247. Chillin

A friend of mine, whom I respect a lot, tweeted some things about a column regarding in the National Review. The column basically said that football was not the place for protest and all they wanted to do was “watch the game.” While I’m not really on the same level as the columnist. I believe that you kind of have to acknowledge the other things inherent within the game.I guess acknowledging is one thing, engaging is another.

My friend tweeted that “it must be nice to have that privilege” to just enjoy the game. I don’t want to speak for my friend or assume everything she has faced as a woman of color working in sports, but it didn’t feel quite right.

I enjoy talking about the intersection of sports, culture, and politics, but I don’t think everyone does. Just like someone I know who said they don’t like analyzing the symbolism behind art. Sometimes people just want to look at pretty pictures. Is that wrong?

I don’t know what everyone is going through when they tune into a football game. Maybe some people have a real crappy job and all they want to do is take their mind off of all that. That’s fine. However, I do have a problem with people who feel that they can’t escape Kapernick’s protest. I guarantee that you can. Log off Twitter, go to a different site, put the television on mute. Don’t expect your entertainment to be always be uncontroversial, but you can pretty easily change that situation if you want to.

Later on Monday night, I was at a friend’s house. She wanted to watch the season finale of “Bachelor in Paradise.” Since it was her house and I like her, I thought I’d go with the flow. I had never seen an episode of the Bachelor or Bachelorette before, but it was awful. It was shallow, full of phonies, and it was based on a terrible premise: you’re going to find love in less than a month. I don’t know how smart people can watch it.

BUT, I understand that sometimes people just want to watch terrible television. Based on my Twitter timeline, many females (and a number of males) love it. I don’t want to go into it, but sometimes people just want to escape. I could have tweeted about how stupid the show was, but I decided not to. It wasn’t worth it.

And then I saw my friend tweet about the Bachelor in Paradise. I tweeted and asked her if she thought just watching the NFL was the same as just watching the Bachelor. I’m sure she didn’t want to be inundated with talk about how the show set a terrible precedent for romance in the 21st century.

She didn’t respond. I’m not trying to gloat. I didn’t send her any more tweets. I just went on with my day. We all have something we want to escape to. I have things I want to escape to.  And that’s ok.