My wife and I rarely go to concerts. Last year, however, we ended up with tickets to three concerts in the span of one week: U2, Ed Sheeran, and Billy Joel.

The first two of those were canceled due to protests.  You see, I live in a Midwestern city that has been making news for several years now due to protests over police violence.  An incident and protest occurred right before Bono and Ed visited, and they both cancelled.

I wasn’t upset with the protesters, but I was upset with U2

Ed is Ed — he’s an entertainer and has made no effort to pretend he’s some social injustice vigilante.  I was thankfully relieved when his concert was cancelled.

Bono is something else — he’s spent as much time trying to garner attention for his social causes as he has for his music.  When he cancelled, it sure seemed as if he betrayed his own image.

When he came through town again as part of a new tour, I decided not to go.  Not only was the music going to be worse — the first one was part of the Joshua Tree tour — but I was still ticked at how quickly the band cancelled.

I recognize it may not have Bono’s decision, but as one of the most famous people in the world, I would guess he was given a little bit of input.

Billy Joel came a few days later — protests occurred but the concert went on. We even ended up in the middle of one of the protest marches.

Now Ed Sheeran is back, and tonight I’ll be attending.  My wife loves him and when he rescheduled I was not really given a choice.  That’s fine — Ed is harmless entertainment.  He isn’t a movement.

Just Do It

These conversations are again being started due to Colin Kaepernick, back in the news despite not being on an NFL team.

Nike has started a new ad campaign that partially features him.

As expected, it’s controversial.  I engaged in a relatively respectful back and forth on Twitter with a random physician I follow on Twitter who was encouraging a Nike Boycott.  You can read the comments if you are curious about what I said.

What I didn’t say, but which I will add here: the Nike part of this is marketing.  They’re building more marketing around polarizing figures, but it was a business decision.  Their mission is not socially-driven, it’s stockholder driven.

Others have brought up and I agree — they could’ve started a campaign around him a long time ago if he was the purpose.  This was a nice dovetail with the anniversary of the Just Do It campaign (which has a morbid background I just learned about).

What About Kap?

What about Kaepernick?

Also pointed out by others — Nike has basically stolen the thunder from him and made the controversy about Nike endorsing him, with little attention to what Kapernick has been protesting.  Nike is receiving significant media attention — which they want — and Kapernick is back in the public eye, which I presume he wanted as well.

What comes next?

More and more athletes are speaking openly about their social and political views, something that even 10 years ago was quite uncommon.

For some it is distracting — they want athletes to shut up and play — for others it’s draws them in.

I used to be in the “shut up and play” category, but I’m slowly changing my tune.  It never distracted me from the sports to watch an opinionated athlete, but so often the opinions just seemed so ill-informed that they just made themselves look silly.

This is where things seem to be changing — the opinions, even the ones I disagree with, seem to be more well thought out and resonate better with large groups of people.

Maybe athletes are becoming more socially aware, maybe they are just becoming more media savvy, and likely they just spend so much time on social media these discussions pop into their head as well.  It was easier to tune politics out 30 years ago and just focus on sports and day-to-day living.

It means we have to embrace some cognitive dissonance and route for athletes whose personal views we dislike — certainly the case with my beloved home town baseball team.

Their former manager seemed to have tendencies that were anti-minority, and one of their relievers seems to have some social and political views that contradict my own.

I think there’s a degree of that which has to be tolerated — but what’s the line?  When do moral failings get put aside in the name of providing you something else?

Crazy Town

There are many people who have decided the moral failings of the occupant at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are completely irrelevant.  As long as he passes a tax bill in their favor and/or only causes harm to others, they will tolerate literally anything the man says or does.

The same behavior that would get him fired from almost every corporation in America (except his own) has endeared him to millions of people.

We cannot nor should not expect all athletes or entertainers to be saints, or even necessarily good people.  While I want everyone to be a decent human being, some people are just jerks.

We tolerate jerks to a degree because of other things they do for us, and/or because it doesn’t impact us, and/or because we don’t really know what to do about it.

I don’t think a football player should lose their job over their political beliefs.  Kapernick deserves to play as much as the reliever I dislike from my favorite baseball team deserves a roster spot.

Eventually there has to be a limit, no matter the person, no matter the position.  I do not have a line in the sand, but when the moral failings are directly leading to immoral actions, regardless of who they impact, I do think a line is crossed.  What consequences come of it?

I guess we will find out in 2020.