NFL = “modern day slavery”

RUSH: Let me get this NFL thing out of the way. I fear I may have been talking about this for two or three days and I’ve built up an expectation here that can’t be met. But let’s see. When the first signs of trouble in the NFL popped up — and they were actually before Colin Kaepernick decided to take a knee during the anthem. There were other indications — during Black Lives Matter protests and other things — that the NFL was being politicized. I made a series of predictions that would eventually redefine the game to be something that current fans will not find compelling or interesting.

Essentially the insertion of politics into the game, when you look at professional sports as an escape from the humdrum, from the controversial, an escape. It’s playtime. You know, it’s make-believe. At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter.

When they started talking about concussions and how dangerous they were and people having shortened lives and people, players committing suicide and this kind of thing. One of the predictions I made was, “You just wait until they figure out — ’til somebody in the media figures out — the angle that the owners are all a bunch of rich white guys, and the players (the vast majority of them) are African-American, and that they’re the ones getting killed. They’re the ones getting injured. They’re the ones committing suicide. They’re the ones to whom all of the bad things are happening.”

I said, “You just wait. When somebody figures that out and actually starts putting that in daily commentary about what’s wrong with the NFL.” Well, it’s happened. That prediction has come true, and I want to read to you from the publication.

“To [NFL owners], it’s players refusing to be mere extensions of equipment on the field or robots advancing the ball. It’s players noticing … that the league is not in fact integrated. It’s segregated, with mostly black bodies taking all the risk, pain, and traumatic brain injury, while an almost entirely white ownership class reaps the rewards.” And there it is! Now it’s out there. This is the one element I have been waiting to happen. This is going to be defined as modern-day slavery, an equivalent to modern-day slavery.

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