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NFL Similar to Slavery or False Comparison?
Kaepernick’s slavery/sports comparison isn’t new, writers have done this for decades
Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and filmmaker Ava DuVernay co-produced a Netflix miniseries about Kaepernick’s life. One episode depicted the NFL draft as no different from a slave auction. During this scene, Kaepernick’s voice-over stated, “What they don’t want you to understand is what’s being established is a power dynamic.”
Kaepernick didn’t explain what he meant by “power dynamic”. He simply expected the audience to assume, as he does, the term is synonymous with inequity, which it is not. He also expected the audience to assume the hierarchical structure of a business and the employer/employee relationship is unjust, i.e., master/slave, which it is not.
Since we live in an image-conscious society, the NFL draft/slave auction juxtaposition shocked many Netflix subscribers. But the slavery/sports comparison isn’t new, writers have done this for decades to create controversy in order to promote their work.
Back in 2006, NPR’s Ed Gordon interviewed two authors with controversial book titles.
The first author was former NFL player Anthony Prior. He wrote The Slave Side of Sunday. Ed Gordon opened the interview by…