The NFL seems shocked that their message of racial equality and unity is getting booed by the fans. They should get an editor. A key reason I have and editor (and beta test readers) is to see if I am communication what I want to communicate. Sometimes a scene doen’t quite work and you need to re-write it. Case in point, I have a scene in Operation Pirate King where I wanted to let the masque slip on one of my secret agents for a bit a show the audience how much she really hates communists from the bottom of her soul. So a kid comes up to her and tries to sell her a Che Guevara shirt and she lets the kid have it (verbally). I had to re-write that scene, first time it came off too harsh. It just didn’t convey what I wanted it to convey. I didn’t yell at the editor/audience that they didn’t get it. That’s idiotic. If you send out a message and the audience doesn’t get it, it’s never their fault. If you’re trying to communicate something it’s up to you to get the message across.
Now in the present NFL and sports, they are trying to tell everyone not to be a racist and more specifically that the police should not be racist by taking a knee during the National Anthem. Now the players picked that form of protest because Colin Kaepernick asked some guy in the military what would be a tasteful protest and he told him taking a knee during the National Anthem was ok. Colin got bad advice. By now it should be obvious that a significant portion of the audience is highly offended by protests during the national anthem, regardless of how good the underlying cause is. The anger has been welling up for years now and still Colin and company cannot get the message that they have a communication problem and that this isn’t a good way to reach their audience with their message. Just think about this for a moment. What if we just add two or three other worthy causes? How about if anti-Cancer activists turned their backs on the flag till cancer was cured? What if anti-animal cruelty people got down on all fours during the anthem? What if they all did this at once? You have total chaos during the anthem.
So take the hint. Find another way to get your message out. It’s one thing if you call out Stop racism, and the audience yells out ‘we love racism’. Quit another if they call out “You hate America!” or even “You hate puppies!” Something in your message is going wrong and it’s up to you to find another way to get your message across. Blaming the audience never works.