Make America Great Again Hat Video San Antonio

Tom Brady was happy to talk politics until he wasn't.

The Make America Swell Again hat in his locker, the flippant endorsement of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. Merely when those ties became inconvenient did Brady decide he wanted to "stick to sports," and that he preferred to exist a beacon of positivity rather than delve into order's thorny ills.

How mighty white of him.

Brady'due south ability to enter and exit the fence at his choosing, to shield himself from accountability, is the tiptop of white privilege. Every bit this country grapples with the far reaches of systemic racism, look no further than Brady, for whom the expectations, and allowances granted, will always be different.

"Whiteness is the do good of the doubt," said David Leonard, author of "Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and off the Field." "When Tom Brady says, 'I was just given the lid,' or 'He's merely a friend of mine,' or when he skips the White House and says, 'I had a different engagement,' he gets the do good of the doubt. He gets to be an individual.

"He reaps the benefits that we equally white Americans reap each and every day in different contexts."

It's been 5 years since a MAGA hat had prime placement in Brady's locker and he replied "I hope then, that would exist slap-up" when asked if his erstwhile golfing buddy had what it took to be president. But with Brady playing in his 10th Super Basin on Sunday, when his Tampa Bay Buccaneers will face the Kansas City Chiefs, the topic was raised anew by Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe, who said last week that no Black athlete would have gotten the pass Brady has.

"LeBron James can never say, a prominent Black athlete tin never say, 'Minister Farrakhan is just my friend.' They'd try to cancel anybody with the merely mere mention of Mister Farrakhan's proper name," Sharpe said on "Undisputed," the testify he co-hosts on FS1, referring to Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic and homophobic leader of the Nation of Islam.

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Sharpe is right.

In theory, it should not matter whether Brady supports Trump, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or someone somewhere in between on the political spectrum. He has a right to his private views.

But it was Brady himself who chose to make those private views public. If you call back that MAGA hat but happened to wind up in his locker – at camera level, not buried at the bottom beneath a pile of cleats and clothes – I have a case of TB12 supplements to sell y'all. Brady has carefully cultivated his epitome over his 21-year career, whether information technology exist his style or his social media posts, and he knew just what kind of reaction he would get.

At present, he might non have thought it would affair, since Trump's candidacy at that point was all the same seen equally something of a stunt. Only Brady has had the take chances – several, in fact – to clarify or walk back his comments and has chosen not to. At the Super Basin in 2017, three days after Trump'southward Muslim ban took effect. On Howard Stern's show last spring, when Trump was already beginning to sow lies near the election.

And yet again this week, less than a month after a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that was incited past Trump.

Instead, Brady has been allowed to divorce himself from it while Black athletes are made to ain their views in perpetuity.

At that place is no end in sight to Colin Kaepernick's blackballing, fifty-fifty though his protests to bring attention to police brutality of Blackness and dark-brown people have proven to be an warning we should not take ignored. WNBA players had 1 of their own owners plow on them because they had the audacity to say "Blackness Lives Matter" and amplify the stories of Black and chocolate-brown women killed by police.

"I'm non sure how to respond to hypothetical questions like that," Brady said Monday when asked if he feels he's gotten a pass. "I hope everyone can – nosotros're in this position, similar I am, to try to be the best I can be everyday as an athlete, every bit a player, as a person in my community for my team and then forth.

"And so … yeah. Not sure what else."

Even Brady's aversion to talking virtually politics or current events is itself a grade of privilege.

Like other white athletes, Brady is seen as an individual in a style minority athletes never are. Because Megan Rapinoe is openly gay, she is always going to be asked to weigh in on bug affecting the LGBTQ+ community. Black and chocolate-brown athletes are expected to take – and share – their opinions and experiences about racial injustice and discrimination.

Patrick Mahomes was asked at terminal year's Super Bowl about beingness biracial. This year he's been asked about speaking out in the wake of George Floyd, the Black human whose death at the knee of a white police officer sparked protests beyond the land.

Yet no ane has asked Brady about the insurrection at the U.Southward. Capitol, even though almost all of those who attempted the fierce overthrow of our regime were white, just as he is, and were incited past the man Brady has described as his friend.

"Tom Brady is speaking up as Tom Brady. He'due south not asked to speak for white America," said Leonard, who is also a professor of comparative ethnic studies and American studies and culture at Washington State.

"The follow-up question of, 'I'1000 hither but to play football,' is 'Well, who'south afforded that luxury? Who's allowed to see sports as this apolitical space of distraction, of pleasure, of fun?' " Leonard said. "Seeing sports and living sports equally an uncontested space is the privilege of whiteness. It'due south the privilege of beingness a man. It's the privilege of existence a heterosexual athlete.

"That is a luxury that Black athletes and other marginalized and disempowered athletes have never been afforded, within and outside of sports."

It might seem petty to bring up Brady'due south moral cowardice now, when the 43-yr-onetime is accomplishing things unlikely to ever be seen over again in the NFL. But celebrating what he'south done while turning a bullheaded eye to what he has non is a privilege Brady does not deserve.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.

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Source: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/nancy-armour/2021/02/02/super-bowl-2021-tom-brady-doesnt-deserve-pass-trump-support/4358829001/