“I don’t’ believe they’re changing anything, I don’t believe they’re changing the world, and I don’t believe in any way they’re making the world a better place, in fact, I think they’re actually making it worse.”
With National Anthem protests coming back in the fray this week as Michael Bennett and Marshawn Lynch became the latest big names to publicly juke the Star Spangled Banner, Clay Travis says individuals like Bennett and Lynch aren’t actually accomplishing anything in regards to their perceived ‘cause’, but actually just using the limelight to acquire notoriety onto their own brand.
Travis mocked Bennett’s post-game comments after the Seahawks Pro Bowler explained his protest by stating ‘I don’t love segregation, I don’t love riots, I don’t love oppression, I don’t love gender slander; I just want to see people have the equality that they deserve’. Travis said the vague moralizing was an empty jumble of trigger words and wondered why Bennett is being applauded for presenting a point of view as rudimentary as the idea that he doesn’t like riots, segregation, or inequality when publicly arguing an alternative would just be utterly absurd.
“Brave of Michael Bennett to come out in favor of equality, anti-segregation, and anti-oppression; so brave. I was out there thinking to myself, ‘you know what I’m looking forward to is guys who are anti-equality and anti-oppression.”
Travis says efforts like Bennett's can sometimes have damaging effects on its audience, as 'read between the lines' public displays of protest, like sitting for the National Anthem for example, often get lost in translation as countering sides often making misinterpretations, much like Colin Kaepernick's infamous kneel was quickly branded as a physical display of anti-military rhetoric.
“Protests like these make things worse because you’re not going to convince anybody that you’re making it better, all you do is antagonize,” Travis said. “I don’t believe it’s anything other than these guys wanting to get attention.”
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