The Progressive ATTACKS on Sports ｜ Jason Whitlock
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Summary
Jason Whitlock, former ESPN writer, former Fox Sports contributor, now a man you ve seen everywhere, explains to me, is it all over for sports? Have the wokesters just taken it forever, and we have to move on? Or is there some hope?
Transcript
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I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
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Everything has become so political. Our running shoes, political. Our chicken sandwiches,
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political. Our sitcoms, political. Every single thing. And people, they want one little break,
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just one. Maybe you'd watch some football. Oh, the Olympics, wouldn't that be nice? And no,
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they take that away from us, too. The NFL tells us that it's now transgender, lesbian, and gay.
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At the Olympics, you've got the athletes, at least at the trials, turning away, disrespecting the flag.
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They just won't give it to us. And since I am not exactly the world's expert on sports,
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thankfully, we have a great expert on sports. Jason Whitlock, former ESPN writer, former Fox Sports
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contributor. Now a man, you've seen him everywhere, and now he is with The Blaze. Jason is going to
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explain to me, is it all over for sports? Have the wokesters just taken it forever, and we've just
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got to move on? Or is there some hope? I don't think there's any hope, Michael,
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to be honest with you. And I'm someone who has never voted. I've always tried to avoid any type
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of political identity. And I grew up an athlete. I've always been a passionate sports fan. I went
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to college on a football scholarship. Sports was my little oasis away from all the political division
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and the political hypocrisy that I love to try to kind of avoid. And now it's front and center in the
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sports world. And quite frankly, I blame China. I really do. I think that Nike is so hyper-concerned
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and focused on improving its relationship with China. And Nike is the most powerful force in
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American sports. More powerful than the NFL, more powerful than Major League Baseball, more powerful
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than the NBA. And so I think through Nike's relationship and trying to improve its relationship
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with China, they've made American sports very political and a place to express anti-American
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sentiment. The CEO of Nike infamously, I wouldn't say famously, infamously just came out and said
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that Nike is a brand of China and for China, which I think would be a surprise to a lot of Nike
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customers around the world and certainly to a lot of American sports teams that have partnerships
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with Nike. So when did this begin and what does it mean for the relationship of Americans to their
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own sports teams? John Donahoe, the CEO of Nike, said that a couple of weeks ago and in that same
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conversation with Wall Street analysts, he talked about how this has been Nike's plan and strategy
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for 40 years. Nike founder Phil Knight hatched the plan of taking Nike International, started working on
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its relationship with China. China has 1.4 billion potential consumers. America has 330 million.
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And so Nike went from a great American success story where they toppled all the other shoe brands
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here in America. And then they set their sights on global domination. And that meant going to China
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and conquering that marketplace and those 1.4 billion potential consumers. And so this has been 40 years
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in the making. And I try to explain to people, Michael, that the NBA, the National Basketball Association,
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its purpose is to market tennis shoes, gym shoes, Nike apparel. The NBA is an $8 billion a year business.
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Nike is a $40 to $50 billion a year business. Nike runs the NBA. The NBA is the marketing arm of Nike.
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And so both Nike and the NBA have pursued the international market and the global market far
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more than they have a domestic audience. That's the biggest difference or had been the biggest
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difference between the NBA and the NFL. But now you even see the NFL caught up in trying to please the
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woke crowd and hopping on board with Nike and the anti-American sentiment. They're spreading through
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This parallels a major political conversation that's going on right now, which is that for the past 20 or
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30 years or so, Republicans have shilled for corporations that hate their guts and that want
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to sort of undo the traditional American way of life. And what some Republicans have said is, well,
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look, it's a free company, it's a private company. And if they want to turn their massive power on
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constantly denigrating America, why that's just the free market, at least we've got GDP ticking up a
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little bit. It seems to me historically, sports, games have always had a patriotic aspect to them.
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The games are always about the community, the state, the country, the people. And now that's being
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divorced, how long can that last? Or are people just going to tune out?
