“Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson made some controversial comments about the NFL labor situation in an interview with Doug Farrar of Yahoo’s Shutdown Corner. The interview was conducted just before the NFLPA decertified. “It’s modern-day slavery, you know? People kind of laugh at that, but there are people working at regular jobs who get treated the same way, too. With all the money,” Peterson continued. “The owners are trying to get a different percentage, and bring in more money.”* I am so sick of athletes comparing their plight to the plight of slaves. People could live a comfortable life if they were paid the league minimum $285,000, and the superstars make millions. So let’s not equate their labor negoiations to Kunta Kinte. They need to eliminate the slave references all together. Millions of Americans are unemployed and underemployed, and they don’t want or need to hear athletes whining about their plight as they sip soup out of their silver spoons.
*Huffington Post
politics from the eyes of an ebony mom 
Comments
Why not continue to plead racial victim status? If it ain’t broke¸ don’t fix it. So goes the saying. People continue to do this because it continues to work. The last thing that a rich White guy wants to be portrayed as is racist. So when everything else fails, play the race card.
This technique has been so effective through the years that other aggrieved groups have co opted it and developed their own version . Take for example the gay lobby. They frequently resort to playing their version of oppressed victim when unsuccessful in advancing their agenda by equating their struggle with the struggle of Blacks for their freedom. After all, they too are fighting for equal rights, aren’t they?
Then there is the struggle of immigrants who are in this country illegally. In their quest for access to rights and benefits in this country, they also often equate that struggle with that of Blacks for freedom and equal opportunities.
Legitimate or not it continues. Only when the targeted become inured to these sorts of charges, rendering them no longer effective will the charges cease.
So, we go from a 19 year-old coed from UCLA saying something ill-advised, to a professional athlete saying something FAR more ignorant. Did someone put something in the water recently?
Bill is correct. Why re-invent the wheel when you can just use what has been proven effective in the past? This won’t be the last time we have to listen to something like this.