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Mike Ditka: 'No oppression in last 100 years'

10-Oct-2017

Former Bears star and coach Mike Ditka, an adamant critic of National Football League players kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial discrimination, said Monday in a national radio interview that this country has been free of oppression for at least a century.

 

“All of a sudden, it’s become a big deal now, about oppression,” Ditka told Jim Gray on Westwood One’s pregame show ahead of the Bears’ “Monday Night Football” loss to the Vikings. “There has been no oppression in the last 100 years that I know of. Now maybe I’m not watching it as carefully as other people.”

 

Setting aside what’s going on today, the discrimination and bigotry Ditka’s Bears teammates faced in the mid-1960s was memorably depicted in the much-beloved 1971 TV movie “Brian’s Song,” starring James Caan as Brian Piccolo and Billy Dee Williams as Gale Sayers, the team’s first interracial roommates.

 

The Civil Rights Act wasn’t passed until 1964, the Voting Rights Act came the next year. The last 100 years in the United States have included efforts to eradicate decades of Jim Crow laws that enforced racial segregation and their legacy.  Discriminatory practices in housing, hiring, education, transportation, the armed forces, public accommodations and even pro sports have been fought.

 

Civil disobedience was a catalyst for some of the progress that has been made, but Ditka repeated his criticism of NFL players demonstrating during the national anthem before games.

 

“Is that the stage for this? If you want to protest, or whatever you want to protest, you’ve got a right to do that, but I think you’re a professional athlete, you have an obligation to the game,” Ditka said. “I think you have to respect the game. That’s what I think is the most important thing. I don’t see a lot of respect for the game. I just see respect for their own individual opinions. Opinions are like noses, we all have one. Some are good. Some are bad.”

 

Ditka insisted he wasn’t “condemning anybody or criticizing anybody” but urged players to  “protest when the game’s over, protest whatever other way you want to” and said he would bench players who insisted on demonstrating during the anthem because it’s disrespectful.

 

“If you don’t respect our country, then you shouldn’t be in this country playing football,” he said. “Go to another country and play football. If you had to go somewhere else to try to play the sport, you wouldn’t have a job. So that would be my take. If you can’t respect the flag and the country, then you don’t respect what this is all about. So I would say, adios.”

 

Gray cited athletes such as Muhammad Ali and Jesse Owens who have taken on social injustices, but Ditka was unmoved.

 

“I don’t know what social injustices have been,” Ditka said. “Muhammad Ali rose to the top. Jesse Owens is one of the classiest individuals that ever lived. I mean, you can say, ‘Are you (saying) everything is based on color?’ I don’t see it that way. I think that you have to be color blind in this country. You’ve got to look at a person for what he is and what he stands for and how he produces, not by the color of his skin. That has never had anything to do with anything.”

 

Ditka said there are opportunities for everyone in the United States, regardless of race, religion, creed, color, nationality “if you want to work, if you want to try, if you want to put effort into yourself. I think you can accomplish anything, and we have watched that throughout our history of our country. People rise to the top and they became very influential people in our country by doing the right things.”

 

Gray reminded listeners Ditka, whom he called “America’s coach,” used to be a regular on the Westwood One pregame show and, occasionally, their 6 ½ minute segment Monday included football talk.

 

Ditka suggested injuries to stars such as the Texans’ J.J. Watt and the Giants’ Odell Beckham Jr. might be the result of not practicing at a fast enough tempo but conceded “I don’t know how hard they practice anymore.”

 

Bears rookie quarterback Mitch Trubisky, who was about to make his NFL regular-season debut, won Ditka’s approval as a talented, confident young player.

 

“I think he’ll go out and do a good job, and I want to say one thing. it’s not about the quarterbacks,” Ditka said. “You know, the other quarterback (Mike Glennon) wasn’t bad.”

 

Ending the segment, Gray joked that Ditka seemed to be at a loss for words.

