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Civil rights groups protest NFL banning players from kneeling
Representatives of Women’s March, the National Action Network, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other activist groups protested outside the NFL’s New York City headquarters on Friday, after the league issued a policy aiming to stop players kneeling during the national anthem.
The NFL issued new rules on Wednesday that mean players doing so could be fined.
Donald Trump, who has attacked players who have knelt, hailed the NFL ruling as a victory, saying that someone fails to stand for the anthem “maybe you shouldn’t be in the country”.
Some players have already said they won’t be cowed by the league, however, and on Thursday Sports Illustrated reported that players are discussing other ways they can protest before games.
Spanish rant lawyer says sorry
Days after a thousand people gathered outside Aaron Schlossberg’s New York City apartment, complete with a mariachi band, to celebrate Latin culture, the lawyer whose racist restaurant rant went viral issued an apology.
— AaronSchlossbergLaw (@ASchlossbergLaw) May 22, 2018
“The manner in which I expressed myself is unacceptable and is not the person I am,” Schlossberg said in a Twitter post. “What the video did not convey is the real me. I am not a racist.”
Schlossberg was filmed threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on workers speaking Spanish at a New York restaurant, saying he believed them to be illegal immigrants.
What we’re reading
- “A string of victories for women in primary elections across the country is beginning to reshape the face of the Democratic party and accelerate a conversation about its future,” writes David Siders over at Politico. Siders says the consequences could reach “well beyond the 2018 midterm election horizon”.
- “We’re witnessing a historically unprecedented shift left in opinions about race among Democratic voters,” writes Sean McElwee, co-founder of Data for Progress, in the New York Times. McElwee examined surveys to discover that “on every question in the racial resentment battery, white Democrats were more likely to take the liberal position in 2016 than they were in 2011, often startlingly so”.