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I'm not sure if it matters whether people tune out. We have flooded our economy with so much money,
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there are no consequences for failure. Your audience, your TV ratings don't matter.
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We're paying for agenda and narrative. And so as long as the NBA, the NFL stay on message,
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the television networks, ESPN, Fox, CBS, they're going to cut enormous checks. And it doesn't matter
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that their market share strengths here in America. Our global corporations are paying for narrative,
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arc, arc, and agenda. And the agenda with a lot of these corporations to me, Michael, is
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they prefer the Chinese Communist Party's way of doing business over the way we do in America. Elites
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prefer communism over democracy and capitalism. That's what I think people are going to have to
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come to grips with, is that the working class, the common man, has been completely sold out.
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And the elites are going to put, are trying to impose a system that's more like China's.
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They can do business that way. It doesn't hurt the elites. They're still going to make their money.
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They're going to be treated well in a communist society that really, if we think we favor elites,
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wait till people get a real taste of communism and how they favor elites and really oppress the
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working class. You know, I think it was Charles Munger, Warren Buffett's business partner, but it
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was, it was one of those types, if it wasn't him, one of these masters of the universe who said that
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he didn't exactly want China's political system, but he did want their economic system, that it was
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kind of easy to do business with them. And it might be nice to do business that way over here.
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You have seen this very pro-China move, not just in sports, but Hollywood also infamously has sold
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its soul to China. You saw this in the Top Gun remake. All of a sudden, references to Taiwan
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started to disappear. All of a sudden, anything that might upset the Chinese Communist Party
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starts to disappear because he who pays the piper calls the tune. Well, I get it. If I were the CEO of
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Nike and I had no sense of loyalty to my country, then I probably would pursue that strategy too.
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If I were the head of a Hollywood studio and again, had no loyalty to my own country,
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I'd probably pursue that strategy too. Is there any way for we, for us as Americans to stop them
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from doing this? Or are we just going to sell out our sports and our culture to the highest bidder?
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I do think we're going to have to have an economic response. And, and, and again, I'm not even sure
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if that will matter to Nike or some of these other global corporations, but if we could empower some
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corporations that were hyper-focused, and this will sound comical when I, when I say it, but
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about a month ago, when I really started thinking about this, I, I went on the MyPillow website
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and bought a bunch of Mike Lindell, MyPillow stuff just to support a business that manufactures its
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products here in America and has a passion and a patriotism for America. We're going to have to start
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doing that. We're going to have to start, and, and, and I hate to say it, but it's just like, I just bought
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a new car, a new Mercedes, and I kind of regret it. I should have bought, I should have bought an
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American-made car, but we're going to have to start really disciplining ourselves and making wiser
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economic choices and invest in companies that actually believe in American freedom. There, there's,
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I don't think, there's a lot of the American public that doesn't fully understand what we're sacrificing
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by allowing foreign interests to manipulate our corporations and our culture. We're going to end
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up sacrificing the freedoms that made this country great. And for those of us that are black, the
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freedoms that allowed us to be a part of American freedom. If we were in, if our country keeps moving
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this direction of China, the political dissent that made black Americans free will no longer be
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available to us. We have to, and that's why what the Daily Wire is doing, what the Blaze is doing,
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we're trying to educate people about what's really going on and what the ramifications are.
