Shannon Sharpe isn’t here for Jim Brown’s two cents on Colin Kaepernick’s (supposedly) ended national anthem protest.
The host of FS1’s “Undisputed” said Brown’s statement that Kaepernick essentially needed to choose between being an activist and being a football player was “disappointing.”
“I don’t really know [that] there’s a right way and a wrong way to protest,” Sharpe tells TMZ Sports Sunday, Aug. 27. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to handle Black unarmed men and women in America. … I just think the thing is … things are different now. I’m sure they told him in ’67 when he called that summit, I’m sure they said it wasn’t the right way.”
Sharpe was referring to the meeting Brown organized that is often reported as a gathering among prominent Black athletes of the time who decided whether or not they’d throw their support behind Muhammad Ali, who refused to fight in the Vietnam War. However, “The Undefeated” reported it was actually a session where Brown and other athletes, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, would persuade Ali to take a deal to box in exhibitions for U.S. troops in exchange for dropped anti-military drafting charges.
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“It’s disappointing because all it takes is one big-name person of color to really almost throw a wet blanket over the fire that’s being sparked by what Colin Kaepernick and others … that try to change and have an impact,” Sharpe says.
Brown spoke out like a die-hard NFL fan when he said the former San Francisco 49er needed to decide between activism and the sport he’s played for years.
“Colin has to make up his mind whether he’s truly an activist or whether he’s a football player,” Brown told The Post Game Thursday, Aug. 24 of the free-agent quarterback’s protest against Black oppression last season. “Football is commercial. You have owners. You have fans. And you want to honor that if you’re making that kind of money.”
Sharpe said those statements gives those against Kaepernick the ammunition to tear him down.
“This is Jim Brown saying this,” Sharpe says. “That hurts the most and it’s so disappointing. I’m so so disappointed. I 1,000 [percent] wholeheartedly disagree with everything he said.”
.@JimBrownNFL32 gives us the 'real deal' on @Kaepernick7, flag, anthem and being an activist. pic.twitter.com/MMcLX3dteb
— ThePostGame (@ThePostGame) August 24, 2017
