Drew Brees is a Herb

In yet another example of an allegedly smart athlete saying some absolute dumb, useless bullshit, Drew Brees fixed his mouth to pretend to give a shit about the ongoing Fed-Uprising protests happening throughout the country and around the world while also, idiotically, saying that he would and could never support someone who kneels during the national anthem.

It’s not shocking that Brees would have this opinion; he said he vehemently disagreed with the protests back in 2017. What is confusing is why Brees chose this moment, of literally any moments, to say something about it.

Brees was stating his solidarity with black people in one breath and talking about how his grandfather’s “fought in World War II and that’s why no one should disrespect the flag” the next. Brees wanted to support the protests without supporting the means by which they protest. He wanted to look nice in front of America but he didn’t want to actually examine the problems facing black people. He wanted to change the conversation towards one he was more comfortable with.

And it’s way easier to defend the troops than it is to defend black folks. Defending the troops it’s easy. It’s just what you do. Defending black people as a rich white man in America is outside the norm.

Brees was, rightly, criticized harshly from his remarks. A protest happening in New Orleans featured the crowd chanting “Fuck Drew Brees”. Brees did what most white men do in this situation; at first he doubled down on his remarks, once again conjuring up the image of his long past grandfathers as justification, and then today issued an official non-apology apology, wherein he apologized for how people “perceived” his comments, without actually walking back anything he had said.

Brees still believes what he said was right; he just wanted to clarify that he is upset if you were offended by how right he was.

Brees stated that he has “always been an ally, never an enemy”, to which I say, who exactly appointed you as the arbiter of who is an who isn’t an ally?

Real allies, good allies, know their roles, shut their mouths, and never have to clarify that they’re allies. They don’t need a pat on the back for doing or saying the right thing. They carefully consider their words and the feelings of the oppressed before they say the stupid thing. They’re introspective. They think about their white privilege.

They understand why Colin Kaepernick knelt, and didn’t need to score brownie points with white people.

Brees isn’t the only alleged “ally” who’s made an ass of himself. Madonna had her adopted black son dance to Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us” as a “tribute” to George Floyd. Heather Morris performed an “interpretative dance” about Floyd. Her Glee co-star got called out for racist and immature on set behavior towards a black woman after she expressed support for Floyd. The Washington Football Team, which is owned by a man who has promised he will never change the team’s racist name, contributed to Blackout Tuesday and was roundly criticized. Blackout Tuesday (which, like most things, started with good intentions from black women and then got co-opted by white activists, influencers, content creators and corporate brands that wanted to appear socially conscious) itself became a problem, after the Black Lives Matter hashtag, which is typically used for spreading news and information, was inundated with nothing but black images.

I don’t pretend to think that it’s always easy for white people to know exactly what to say in moments like this. The easiest answer, naturally, is to say nothing, and to open your ears and eyes and formulate plans on how to help those in need. But being a public facing figure often means people call on you to speak out, which means you kind of have to say something, otherwise your silence is taken as complicity. Someone like Taylor Swift used to be constantly called out for not speaking out against Trump under the assumption she didn’t want to hurt her brand; Swift has been a lot more outspoken about politics recently, and in her documentary, it’s clear that she was pressured into not saying more even when she wanted to.

So on the one hand, I get it. On the other hand, Brees clearly isn’t an ally of black people if he still thinks kneeling during the anthem is about the flag, or the troops, or his grandfathers, or anything else. Brees took a moment of black pain and used it to make declarative statements about how he felt. That, my friends, is where white allies fail, every single time. When “I support you, I’m here for you, I’m listening to you” becomes “Let me show you how woke I am while also holding my pretty garbage opinions”.

White people have a long history of taking black pain and making it about them. All Lives Matter sprung forth from the idea that simply acknowledging that black lives were undervalued was an affront akin to saying no other (white) lives mattered at all. White liberals sparred back in forth in 2016, arguing who was the most woke and who had done the most damage to African-American communities without even considering that both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were complicit in hurting black communities and should have plans to address it.

In cases of white allies like Brees, the goal is to not put the thoughts and feelings of a community above your own beliefs, and to expound those beliefs at every turn, at every avenue, regardless if it makes you look like an asshole or not. It would have been extraordinarily easy for Brees to not answer a question about kneeling during the anthem, or even admitting that he didn’t quite understand it, but that he was willing to take the time to learn. There’s nothing wrong with not understanding something as long as you’re willing to listen and learn!

But no; with George Floyd’s body in the morgue, with new details over the death of Breonna Taylor coming to light, with Tony McCade’s death at the hands of the police shedding new light on the black community’s own biases towards trans members of our own race, with knowledge flowing more heavily than anytime since the 1960s…Brees just had to make a statement about the troops.

He had to take a national moment of clarity and cloud it up with some Americana bullshit.

He had to make it about him, and how good an ally he is, and how he’s sorry about how his comments were perceived, not actually sorry for talking out of his ass and having a terribly wrong opinion.

Drew owes much of his career to black fans in New Orleans. He should know better. But, like a lot of rich, white men, he can’t be arsed to try to be better.

Black lives matter. Kneeling during the national anthem doesn’t hurt the troops. And Drew Brees is a herb.