The Mississippi Department of Public Safety (MDPS) decided it no longer wished to purchase Nike products for its 1200-member agency, 500 of whom are sworn troopers. MDPS declared it could not in good conscience be associated with Nike whose recent ad campaign with the kneeler guy countered the principles for which they stand. Responding to Mississippi Today seeking clarification on the move, Mississippi DPS Commissioner Marshall Fisher offered the following: “As commissioner of the Department of Public Safety, I will not support vendors who do not support law enforcement and the military.” Anyone could have guessed that, and Mississippi Today writer Bobby Harrison put it in print for all to see, just like Nike did with the kneeler guy.
Right to freedom of speech is an equality tenet accorded all U.S. citizens. But you may not know that if you only had an ear flush-up against the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wall or any other civil rights speakers who are good at trumpeting unequal applications.
For example, Time Magazine reported on an ACLU statement rebuking the Mississippi DPS’s decision: “These are the people that are representing all Mississippians. These are the people that are creating policy that impact all of our lives. These are the people that took an oath to uphold the Constitution. Yet they refuse to understand what equality, justice, and accountability means. This petty decision is just another show of racism, discrimination, stupidity, inequity, and divisive politics.” So it’s racist to use taxpayer dollars as a state leader sees fit? Whether the kneeler guy is guilty of any of those things of which they accuse the Mississippi cops is largely irrelevant in my mind. Both have the fair footing to say what they wish.
The ACLU did not stop there. It apparently has its own campaign supporting Nike and the kneeler guy while decrying others and their right to conduct business with whom they choose. An ACLU tweet clearly threatened a pursuant lawsuit against a Rhode Island town if it succeeded in its intended resolution to refrain from purchasing Nike products:
"Just don’t do it."
The ACLU warned a Rhode Island town that its proposed ban on Nike products for school and municipal projects (because of the Colin Kaepernick ad) could be a violation of the First Amendment: pic.twitter.com/n5LDS6seEk
— AJ+ (@ajplus) September 17, 2018
After reading that ACLU threat, it makes the assumption that the North Smithfield, RI city council members are seeking to bar the town from buying Nike products based on “political reasons.” Political reasons. What if they think Nike gear sucks? Are they somehow obligated to spend tax dollars at the direction of the ACLU? Whose civil rights would the town be violating if they exercised their rights to choose how and to whom purchase orders are deployed? Is the ACLU trampling (violating) the town’s right to conduct commerce as they see fit? Heck, North Smithfield employs 24 sworn cops in its police department, so is it wrong of local leaders to defend their police officers against a brand whose spokesperson openly slanders these 24 town employees? What about the taxpayers who afford these cops, don’t they have a right to determine where their taxes go?
Imagine if every local government exercised their right to buy competing brands just like North Smithfield leaders did. That would be a helluva lot of threatening letters for the ACLU to draft. One of my OpsLens cohorts recently wrote about how foolish and whiny some liberal thinkers have been, especially lately. He was right on point. Pertaining to this context, the ACLU is holding the joker from that deck of cards.
As a career cop, many portions of the ACLU letter can be classified as “strong-arming.” Not a very civil posture at all. I’ve read some threatening letters in my days. Reading legal briefs on court sites, lawyers sparring with each other via legalese do it all the time; they use words to push the other side up against the ropes and hope you remain there, because they say so. ACLU tactic?
Nevertheless, regardless of the noise created by the ACLU folks et al. making demands from government leaders holding the purse strings, Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant backs his top cop’s stance on the matter, saying: “I support the commissioner’s decision. He has the right to determine what vendors DPS does business with, and it’s not going to be with a company that pays an individual who has slandered our fine men and women in law enforcement.”
Then came the divisive comments deriding President Trump along the way. Naturally, this too is all his fault. Democrat Mississippi Senator John Horhn took a poke at President Trump and Governor Bryant, saying, “The governor had been spending too much time with the president.” Not much different than the ACLU looking at things from only one perspective now, is it? Sen. Horhn suggests neither the governor of his state nor the President of the United States are entitled to their opinions…while he gets to opine loud and clear in various publications. The hypocrisy astounds. The divide-and-conquer tactics perpetuate.
While Sen. Horhn harps on confronting police brutality, his Mississippi Democratic cohort, Senator John Hines declares the decision by Commissioner Fisher “concerns me and bothers me greatly. This has never been anti-police. It has been about equality and justice.” Same political team members but with variations on the central theme triggered by the kneeling guy, underscored by his unambiguous anti-police tube socks.
