Honoring Slain Cops Criticized in NBA Circles

By Joe Pietaro
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Updated: July 17, 2020

Houston Rockets/Twitter

This latest ‘incident’ is a microcosm of what is wrong with today’s society, one that has become writhe with the ‘us-versus-them’ mantra. Black versus white, police versus non-law abiding citizens and their supporters, Republican versus Democrat, liberal versus conservative, red state versus blue state and all of the above. Divisiveness on steroids is what the current climate is and what could have been an olive branch was instead turned into even more hatred for the ‘other side’ when Houston Rockets superstar James Harden reported to the ‘NBA bubble’ wearing a face mask with a logo that honors police officers and especially those who are slain in the line of duty.

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Although Harden claimed that he wore the COVID-19-related protective mask because he “thought it looked cool” and was not trying to make a “political statement,” he took some flak for it online. Singer Trey Songz began with:

This certified clown shit. I’ll say it for everybody who scared to. FOH https://t.co/pVRMaL9dPG

— Trey Songz (@TreySongz) July 17, 2020

And after Harden’s statement, he followed it up with:

With that being said, did the Rockets not know what this statement would look like? 🤨 Cause if they did they hung their best player ever out to dry, BLUE LIVES MATTER is a indirect way of saying FUCK BLACK LIVES MATTER and I’m calling all bullshit when I see it. Don’t care who https://t.co/1w1j0lHQmz

— Trey Songz (@TreySongz) July 17, 2020

A rapper nicknamed Young Thug posted that Harden “don’t [sic] have the internet [sic] so he obviously don’t know what’s right or wrong if he posted something against US.”

Hold the phone; “against US,” obviously meaning black people.

How is a “Thin Blue Line” symbol that honors slain cops – many who are black, mind you – “against” blacks?

Herein lies the problem – the police are viewed as the enemy of the black people because they enforce the law. If one breaks said law, one goes to jail… regardless of color. If you are black and admit that, then you are also unwillingly admitting that your race breaks more laws than any other and therefore open to more interactions with the police.

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And as far as Songz’s second post, the “Thin Blue Line” and its Punisher skull logo is not the same as “Blue Lives Matter,” although they should be interchangeable; honoring the fallen is obviously saying that their lives mattered.

“The thin blue line flag stands for the sacrifice law enforcement officers of this nation make each day. We ask our nation to hold faith with those that defend the thin blue line,” Thin Blue Line USA said in a statement.

But since he opened that Pandora’s Box by comparing it to Black Lives Matter, that is an admitted Marxist organization that bases itself after the Black Panther Party, a domestic terrorist group that executed cops in the 1970s.

Harden could have used his ‘mistake’ as a way to be a bridge between the two communities, if you will, and say that open dialogue is needed to try and get back to some sense of normalcy. But since he has been supportive of BLM in the past, Harden tiptoed around it by saying he was “in the process of” figuring out what he was going to do to participate once the game begin regarding the NBA’s social justice messages on the back of their jerseys and ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the hardwood.

All of this is merely going to continue dividing and chasing away viewers who simply want to watch a basketball game. All of these political statements should be done off the court… kind of like how Harden did unbeknownst to him at the time.