From his mountaintop, NFL commission Roger Goodell offered his execuspeak on the police killing of George Floyd and the protests that grew nationwide and continue.
"The NFL family is greatly saddened by the tragic events across our country," he said in a statement. "The protesters' reactions to these incidents reflect the pain, anger and frustration that so many of us feel."
The irony and hypocrisy made me wince.
The sentiment's is years late. He could have made it in 2016 in standing behind the cry for social justice began by Colin Kaepernick, but he did not. His league wanted nothing to do with the kneeling during the national anthem to protest the very situation we have seen recur.
Kaepernick, a quarterback then 28, in his prime and coming off a great season, approaches his fourth season of being blackballed by the NFL. His punishment for a cause so needed, now more than ever as we see again, is one of the great injustices in sports history.
The where-were-you-when-we-needed you reaction to Goodell was swift.
"Shame on you. This is beyond hollow and disingenuous," said outspoken American filmmaker Ana DuVernay. "Your actions show who you are. You've done nothing but the exact opposite of what you describe here."
Houston Texans receiver Kenny Stills, the former Dolphin, was rather more direct:
"Save the bulls _ -," he advised Goodell.
I reached out to Dolphins receiver Albert Wilson, who has knelt as a part of the cause, but still await his reply.
A former NFL executive, Joe Lockhart, said "now is the moment" for an NFL team to sign Kaepernick and suggest the Minnesota Vikings because the Floyd killing took place in Minneapolis.
The thing is, Kaepernick should have a job on merit, not as a token symbolic gesture.
As usual, sports give voice to the outrage over continued killings by white police officers of unarmed black men, as in the Floyd incident. The officer who caused Floyd's death has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. Three fellow officers who were a part of the arrest but did not intervene have not yet been charged.
During the weekend the Miami Heat's beloved U.D., Udonis Haslem, son of Miami, stood before city of Miami police headquarters at the mayor's invitation to condemn the killing but also advocate for peace on the streets.
"I said, how did I find myself here, you know?" he began. "There definitely has to be justice for George., definitely has to be protests for what happened. But I'd be lying if I said I was proud of what's really going on. So many of my family members come here every day (as police department employees). There's gotta be a better way (than setting fires and looting). I stand here right now confused, torn, frustrated.
"I just want to be a part of the solution," Haslem went on. "As a black man raising black kids in America, I'm scared as hell. Way more scared than I was for myself. We can't keep going this way, I know that."
On my latest Show podcast, another Miami icon and community leader and activist, Luther (Luke) Campbell, discussed the George killing and how it him him emotionally.
"It was devastating," he said. "Last week was the 40th anniversary of Arthur McDuffie getting shot off of a motorcycle. I was a kid at that time living in Liberty City, and I remember the tanks riding down the street, the tear gas and the smoke. As I grew older it became another person, whether it was Neville Johnson, whether it was Trayvon Martin ... "
The McDuffie killing and the acquittal of four officers led to the Miami race riots of May 1980 that left 18 dead.
Now it is George Floyd. Does anyone doubt there might be a next?
The anger and frustration that led Kaepernick to kneel and foment a cause was years, decades, in the making.
Campbell and I agreed police are needed in a civil society and that the vast majority are good cops. We also agreed police departments must do better in the vetting process to not hire future problems and to get rid of the bad apples sooner.
The weight on our country is enormous right now, greater than I have seen or felt in my lifetime. We are not alone.
Soccer star Lionel Messi said Sunday, "Soccer, like life in general, will never be the same."
The coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic that shuts down sports goes on, with some experts suggesting it could take years to fully get past. The resulting economic crash has caused record unemployment. Our political divide is as acrimonious as it has ever been.
And now we deal with the racial divide centered on the killing of George Floyd, and the resulting national protests, some turned violent.
It is so much. Too much. It tests America's resolve like few things have in our history.
And there is this: the underbelly of the violence we are seeing. Reports are that the protesters legitimately on the street over this are not primarily the ones inciting chaos. Those are bad folks in far left and right wing groups arriving in cities solely to take advantage of this situation and cause riots and mayhem.
Meantime sports leagues negotiate to find a way to resume play with no fans in the stands _ to help us all feel a little bit of a return to normalcy even as nothing around us feels normal right now.
We have no choice but to believe we will emerge from all of this as a healed, better America, even as the road seems long.
