28 March 2011

Meet a self-styled "modern day slave"

That's Adrian Peterson, premier running back for the hapless Minnesota Vikings.  Asked to comment on the ongoing dispute between the owners of professional football teams and the players, he opined:
"It's modern-day slavery, you know?" Peterson said... All some people see is, 'Oh, we're not going to be around football.' But how the players look at it ... the players are getting robbed. They are. The owners are making so much money off of us to begin with.
Adrian Peterson's base salary for this coming year is over $10,000,000.  He would get more from incentive bonuses, playoff games, All-Star elections, sales of jerseys, football cards, interviews, book deals, television commercials etc.

A Washington Post article discusses how the players have to cover their own health-care costs during their lockout, but note that the average salary for NFL players is $2,000,000 - with a minimum of $320,000 per year.  Plus extras.

Peterson's agent has scrambled to cover his ass by saying the comments were "taken out of context," but of course there is no other context to put them into.  These are millionaires who drape themselves in diamond bling, complaining that billionaires are richer than they are.  I'm sick and tired of it.

15 comments:

  1. I wanna be a "slave" at those salaries! Where do I apply?

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  2. This guy's lack of knowledge of the history of slavery is obvious. So is his empathy with all people who must survive each day on less than the taxes he is forced to pay for the obscene and undeserved salary he makes for playing games for the mindless entertainment of the masses. Of course the people who gave him his slave job make more money than he does, as they certainly deserve to. His talents are severely limited. Idiocy!

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  3. It's really depressing to see things like this. He's making $10mil a year and fire fighters are making less than $50k. If his ancestors who, more than likely, were slaves could see this they would be deeply saddened. Real slaves fought death just to learn how to read. I'm just glad they never had to know idiots like this, who complain about making millions for playing a game, would be their predecessors.

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  4. The story is the same for laboring millionaires as it is for low paid public servants: the ruling class claims to want a free market, but not when labor stands together. Then, they want to impose terms unilaterally and only for the benefit of the employers.

    These guys make plenty of cash, but obviously they earn it - otherwise no one would be willing to pay them.

    And the fact that the owners maintain a monopoly violating the anti-trust laws makes it all worse.

    Yes, it is hard to find sympathy for a rich dude comparing himself to a slave, but when the super-wealthy walk away from bargaining to try and smash the union just because the union wants its members to get an honest accounting of the billions being made off their backs, followed by a fairer cut for the workers, we must remember that it is not appreciably different from WI repubs or anyone else trying to deny firefighters and teachers their bargaining rights.

    And as to athletes, no one ever watched a game to see a glimpse of the owners, but only the laborers on the field. Same is true of movie stars, but no one seems to begrudge them their huge salaries.

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  5. The losers in pro football are the linemen. Most make the minimum and when they are done, usually after less than three years, their bodies are wrecked.

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  6. Here are some people who might take issue with his description of himself as a slave. More here.

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  7. We give football players millions and our teachers thousands. America's priorities are messed up.

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  8. Good comment, comment #4 (anon #2).
    It's these guys that people are watching, not owners and all the billionaires involved in the spectacle. This is one of those 'hate the game, not the players' type of situations.

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  9. Well, they're obviously not paying him for his public speaking ability.

    I don't understand the situation myself, but my husband tells me that it's a pity this guy is making an ass of himself, since the players are probably more deserving of public sympathy here. Well, at least less deserving of scorn than the owners.

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  10. A slightly better modern US comparison to slavery:

    http://www.laprogressive.com/law-and-the-justice-system/black-men-prison-system/

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  11. Excellent, Miss C. That's worth a separate post.

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  12. its a lockout, not a walkout, and a well-compensated slave is still a slave. NFL careers average 3.4 years, and NFL players live an average of 22 fewer years then the rest of us. NFL owners won't even open the books. why? becuase it would be plain that they make WAY more than all their players combined. and for what? the land belongs to the tiller! -FRAD

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  13. its a lockout, not a walkout, and a well-compensated slave is still a slave. NFL careers average 3.4 years, and NFL players live an average of 22 fewer years then the rest of us. NFL owners won't even open the books. why? becuase it would be plain that they make WAY more than all their players combined. and for what? the land belongs to the tiller!

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  14. "Walkout" changed to "lockout" in the text. Thanks for the correction.

    I disagree with your characterization of any professional sports person as a "slave" and consider it an insult to the people in the world who are and historically have been slaves.

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  15. i understand the difference between an actual slave and a pro sports slave. perhaps its a bad choice of words. but remember, it was kurt flood who first used it, and im glad he did... he should have used "whore." the owners are definitely the pimps. these guys get fame and some of the fortune, but they give up a helluva lot to get it...-frad

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