caelkhnter
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Nearly 30 years ago Charles Barklely got it absolutely right when he proclaimed that he was not a role model. AS he clearly explained: "I'm not paid to be a role model. I'm paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I can dunk a basketball doesn't mean I should raise your kids."
Today, 30 years later, professional sports and their celebrity athletes, with the assistance of the mainstream media and the internet, have advanced the process of diminishing the influence of traditional authority figures, such as parents and previously recognized leaders, and instead strengthen the reach and impact of celebrities and professional sports.
While American sports have never been more influential, they have also never been more vulnerable to foreign influence. Their partnership with Global brands in their desire to build global audiences have given foreign countries a pathway to manipulate American sports and culture.
Look at how China, with its 1.4 billion consumers, rules the National basketball Association and its parent company Nike, the same way it rules Hollywood. The fact is, Nike, not the NBA, controls basketball. One can make a fair argument that the NBA is nothing more than an in-house marketing department of Nike.
However both Nike and the NBA kowtow to China, which explains their complete silence on the horrific human rights abuses inside China and the suppression of Hong Kong freedom fighters by China's Communist government. Nike's and the NBA's China agenda helps explain why Nike pitchmen Lebron James and:Colin Kaepernick enthusiastically smear the United States as inherently racist and evil.
Kaepernick's National Anthem Defiance in 2016 gave the left and opportunity to politicize football, American's new national pastime, and forced it into the kind of "progressive" posture lane already commonplace in the NBA and Hollywood. 4 years after Kaepernick first knelt, the Leftist mob has forced the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the NBA to take to their own knees and pay homage to this dishonest Black Lives Matter narrative on police brutality..
The entire professional sports world-a culture that traditionally celebrated victories, meritocracy, colorblindness, and patriotism,-has suddenly immersed itself in black victimization and left-wing radicalism. This immersion threatens to do permanent damage to American culture as a whole. It certainly has undermined National pride. A country that no longer believes in its founding ideals cannot prosper and survive.
Pro-BLM athletes today have moved beyond the idea of a role model that was debated back in 1993, the idea of modeling behavior to be imitated, such as self-reliance, hard work, responsibility, and parenthood. Through the power of social media, to which they are addicted, these modern role models exert influence by promoting commercial products and political causes.
Charles Barclay was right 30 years ago. Parents, not athletes, should be role models. Today the situation is even worse, with sports further dividing an already dangerously divided nation, rather than providing the unifying and even healing force as sports had historically done.
Today, 30 years later, professional sports and their celebrity athletes, with the assistance of the mainstream media and the internet, have advanced the process of diminishing the influence of traditional authority figures, such as parents and previously recognized leaders, and instead strengthen the reach and impact of celebrities and professional sports.
While American sports have never been more influential, they have also never been more vulnerable to foreign influence. Their partnership with Global brands in their desire to build global audiences have given foreign countries a pathway to manipulate American sports and culture.
Look at how China, with its 1.4 billion consumers, rules the National basketball Association and its parent company Nike, the same way it rules Hollywood. The fact is, Nike, not the NBA, controls basketball. One can make a fair argument that the NBA is nothing more than an in-house marketing department of Nike.
However both Nike and the NBA kowtow to China, which explains their complete silence on the horrific human rights abuses inside China and the suppression of Hong Kong freedom fighters by China's Communist government. Nike's and the NBA's China agenda helps explain why Nike pitchmen Lebron James and:Colin Kaepernick enthusiastically smear the United States as inherently racist and evil.
Kaepernick's National Anthem Defiance in 2016 gave the left and opportunity to politicize football, American's new national pastime, and forced it into the kind of "progressive" posture lane already commonplace in the NBA and Hollywood. 4 years after Kaepernick first knelt, the Leftist mob has forced the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and the NBA to take to their own knees and pay homage to this dishonest Black Lives Matter narrative on police brutality..
The entire professional sports world-a culture that traditionally celebrated victories, meritocracy, colorblindness, and patriotism,-has suddenly immersed itself in black victimization and left-wing radicalism. This immersion threatens to do permanent damage to American culture as a whole. It certainly has undermined National pride. A country that no longer believes in its founding ideals cannot prosper and survive.
Pro-BLM athletes today have moved beyond the idea of a role model that was debated back in 1993, the idea of modeling behavior to be imitated, such as self-reliance, hard work, responsibility, and parenthood. Through the power of social media, to which they are addicted, these modern role models exert influence by promoting commercial products and political causes.
Charles Barclay was right 30 years ago. Parents, not athletes, should be role models. Today the situation is even worse, with sports further dividing an already dangerously divided nation, rather than providing the unifying and even healing force as sports had historically done.
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