Hozier authored some distinct lyrics relative to this and so much we have been discussing in the past few years. One verse I found pertinent to the Nike flare-up and the athletic brand’s kneeling guy, and the seemingly us-versus-them dialogue superseding it, is this:
It’s not the wall but what’s behind it
Oh, the fear of fellow man, his mere assignment
And everything that we’re denied by keeping the divide
It’s not the waking, it’s the rising
Waking, rising, keeping the divide…it’s all a matter of choice for each of us, really.
According to The Blaze, actress Anne Hathaway denounced “straight, white people” as part of her acceptance speech after receiving the National Equality Award at Human Rights Campaign’s National Dinner held the other night. So she doesn’t like me; that is perfectly fine. She can say what she wants and I can simply refrain from patronizing any of “her work” on the big screen or elsewhere.
What gave rise to The Blaze and the New York Post reporting on Hathaway? Contents of her acceptance speech included the following mind-blast: “It is important to acknowledge that with the exception of being a cisgender male, everything about how I was born has put me at the current center of a damaging and widely accepted myth. That myth is that gayness orbits around straightness, transgender orbits around cisgender, and that all races orbit around whiteness,” Hathaway said. “This myth is wrong, but this myth is too real for too many,” Ms. Hathaway added. “It is ancient, so it is trusted. It is a habit, so it is assumed to be the way things are. It’s inherited, so it’s thought immutable. Its consequences are dangerous because it prioritizes a certain kind of love, a certain kind of body, a certain kind of skin color, and does not value in the same way anything it deems to be other to itself.”
Feel free to analyze that as you wish, because that is the point I am making: Many things spoken by plenty of people may have varying applications in differing ways to our hugely diverse populace. Wherever you fall on the spectrum of any given social issue does not necessarily make you right or wrong, it makes you an eligible practitioner of the rights granted by our constitution covenant. The kneeler guy knows this, and that is why he is comfortable in his skin while kneeling and wearing piggy socks on the gridiron. The Mississippi state police commissioner knows this too, thus exercising his right to shop where he feels it appropriate, supported by his employer. Frankly, he didn’t even have to proffer a reason why he wishes his police force to be Nike-less. Neither did the kneeler guy have to explain his purpose for kneeling, other than to his employers.
With constitutional protections such as freedom of speech, we get to accept or deny a speaker’s message and go on about our lives. That is a wonderful thing not necessarily celebrated in other nations. I don’t own a pair of “pig” socks like the set which the kneeler guy wore on the gridiron for all to see. Generally, the message is offensive to law enforcement officers, the same LEOs who support his right to express himself in whatever attire he finds fashionable. Yet, it is his right.
Personally, I choose to not get my ire up with such categorically anti-police gestures or stances assumed by followers of the kneeler guy. And since that kneeler guy was granted a contract to represent a mega athletic brand, Nike’s rights to free enterprise affords their choice to embrace their ad campaign, as is, despite what I and others may feel about it. Initially, once the ad was announced, Nike’s stocks seemed to spiral southward, then reports claimed Nike saw some uptick as well, specifically a reported increase in sales. Some purchased Nike gear while others literally torched theirs. Simply, the polar indications are indicative of at least two opposing factions reacting. Life goes on, whether Nike stocks tank or they skyrocket and reach “an all-time high” in recent days, as per Mississippi Today.
To nightcap this discussion, let’s exemplify the right to choose, namely someone we accept as a courageous human who has undeniably sacrificed yet capitalized on what he had versus what he didn’t have. This story also happens to be a free enterprise thing, produced for Gillette’s latest ad depicting Seattle Seahawk’s linebacker Shaquem Griffin. You see, Mr. Griffin is one-handed, having had his left hand amputated at age four. He climbed his way to the top and now plays professional football. He plays quite well. It’s his spirit for not necessarily identifying as disabled or incomplete or broken or unequal which magnetizes and energizes fans, myself included (even though I chose to rid my life of the NFL). If I were to patronize the NFL, Griffin is the kind of competitor I can rightfully get behind and cheer on.
https://youtu.be/EdJ5TyaDBVc
As we all have heard, “Gillette, the best a man can get.” I prefer a twist to that credo: “Griffin, the best Gillette can get.” As the Conservative Tribune reported, “Good for Gillette. This ad deserved to get much more coverage than it did. It isn’t focusing on nonsensical culture wars. It isn’t giving tacit approval to disparaging police officers or the country. It focuses on family, incredible work ethic and never making excuses. And we all could use more of that.”
So, be like Mr. Griffin and the Mississippi state cops…just do it!