 

“No, I’m not because I’m getting old, Jim, and I’m to the point right now, I’m fed up with a lot of it,” Ditka said. “I mean, I don’t see all this, the social injustice that some of these people see. I don’t. I know my dad worked in a steel mill and he brought home a paycheck and we ate dinner every night together. We didn’t have anything, but we didn’t need anything because we had a family. That was a good time in America. I would like to see us get back to that.”

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/breaking/ct-ditka-20171010-story,amp.html

 

[Rippleman]

1 hour ago, Mando said:

But to answer your question Rippleman, I guess im relatively intelligent, im not the most intelligent in my field of work for example, but im doing ok thanks, started off as a healthcare clinician, retrained into IT support and its certainly keeping me in a comfortable life, working in Biomedical Invitro Research sector, as a SNR Tier 4 infrastructure engineer. So not the daftest brush in the paint pot.

So, being that you relatively intelligent when being compared to (quote:) "trump and pence (the retard gang)" and "Pair of single celled amoebas", if you care about your country why not use that intelligence and get trump out of office? If you have this intelligence to do better then trump, why aren't you? Can't be that hard against retards can it? Unless are you saying that retards and single cell amoebas can out think you and stop you? 

(note: i am not making claims for or against your position, only asking "why or "why not?") 

[Mando]

14 minutes ago, Rippleman said:

So, being that you relatively intelligent when being compared to (quote:) "trump and pence (the retard gang)" and "Pair of single celled amoebas", if you care about your country why not use that intelligence and get trump out of office? Can't be that hard against retards can it? Unless are you saying that retards and single cell amoebas can out think you and stop you? 

(note: i am not making claims for or against your position, only asking "why or "why not?") 

Im Scottish and live in Scotland mate  I do care about my home country, pay higher than average income tax but happy to knowing it goes partly into Scottish Govts coffers currently.

Its also why I voted to leave the Union in our referendum and voted to stay in the EU. Cameron stated in UK referendum the only way for Scotland to stay in the EU was to stay part of the UK, this has not transpired it turns out and also why im open to a second referendum if SNP invoke it, but thats a totally different line of discussions

 

Id love nothing better than Trump and his land ownership to GTFO from Scotland, hes a bully and vilified over here for his antics at Turnberry and his other resorts. 

 

Its cool, I appreciate your questioning buddy, no offence taken  slightly upset you thought I was American though  (im joking!)

[Rippleman]

17 minutes ago, Mando said:

Im Scottish and live in Scotland mate  I do care about my home country, pay higher than average income tax but happy to knowing it goes partly into Scottish Govts coffers currently.

Its also why I voted to leave the Union in our referendum and voted to stay in the EU. Cameron stated in UK referendum the only way for Scotland to stay in the EU was to stay part of the UK, this has not transpired it turns out and also why im open to a second referendum if SNP invoke it, but thats a totally different line of discussions

 

Id love nothing better than Trump and his land ownership to GTFO from Scotland, hes a bully and vilified over here for his antics at Turnberry and his other resorts. 

 

Its cool, I appreciate your questioning buddy, no offence taken  slightly upset you thought I was American though  (im joking!)

damn me, i typically do look at location, but was mistaking you for another member whom I know is from the USA and have very similar username. Sorry for that.  That aside, for me, I just always (sometimes respectfully, sometimes not) laugh when someone claims Trump is a retard. The man is intelligent enough to be a success, get elected president, and have a social circle of similar successful friends. If that's what retardation looks like, I wish to be retarded like him someday. 

[Mando]

4 minutes ago, Rippleman said:

damn me, i typically do look at location, but was mistaking you for another member whom I know is from the USA and have very similar username. Sorry for that.  That aside, for me, I just always (respectfully) when someone claims Trump is a retard. The man is intelligent enough to be a success, get elected president, and have a social circle of similar successful friends. If that's what retardation looks like, I wish to be retarded like him someday. 

no worries buddy, all is good.

 

If I gave you a million dollars (or modern day equivalent to what he got gifted from daddy in 19 oatcake) Im sure you could be as successful as he is/was, just dont default on loans or go bankrupt 4 times  and be a better human being than he, which im sure you are without even trying  Money & success isnt everything.