Free agent NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick received Twitter and media applause for his tweet comparing cops to members of fugitive slave patrols with two badges side by side, but journalist Jason Whitlock was less than impressed.
The black community needs the police, Whitlock declared.
In his tweet, Kaepernick apparently was reacting to the not guilty verdict in the Minnesota police shooting of Philandro Castile.
The ex-San Francisco 49ers backup made headlines last year for his take-a-knee National Anthem protest. Kaepernick has subsequently announced that he will no longer be engaging in that form of activism. As of this writing, Kaepernick still has been unable to reach a deal with another team, perhaps the result of risk-averse owners concerned about further controversy and/or distractions.
Unlike most sports media pundits, Fox Sports 1 (FS1) host Whitlock has expressed criticism of the Kaepernick anthem protest as more or less as divisive, childish, uninformed, and self-serving.
The contrarian Whitlock — the former Kansas City Star and Huffington Post columnist and Ball State University football player — rejoined Fox Sports after two tours of duty with ESPN. With Colin Cowherd, another ESPN expatriate, Jason Whitlock co-hosts Speak for Yourself , an offering on FS1 that airs weekdays at 5 p.m. Eastern time, which appears to be the Fox network’s answer to ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption .
A system that perpetually condones the killing of people, without consequence, doesn’t need to be revised, it needs to be dismantled! pic.twitter.com/BVVPVZIQyD
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) June 16, 2017
Discussing the Kaepernick tweet last night on Speak for Yourself , Whitlock described the Kaepernick tweet as a bad move for someone who’s trying to get back into the NFL.
Whitlock went on to argue that Kaepernick is ignorant about the relationship between the police and the black community because the QB never actually lived in an African-American neighborhood, TotalProSports noted .
“This man has never lived in the black community ever, he’s never done business in the black community ever. Kaepernick is so pro-black he doesn’t understand what black people in the black community are dealing with on a day-to-day basis They need the police…When you start analogizing someone to slave catchers — you know who calls slave catchers? Slave owners. You know who calls the police? People in need.”
. @WhitlockJason : Kaepernick’s police-slave catcher analogy foolish. Black people call and need police. We never called/needed slave catcher. pic.twitter.com/AhvcZF7snS
— Speak (@SpeakOnFS1) June 19, 2017
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In his remarks, Whitlock — who says he lost a family member to police misconduct — also made reference to the recent shooting of U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise and several others on an Alexandria, Virginia, softball field by a Bernie Sanders supporter.
“We just had policemen save the lives and take bullets for politicians in Washington D.C., and this ignorant quarterback is at this time, when we just had black police officers take bullets for politicians, and this ignorant wants to compare them to slave catchers. It’s stupid. There is a problem in America and the criminal justice system. He’s not remotely getting at it. He’s doing things that are popular over Twitter and really aren’t in the best interest of black people who actually live in the black communities because those people, in the inner cities, are calling the police in need of help.”
With views that seldom fit into either the left or right paradigm, Whitlock is a vocal critic of what he considers the march of progressive politics into sports culture. Many of his detractors who make their feelings known on Twitter have accused him of being a sellout, typically using more vulgar terms.
“Over the years, Whitlock has taken several unpredictable and often unpopular positions, especially when racial issues intersect with sports,” the New York Times detailed in September of 2010.
Jason Whitlock has also thrown shade on his good friend Max Kellerman of ESPN First Take , a Colin Kaepernick backer, for in his opinion being part of a left-wing cohort that wants to “overthrow everything,” the Washington Times reported .
[Featured Image by John Amis/AP Images]