I’m not going to back down from my comments” despite being criticized by many in media for saying, in essence, Kaepernick should accept the status quo until he is taking first team reps at 49ers practice.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Skip Bayless disagrees. On his Fox Sports One show Undisputed on Tuesday, Bayless and Shannon Sharpe mention Dilfer’s comments during their discussion of the backlash Kaepernick has faced. Bayless defends the San Francisco 49ers quarterback, saying “White cops are killing too many black, unarmed men, and getting away with it, without penalty. Without a check, without a balance.”
Sharpe himself says that while in the past backup quarterbacks were “to be seen, not heard,” that time is over. Bayless begins talking about Dilfer around the 4:54 mark of the video, where he says the former NFL quarterback’s comments were a relic of a bygone era in the league.
“That was typical old-school quarterback mentality,” Bayless said. “Dispassionate, disconnected, to the point of being clueless, ex-white quarterback mentality. ‘This is how you do it. You should be thankful and you should be honored to be in the NFL quarterback fraternity.'”
Bayless expanded the take a bit, correctly stating “Obviously, I’m not black” before triumphantly slamming the Take hammer down on the former Bucs quarterback.
One thing I do know after years and years of working with a lot of black players and black commentators on many networks—that if you go to the place of you’re telling a black man, or a black woman, that ‘You should know your place and stay in it,’ when you get to there, them’s fighting words.
That smacks of plantation mentality. You cannot go there—and he went there. Because no matter what you’re trying to say in the football context, we’re not in the football context any more. We have risen above it to an issue that is far more important than any football game.”
Dilfer clarified since that his comments were not about race, but about football and team culture. Bayless suggests that shouldn’t matter when it comes to an issue as important as racial injustice.
“Every once in a while you have to stop and rise above and say ‘this country is facing an issue that could divide it once and for all,” Bayless said, “And it needs to be addressed.”
While it’s nice to see Skip Bayless is finally taking on the big issues dividing our nation, I remain a bit skeptical of Skip attaining “woke bae” status anytime soon. Attacking an employee of his former employer does seem like a nice, easy way to attract some attention for his new show on his new network.
(via For the Win)
