Exclusive: Baseball Great Curt Schilling Comes Down on Players Who Kneel for a 'Lie'
Former Major League Baseball star Curt Schilling came down hard on professional sports players who kneel during the playing of the national anthem, explaining that they are protesting for a “lie.”
Schilling, an outspoken conservative, detailed to The Western Journal how the argument made by players who kneel — that they are protesting injustice in American society — simply isn’t backed up by the facts.
“If you’re kneeling for ‘oppression’ what specifically are you calling out?” Schilling said in an email. “There are no statistics anywhere that support disproportionate violence towards black youth by police officers in this country.”
“The entire Kaepernick debacle was a kneel for a ‘lie,'” he stated, referring to former San Fransisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who sparked the national controversy by kneeling prior to a 2016 pre-season game.
“Jail the bad ones, of that there is no debate,” Schilling said of police officers, “but please stop pushing the lie.”
Schilling’s remarks came in the context of a recent announcement by MLB player Bruce Maxwell, a catcher for the Oakland Athletics.
In September 2017, Maxwell became the first major leaguer to kneel during the anthem. But on Tuesday, he said he was not going to continue the “symbolic gesture,” though he has not changed his stance regarding why he knelt in the first place.
“The purpose of the gesture was to raise awareness about social issues affecting our country, and while I’m looking forward to a society that is inclusive, empathetic and a welcoming place, I will not continue the symbolic gesture of taking a knee during our National Anthem this season,” Maxwell said in a statement.
According to Schilling, though, the reason Maxwell decided not to kneel anymore is because he didn’t know what he was protesting in the first place.
“I think he stopped kneeling because I don’t think he knew what he was kneeling for,” said Schilling.
“Was he kneeling to support Colin’s ‘cops are pigs’ socks?” he asked, referring to the controversy that erupted after Kaepernick wore a pair of socks depicting police officers as pigs to practice.
Schilling went on to suggest that those who protest during the national anthem are ignoring the real oppression that actually occurs in certain parts of the world.
“I don’t want to hear the bulls— ‘I’m kneeling for oppressed people everywhere,'” he stated, “because human trafficking and slave trade in Africa is actual oppression.”
Some people are racist, and some officers are corrupt, Schilling explained, but it’s both a “lie” and “irresponsible” to suggest that this is true of most police officers.
“This country will have racism as long as it’s alive because people are flawed and some are downright evil,” he said. “There surely are corrupt officers, as there are corrupt everything in every line of work, but to somehow pass on a ‘message’ that a significant number of police officers are corrupt is both a lie and irresponsible.”
“Does he (Maxwell) want to talk to the four families of assassinated officers this week about oppression?” Schilling asked.
Schilling, a six-time All-Star and the MVP of the 2001 World Series, also revealed his thoughts on whether the kneeling debate will turn into a major controversy in professional baseball this season, just as it did in the NFL.
“No, it’s not” going to be a major issue, he said, noting there is “no data anywhere” to back up the “oppression” narrative that the protesters, as well as the “left-wing media,” want people to believe.
“There are issues and there are problems, and they need to be fixed, but to call out police violence as some sort of enormous societal problem is, as I said, irresponsible and a lie,” Schilling said.
Instead of kneeling to protest supposed racial injustice, Schilling has an idea for several “true causes” that would actually be worth kneeling for.
“Kneel for the 22 soldiers a day taking their own lives because our government and the VA has turned their back,” he said. “Kneel for the children of officers assassinated in the line of duty by thugs, criminals, illegals and scum who have zero regard for human life.”
“Don’t kneel ‘against’ the few folks in this nation with the guts to take up the defense of innocent men, women and children.”
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