I’ll cut to the chase. I have some important family business to attend to this afternoon. And I am running on very little sleep. I will be looking to promote diaries from you guys. Keep writing, you are producing great pieces that stimulate great conversations. Also it looks like Booman will be out of action for an indefinite time. I should know more about that sometime next week. All the more reason to write, and also for people to check out the diaries section on the right hand margin.
Meanwhile for starters, I saw this story this morning, and said to myself, if this were Tim Tebow, the most famous Christian athlete in America (but a mediocre former pro football player), the NFL would never have done this to him:
When Kansas City Chiefs safety Husain Abdullah intercepted a Tom Brady pass and returned it for a touchdown Monday night, he did what so many other NFL players do to celebrate a big play: He paused to make a religious gesture of thanks.
But Abdullah, a devout Muslim, found that his religious display was met with less latitude than, say, Tim Tebow when he brought Tebowing into the NFL. Abdullah was penalized 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct because he slid to the ground, then knelt in in the end zone.
I guess it is unsportmanlike for Americans of other faiths to publicly pray to anyone at a sports event unless that prayer is to Jesus. What a country!
From Twitter:
https://twitter.com/RTNBA/status/516802767042912256/photo/1
Yay, freedom of religion! Unbelievable.
Cops in Ferguson last night didn’t like praying either:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYqBRxy3WxU
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nfl-penalizes-husain-abdullah-muslim-prayer
NFL has officially said that he should not have been penalized and he didn’t violate a rule. Now I think what he did is dumb and self righteous, but I thought that about Tebow.
So, in the benefit-of-the-doubt category, there are two things to consider.
First, Abdullah slid on the ground in the end zone then transitioned to a prayer position. Sliding in the end zone is against the rules – whether that makes sense or not. This is something the player himself noted afterwards.
Second, it’s possible that the referee who threw the flag didn’t recognize the slide-prayer as a religious gesture, whereas Tebow’s gesture (as with everything Tebow did and still does, despite what his religious book preaches) just screamed “look how religiously pious I am”. At the time it would have been impossible for anyone who had been conscious in the US for the year or two prior not to know what Tebow was doing.
So let’s not make too much of this. There are countless open displays of racism every day in this country from the right wing – focusing on an event like this for which a plausible alternate explanation exists does not help the cause. I’m sure going forward that Abdullah won’t slide in his next celebration and that all NFL refs will know not to flag such a prayer ritual.
And fortunately the penalty had zero effect on the outcome of the game. A game which, by the way, was by far the most enjoyable game of the weekend.
A game which, by the way, was by far the most enjoyable game of the weekend.
Not for my daughter the die hard Patriots fan. She was in tears on the phone with me. Sigh.
For most of my life I had positive feelings for the Patriots – and the Red Sox for that matter. Then 2003-2004 happened and overnight a) the northeast-centric sports media went as ga-ga for St Belichek’s team as they have for the Yankees and Cowboys and, b) even worse, many Boston fans started to behave like that which they most despised – Yankee fans.
The Patriots are still a good team and I’ll be shocked if they don’t win their division again (keep in mind they won the division 11 of the last 12 years and the one exception year they were 11-5 without Brady and lost the division only on a tiebreak). Yes, they suffered a blowout loss, their worst in many years and one of their 2 or 3 worst in the last 15 years. Most teams have at least 3 such losses every year – it’s just that Patriots fans have been so sheltered.
wow. Wishing him, Cabin Girl and the kids and parents all the best.
This is pretty disgusting hypocrisy from the NFL…. but what else is new?
Honestly, I have zero interest in the sport any more and am finding out that more and more of my friends feel the same. It used to be that there was some interesting physical and skill based competition, but it was so annoying to have so many commercial breaks when compared to soccer that I never watched without being with a group who DID care.
Now that that is dwindling, and with what has to be one of their most scandalous seasons ever, it will take a lot to ever bring me back.