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Douche of the Century: Mike Ditka

As long time readers know, I've handed out awards for Douche of the Day, Douche of the Week, Douche of the Month, even Douche of the Year, but today, for the very first time, I'm dishing out an award for Douche of the Century.

When speaking with Jim Gray on Westwood One Monday night, former Chicago Bears head coach Mike Ditka let his voice be known about the NFL players National Anthem protest. I'll save the best quote for last, but here are just a few appetizers before I provide the main course:

- "Is this the stage for this? If you want to protest, you've got a right to do that. But I think you're a professional athlete. you have an obligation to the game."

- "I don't see a lot of respect for the game. I just see respect for their own individual opinions. ... Respect the game, play the game, when you want to protest, protest when the game's over, protest whatever other way you want to."

- "I don't care who you are, or how much money you make, if you don't respect our country, you shouldn't be in this country playing football. Go to another country and play football. If you had to go to somewhere else and try to play this sport, you wouldn't have a job."

- "If you can't respect the flag and this country, then you don't respect what this is all about, so I would say: Adios."

Yes, those were just the appetizers. Here's Ditka's best quote of the interview:

"There has been no oppression in the last 100 years that I know of."

That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Since the year 1917, there hasn't been any oppression in this country. Just for the hell of it, though, let's look back at our alleged civil rights timeline over the past century:

1954 (63 years ago)
Brown v. Board of Education

1955 (62 years ago)
Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy was beaten and murdered by two white men after whistling at a white woman. These two men were then acquitted by an all-white jury.

1955 (62 years ago)
Two words: Rosa Parks

1957 (60 years ago)
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) started showing their disapproval of blacks at a rapidly increasing pace.

1957 (60 years ago)
Many attempted to block nine black students from entering Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. They would go on to be called the Little Rock Nine.

1960 (57 years ago)
Four black men at NC A&T University were refused service at F.W. Woolworth's lunch counter.

1963 (54 years ago)
NAACP field secretary, Medgar Evers, was murdered. This resulted in a hung jury (until 30 years later).

1963 (54 years ago)
Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech

1963 (54 years ago)
Four young black girls were killed by a bomb while attending Sunday school at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church

1964 (53 years ago)
The Civil Rights Act was signed

1965 (52 years ago)
Malcolm X was assassinated

1965 (52 years ago)
Marching for voting rights, blacks were beaten by police in Montgomery, Alabama

1965 (52 years ago)
The Voting Rights Act was passed

1965 (52 years ago)
Affirmative Action was enforced

1967 (50 years ago)
The Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition of interracial marriage was unconstitutional

1968 (49 years ago)
MLK was shot

...and the list, like the Energizer Bunny, just goes on and on and on. From Michael Brown to Eric Garner to Walter Scott to Tamir Rice. From voter suppression tactics to criminal justice disparities. We may be half a century removed from Lyndon B. Johnson's signage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, but white nationalism is rising, empathy is eroding, and anyone who believes oppression isn't alive and well in 2017 is blinder than a bat named Stevie Wonder. Mike Ditka is apparently one such person, and for saying there hasn't been any kind of oppression in the past 100 years, he rightly deserves the Douche of the Century award. Congratulations, coach!

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/mike-ditka-on-nfl-protests-no-oppression-in-the-last-100-years-that-i-know-of/

https://www.sitinmovement.org/history/america-civil-rights-timeline.asp

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