Megan Rapinoe
As a member of the Women’s National Soccer Team, you only get the spotlight once every couple of years. The Olympics and the Women’s World Cup are your time to really shine. If you’re like Megan Rapinoe, that leaves a lot of down time away from the cameras and the spotlight where you’re relegated to a fringe existence as a midfielder for the Seattle Reign FC. For some, that’s a dream come true, but attention-seekers like “Pinoe” require more praise and adoration.
Around the time when Kaepernick began his kneeling campaign and after Wade, James, Paul, and Anthony had their fantasy Civil Rights moment at the ESPY’s, Rapinoe saw a chance to be relevant as well. Last September, Rapinoe pulled a Kaepernick at the Georgia Dome during a USWNT matchup with the Netherlands. The National Anthem played and Rapinoe took a knee. It was as brave as it was original.
To really milk the spectacle for every last drop, Rapinoe then took to the LA Times to write possibly the most patronizing and self-important piece ever written. In it, she refers to herself as “one of the women you have referred to as an American hero, more than once”, claims kneeling at games is being part of the solution to a deadly epidemic (17 unarmed black males were killed by police that year), and even quotes Emma Lazarus by saying, “Until we are all free, we are none of us free” as if we are all living through the Antebellum south. Finally, using the Tyre King case to bolster her piece, Rapinoe leaves out the fact that the boy encountered with a BB Gun pistol in his hand while they were responding to reports of an armed robbery – and that the Columbus officer who shot him once saved the life of another black child attempting to hang himself.
Virtue-signaling will always be more popular than soccer in America.
