And I agree, Will and everyone else; taken into context it is a reasoned comment. The problem is that most Americans appear to be too lazy now to take much of anything in real context, instead reacting to keywords or buzzwords. Is that a learned condition or is that a product of the culture America has embraced today? Who knows…

[1] Shaun, I agree with you. The invocation isn’t crazy, if you look at what the owners are projecting to the players. I’m struck by the number of people, even some black players like Ryan Grant, calling the comment “misinformed.” How can a perception be misinformed?

[2] A-Rod would not say something like this because he’s too self-conscious, even now. He wouldn’t dare say something like this, for fear of what it would do to his reputation. He doesn’t strike me as someone who would speak publicly with a social conscience, this despite the charitable works he’s done in Miami, specifically for the Boys and Girls Clubs.

The NYT is doing a wonderful service with its ongoing Opinionator blog titled “Disunion.” It has been following the day-by-day dissolution of the Union in 1860-61, with an emphasis on things that happened exactly 150 years ago on each day.

Reading it, and the many original documents to which it offers links or references, puts the lie to all the gauzy argle-bargle we (I, anyway) heard in school about tariffs, economic hegemony, cultural differences, etc. The Civil War took place amid complex political and economic circumstances, but it was about s-l-a-v-e-r-y. No one said so more clearly than the southern separatists themselves.

There’s no easy way to read from the beginning other than to hit the “older entries” button again and again, but it’s worth it:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/

Anyway, I think the ‘slave’ remark is way off base. It’s tone deaf, like something A-Rod would say. Before free agency, I could see the point of the analogy, and if Peterson said that rookies are treated like slaves I guess I could see his point.

Here’s my favorite example, and one I often use to turn around a trite comment about my chosen profession.

Unsuspecting Person trying to make lawyer joke: “You know, Shakespeare had it right. The first thing we should do is kill all the lawyers.”

Me: “Yes, Shakespeare wrote that. But do you know the context in which those lines were written?”

Unsuspecting Person: “No . . .”

Me: “They were spoken by rabble-rousers in Henry VI, who were discussing how much better society would be if the government, and law and order, were gone. And if one wanted to get rid of those things, and establish chaos and disorder in society, where rabble-rousers could do as they wished with no one to stop them, then the first thing one would have to do is to kill all the lawyers.”

************

I don’t think the invocation of slavery is crazy here. I wouldn’t have done it, but I can see the parallels. At a high level, slavery was about control, wage restriction, and threats. “Do what I say, or else. And I’ll pay you what I damn well please.” That’s basically what the NFL’s owners are telling the players right now.