Dear Coach Swinney,
I’m a professor at Clemson. We’ve never met, but we work with many of the same students.
I listened to your comments on the issue of athlete protests on the field, and I wanted to share some of my impressions.
I winced when I heard a reporter ask you, a white man who makes somewhere in the area of $5 million a year from the physical labor and bodily risk of unpaid black athletes, if he would “discipline” them for making a political statement. Given that you and I both work on the former plantation of John C. Calhoun, the historical significance of the question is staggering and troubling.
To your credit, you said that you would not discipline a player for not standing during the national anthem, an act of defiance most recently started by 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
You did acknowledge Kaepernick’s right to protest, and you encouraged other players to exercise those rights if they want to. I was glad to hear all of those things. For a moment, I felt even prouder than I already am to be a professor at Clemson.
But then you started talking about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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