Monday on ESPN’s “First Take,” host Stephen A. Smith argued that activist quarterback Colin Kaepernick is more comparable to President Donald Trump than Jackie Robinson.
Kaepernick tweeted a graphic Sunday with a quote by Robinson about how he cannot stand or sing the National Anthem.
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) April 16, 2018
Smith said to anybody mentioning Kaepernick in the same sentence as Robinson, “Pump them damn brakes.”
“He is not comparable to the great Jackie Robinson,” he argued. “Jackie Robinson was the man that was responsible for integrating the sport of Major League Baseball. Jackie Robinson was coming up in a time when we were devoid of civil rights, where we couldn’t use the same restaurants or the same bathrooms or we couldn’t patronize the same businesses or the water fountains or anything like that. Jackie Robinson grew up at a time with such alarming hostility that it sparked the Civil Rights movement, for crying out loud, in certain respects, and there is no question about that.”
Instead, Smith likened the activist quarterback to the president, who tried to become an owner in the league, but failed because he sued the league many years before and was ultimately ostracized.
“Donald Trump was the former owner for the USFL, who tried to sue the NFL for $1.7 billion,” Smith explained. “He won the case, but won a grand total of one dollar. It assisted in ruining the USFL — certainly ruined his chances of ultimately getting what he really wanted which is to own an NFL team because then in 2014, years later when he wanted to own the Buffalo Bills, they still didn’t want him to be a part of their clique. So here you have a white billionaire who wants to become a part of the league and couldn’t get in. Colin Kaepernick can’t get back in.”
He continued, “I understand that the two things really don’t have much to do with one another, but I’m saying the irony is that Donald Trump before he ever decided to run for president wanted to be an owner for the National Football League and they would not let him in, and as a result, it sparked him to run for the presidency of the United States of America, which he ultimately succeeded in doing so, by the way, and it was spearheaded by the fact they wouldn’t let him in the league. So, anybody who affects their bottom line is somebody they would ostracize, and Colin Kaepernick is the latest example of that.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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