Guy Farmer: Politics and sports don’t mix

I haven't written a "sick and tired" column for quite a while, but I have one for you today. I'm sick and tired of being lectured at about American history, culture and race relations by young multi-millionaires who know little or nothing about history, culture and/or race relations.

So I have a message for wealthy young athletes and other "woke" people who try to tell me how to think, how to vote and how to live my life: Politics and sports don't mix. Shut up and play ball!

The National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball started their abbreviated seasons last month and the first thing we saw was athletes wearing Black Lives Matter jerseys kneeling during our national anthem and generally disrespecting the American flag. The new "woke" manager of the San Francisco Giants, Gabe Kapler, joined most of his players in taking a knee for the anthem while one Women's NBA team walked off the court as our flag was being raised. Kudos to the coaches and players who had the courage to stand for the anthem.

This is what passes for politically correct behavior in American sports in 2020, and God only knows what will happen when college and professional football get underway next month. Perhaps that's when we'll see the statue honoring famous "social justice warrior" Colin "Kap" Kaepernick at Mackay Stadium on the UNR campus in Reno. That would be truly disgusting.

Moving right along, I know I'm politically incorrect when I write that Black Lives Matter is something less than an admirable, upstanding organization, even though BLM is more popular than President Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden in recent polling. Perhaps those who support BLM should read its mission statement, which reads more like the Communist Manifesto.

In fact, the co-founders of BLM — Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi — are avowed Marxists and the goal of their racist organization, which demonizes white people and police officers of all known skin colors, is the destruction of American culture and society. That's my considered opinion after researching BLM's founders and their Marxist philosophy.

According to the Washington Examiner, BLM, which has raked in more than $6 million from gullible donors, including gutless Wall Street corporations, is focused on "racial injustice, police brutality, criminal justice reform, economic injustice and LGBTQIA+ (don't ask) rights," among other things. As you can infer from their priorities, BLM leaders want to defund the police, de-criminalize crime and replace police officers with suitably diverse social workers. They also want to abolish capitalism in favor of a socialist state that will "redistribute" our income for us.

In short, Black Lives Matter wants to eradicate America as we know it. Former Wall Street Journal Editor-in-Chief Gerard Butler wrote that he's sick and tired of "listening to our self-appointed moral leaders lecture us on the nation's irredeemable sinfulness… while we endure the daily urban nightmare of a world created by their political allies." He added that we're now instructed "to worship at the feet of those who preach hatred of the police, racist strife and white self-loathing," like the pathetic local woman who apologized for being white in a recent Appeal column.

More than a few of Butler's "self-appointed moral leaders" are wealthy young athletes who are "virtue signaling" by politicizing sports. As author Joseph Epstein wrote in the Wall Street Journal, "In the end the effect of those athletes who insist upon bringing their politics onto the field may well be the reverse of what they hope it will be." As I was saying, Shut up and play ball!

Guy W. Farmer is a lifelong sports fan.