Ironically, the subtle correlation between the NFL and slavery was recently vividly displayed by ESPN, NFL’s most popular media outlet, during a skit for a Fantasy Football auction that showed a white man standing on a podium holding a picture pretending of auctioning Odell Beckham Jr. to a mainly white audience.
This unintentional tone-deaf skit was not well received by Beckham and many other black athletes and have raised more discussions about the racial dynamic between the NFL and the majority of its black players. There are unquestionable, vast distinctions between slavery and professional sports, but why do so many blacks tend to equate the two? And how the current situation with Colin Kaepernick have strengthened these arguments?
Such questions have opened the door to additional questions: Is the comparison just a residue of psychological trauma the history of slavery has caused? Or is there a legitimate case to their claim?
whereby money does not necessarily alter one’s status as ‘slave,’ as long as the ‘owner’ is the one who controls the rules that allow that money to be made.