Kaepernick, Free Speech, and Employers
Should employers have the right to restrict their employees’ free speech and political autonomy?
Here’s a scary thought: you leave job on Friday. Something really jacked-up happens in your community Saturday morning. I mean really, really — a child died. You go out with the rest of the parents and protest this child being murdered. The tears are streaming down your face, the candle wax is burning your hands, it is cold and your nose begins to run, but you do not care. You have children around the age of that child and you cannot imagine someone taking your child from you. Someone snaps a photo of you, and it lands on the news. When you get settled in at work Monday, your boss calls you in and explains that at this company, they do not support political protests and your face on the news is an embarrassment to them. You try to explain to them that it was not to embarrass them, but a child died. It does not matter, you’re fired. You go to pack up your things and you wonder: Did I just get fired because I exercised my free speech? Thinking that you work in a right-to-work-right-to-hire state, you simply walk out and begin looking for another job. Unfortunately, it is a small world. Your boss went to the bridge club and told everyone in the industry about your fiery political temper, and they have all seen you on tv as “proof.” You find that you can no longer find gainful employment, and you just do not know what to do.
While we may not think such things apply to people that we see broadcasted in our living rooms, they actually do. We think of Colin Kaepernick as a superstar, NFL player. We do not even feel sorry for him now that he is not playing any more. Thanks to ESPN, football players’ salaries are broadcasted all over sports media. They make millions of dollars from their contracts and even more money from their endorsements. Why should we feel sorry for someone who is banned from playing a game when he is still making money from endorsements?
Plainly put, Colin Kaepernick was an employee of the National Football League, and we should all be concerned about his dismissal and subsequent black-balling from the game. This may sound overblown, but sometimes, as sports goes, the rest of our society goes. I feel Jackie Robinson’s inclusion in the MLB prefaced integration in the rest of society. I have a series of questions that are quite difficult to answer. But we must ask them and we must answer them. Whether we are sports fans or not, we need to answer them together as a society.
Are we willing to let employers fire people, because the employer does not like the political stance of an employee? Is free speech really free if we are going to pay for it with our jobs? Should the employer be allowed to dictate what political issues we feel passionately about? Should the employer decide when, where or if we exercise our right to peaceful political protest? If a player is Black and protests the mistreatment of Black people in America, does that warrant firing? What if an Asian player protests the mistreatment of Asians in America, would he be fired? Or, is this strictly a Black thing? Does free speech only cost Black people? How much money -what is the cutoff- is our free speech worth? My good friend says for $500,000 he will shut the f*#@ up. What about you? Should football players have less free speech because they have million dollar contracts? Should athletes not have a vested interest in politics and events in the communities from which they came? Are athletes only valued for their bodies and physical prowess, and therefore have no right to express what is in their hearts and on their minds?
As always, if you like this clapback, or you could always enroll in one of my classes. This discussion comes directly from my Composition II class!