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And, and because corporate media, so beholden to the big global corporations, they can't tell these
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kinds of truths. I totally agree with that. And all I will say on that point, Jason, is if you do feel
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so bad and the guilt gets to you so much, I am willing to take the Mercedes off your hand. You can't,
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it's fine. I will. I appreciate it. Yes. Anytime. Now what I, what I, what I do want to know is
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beyond the corporate level, this actually makes a lot of sense. And I hadn't really thought of it
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this way that Nike and a handful of other players, but really Nike is, is controlling so much of this
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conversation and narrative. What, what do the players really believe? Are they just dopes? Are
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they, are they just kind of been brainwashed? Are they cynically going along with this or some of
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them self-censoring? I'm reminded of that gal Gwen something or other, the hammer thrower from the
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Olympic trials a few weeks ago. Gwen Berry. Gwen Berry. Yes. And she, she said that she finds
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the national anthem offensive. She thinks it's a setup that she's got to respect the star spangled
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banner. She wants to represent the United States on the Olympic team, but she doesn't want to stand up
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and put her hand over her heart and respect the flag. She seems to really believe it. I think her
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explanation was nuts, but it seemed sincere at least. So what is it? Are the athletes, are they secret,
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you know, patriots and they're just going along for the sake of the woke corporations or have they
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really bought into this stuff? I used to be an athlete. I went to school on a division one football
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scholarship. I have respect for athletes, but when most of your life and free time are dedicated to
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developing your physical attributes, I don't then turn to them and go, oh, these are some of the
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greatest intellectual minds in America. I don't expect them to understand. I do expect them to
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be caught up in the culture that's being promoted. And so many of them are addicted to social media
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and Twitter and their phones and their brains have been hacked. Like all of us, they're not alone.
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All of us have this phone addiction, social media app addiction. They're young and they want to be
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popular. They want to be with the in crowd. They want to make money. And so Gwen Berry, I get it. She
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just wants to make some money and be relevant. She throws the hammer. No one's watching that event
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and she's not going to win it. How can she be popular? How can she be relevant? Oh, that's right.
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The national anthem bugs me. I don't respect the flag. They got pictures of her waving the flag and
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being patriotic. It's all, it's a gimmick. It's people, young people love attention. And so there's
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some of that when it comes to the professional athletes at the NBA, NFL level, look, and particularly in
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the NBA, they have, they get paid so much money. LeBron James makes far more money from Nike than
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he does the NBA. And that's true of a lot of the basketball players. They make more money from
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their shoe companies than the NBA. And so they're just doing what's in their financial best interest
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as explained to them by their handlers and the shoe companies and whatnot. And so just follow the
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money as it relates to a lot of the athletes, Colin Kaepernick, he figured out there's more money in
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being a martyr and a symbol than actually playing football at the level he was playing. And so I just,
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my expectations for athletes are they're going to train hard, be in shape, entertain us. They're not
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political leaders. They're not thought leaders. If I were as talented as LeBron James,
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I'd probably speak English as brutally as he does. Uh, and I would probably think a lot of the dumb
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stuff that he thinks, uh, because if I were that, I'd be so awash in money and women, I wouldn't have
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time to read a book. Yeah. I think that's, that's pretty fair. I think that's probably true for a lot
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of us. And, and LeBron, I mean, he's kind of at the forefront of this. He said that a black man in
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America can't walk outside the door without being chased down by racist whites. And I think,
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you know, LeBron, you're looking pretty good. You're looking healthy. You seem to have a pretty
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stable life here. I even, because I know so little about professional sports, I just don't really
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follow a ton. I follow baseball to some degree, although the MLB drove me so crazy the last two
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years I tried to tune it out. But when I heard about the Kaepernick story, when it first came up,
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I thought, oh gosh, I guess this guy must be one of the great quarterbacks of our age. You know,
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he must be one of the real top athletes and, but he's giving it up for it. No, he's not. He's this
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kind of middle of the pack guy who figured out how to make a buck and I guess more power to him
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because he's doing better than most of the other people who were still throwing a football.
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Not only middle of the pack, but just a bad attitude, not an attitude that's going to help
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your team win games. And be a, again, when you're playing quarterback in the NFL,
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the on-field performance matters the most, but there are other things. Leadership, being the face
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of the franchise, it's almost like you're the mayor of a city. And Colin Kaepernick didn't have
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any of those things. He had no interest in any of those things. He liked to build up his biceps and
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his abs and take pictures shirtless and put on Beats headphones and make money doing that.
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And it sounds like I'm just beating him up. I'm telling you, if I had his kind of talent at
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the age he was, 28, 29, 30 years old, I'd be doing and thinking the same thing.
