“He comes across as a flaming hypocrite,” said
a very angry Smith. “And as far as I’m
concerned, I’m not interested in a damn word that he has to say, and quite
frankly, I hope he goes away.”
Welcome to the club, Stephen. But I have a hard time joining my friends in
giving you kudos for now, and only now, voicing your discontent with him,
because there is something incredibly suspicious about your outrage.
Here’s why.
Smith, headlong into his angry tirade, said this: “[Kaepernick]
of all people, because of the position he took, because of the attention he
brought to the issues. The fact that you
don’t even have the decency to go to the poll and activate yourself in this
election, as our president said, is a damn shame.”
Most people hear that and think, “Well, he’s right. Everyone
should vote, because that’s what I’ve
been told since I was a kid. It’s your duty.
Right on, Stephen A. Smith!”
Then, if you look a bit closer at the words he chose,
it should become clear that the broad “everyone should vote” message isn’t
really what he’s getting at. He cites
that he should have “activated” himself, “as our president said.”
The president did
say
that the black community should “activate itself,” but the context of that
statement that he cited is important. “I
will consider it a personal insult,” Obama told the Congressional Black Caucus
gala, “if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in
this this election. You want to give me
a good sendoff? Go vote.”
The president wasn’t saying everyone should go vote
for whomever they please because it’s our civic duty to vote. He was saying he would consider it a
“personal insult” if black voters didn’t turn out to elect Hillary Clinton and
thus preserve his legacy, specifically. So
it’s extremely unlikely that Smith’s anger is predicated on the fact that Colin
didn’t participate in the election process, as his supposed civic duty might
require of him, though I admit, that appears to be the impetus for the rant on
the surface. After all, I don’t think
Smith would be applauding Kaepernick if he came out saying that he voted for
Trump. Smith is most likely angry, based
on this curious reference, because he didn’t get roused enough to “get his butt
to the polls” to vote for Hillary, whom I’d wager dollars to donuts that
Stephen A. Smith believes black Americans should have “activated” themselves to
vote for in response to the perceived institutional racism that Smith thought
Kaepernick meant to highlight. This is a
tantrum, and little more.
But here’s the real kicker, for me. Let’s climb out on the limb and assume that
Smith really is outraged on principle, and that he really thinks Kaepernick not
voting at all, not even having “the decency” to write in a candidate of his
choosing (which would have been ultimately futile and a waste of his time, let’s
be honest) makes him a “flaming hypocrite” and that he “betrayed his cause.” That’s still
not entirely accurate. Kaepernick’s
refusal to vote is actually pretty consistent with the purpose of his stupid “protest.”
First of all, Kaepernick has been extremely critical
of both candidates, calling Trump “obviously racist” while suggesting that
Hillary Clinton is also a racist, and should probably be in jail to boot.
Fact is, he’s actually painted Hillary
Clinton in a less favorable light than Trump, which as
I’ve noted, really upset those among the left that were paying
attention. Furthermore, the underlying
statement Kaepernick has hoped to make was that there are systemic problems in
America that go beyond who may or may not be the president. Just as he refuses to stand for the
time-honored celebration of the national anthem, his refusal to take part in
the time-honored American election process could be considered part and parcel
of the same ideological position of protest.
“To me,” Kaepernick said of Clinton and Trump, “it
didn’t really matter who went in there.
The system still remains intact that oppresses people of color.”
Now, I will say that he is completely wrong in that
position, and that he remains the uninformed idiot that he has always been. And personally, I believe when uninformed
idiots do not vote, the country is the better for it. But to call him a hypocrite for it isn’t
really fair, either.
Point is, there’s really not a lot to be impressed
about in Smith’s angry rant about Kaepernick.
It’s a tantrum disguised as middle-of-the-road criticism, and at the
very best, an expression of his disappointment that Kaepernick didn’t fall in
line to do the one thing that Stephen A. Smith thinks all black people should
have done in response to the perceived institutional racism Kaepernick highlighted
with his protest -- i.e., he didn’t vote for Hillary.
William Sullivan can be followed on Twitter.
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