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You know, unfortunately, I'm an overweight 50-year-old and so I have to read books and
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newspapers and I have to acquire information to make money. So I think a little differently than
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Kaepernick. I think that's a curse. It is. Believe it or not,
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I never got the call from the New York Giants. I was waiting by my phone for many years.
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Now, you know, you've really helped me think through this because I was looking, I said,
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what is it about the woke ideology maybe in the colleges when they were playing college ball?
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No, I mean, there is a real system of sticks and carrots here and real economic incentives
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to be doing this kind of thing. Is there any hope to change that economic incentive structure
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that seems to be turning, this last institution that we had, you know, the conservatives basically
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had sports and the military. Both have gone woke in the last six months and sports was a little bit
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earlier than that. So that's kind of depressing. You know, is there any way to reorder the incentives,
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be it at the level of the NCAA, be it at the level of the professional leagues,
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or are we basically just going to see them chasing dollars all the way to Beijing for the near future?
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Look, America hasn't always been driven by or influenced by sports and passion for sports.
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You know, professional sports came along 130, 40 years ago for the most part, I think.
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And so I think what is going to happen if we have a chance is that those of us,
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and I don't know your religious beliefs, I'll just speak about mine, those of us with passionate
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religious beliefs, followers of Jesus Christ, we may have to abandon our love of sports.
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And we may have to, at some point, stand up and remake America where we de-emphasize sports.
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And throwing all this money and adulation at guys who are ungrateful and unappreciative
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is a huge mistake. They have way too much influence over our culture.
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And so, you know, there are, we're in a legitimate, serious, critical culture war.
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And so there are things, all of this stuff in the culture, from the music industry to Hollywood,
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the sports, they're all going to have to be remade again.
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Or we'll just continue on our path of destruction and be the modern day Sodom and Gomorrah.
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I love this take because what you're saying, and I know this is shocking to so many people today,
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You know, the NFL just said, football is gay, lesbian, football is everything.
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And I said, well, it's not everything. It's not baseball. It's not basketball.
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It's not the color orange. It's not the number seven.
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It is a thing within limits because everything has limits here.
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And for Christians, we need to remember the blood of the martyrs is the seat of the church.
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Christians have been called upon in history to do far more difficult things than turn off the NFL.
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You know, people might love their sports, but there are more important things in this world.
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I also have a bit of an advantage because I never particularly cared for the NFL.
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But you're right. I mean, when these companies are spitting in the face of your values,
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doing so much to undermine your culture, at a certain point, no matter how much you like watching the game,
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And that's part of what I've, as a sports journalist, long time, and sports being a big part of my brand,
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the deal I've made with myself is I'm going to cover sports honestly.
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I'm not going to god up, celebrate people who don't espouse any of the values that I believe in.
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And so people are, oh, man, you're hypercritical of LeBron James and some of these other woke athletes.
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They're not protecting, defending, promoting the values that I believe in.
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They're promoting a secular, godless, Marxist worldview.
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They may not know it, but I'm going to point it out to them and point it out to their fans.
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And I'm going to do that for the rest of my career until we get it and understand it here in America.
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This whole reimagining, remaking, retelling of history that the African-American journey in America is something that damns America
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rather than enlightens people that are like, wow, look at what can be accomplished in America.
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And America and our Judeo-Christian values allow you to change the system in a way that will grant you your freedom and standing here in this country.
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The African-American journey is a great American success, come-from-behind story.
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We've allowed the New York Times and everybody else to say, well, the African-American journey proves that America is evil and irredeemably racist.
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Where else can people find your perspective now that you're at the Blaze?
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You can Fearless with Jason Whitlock, the podcast, wherever podcasts are shown and displayed.
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We've got a YouTube page, youtube.com, backslash Fearless with Jason Whitlock.
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But we just started today with the daily podcast and show.
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I've been writing columns now for about three weeks.
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Eventually, there will be a Fearless vertical on Blaze where you can get my writing and some of the contributors.