Paul Klee: Showing your vaccination papers at NFL games yet another blow to 'social justice' movement

Aug. 21—DENVER — Gosh, remember when social justice, promoting equality and providing more access for people of color were the cool things to do?

You know, one of the few good parts of 2020.

That's a lifetime ago. Now it's the opposite. Now it's applauded when an NFL team bans most of Black America from going to a game.

The Raiders announced last week you must show your vaccination papers to enter Allegiant Stadium to see the silver and black. As a Vegas season-ticket holder — business decision, folks — this got my attention. Not for business reasons; six of eight games have already been sold, and it's not even Week 1 yet. The house always wins. We're just copying the house.

This got my attention because I attended or worked a dozen or so games when the Raiders were in Oakland, and I can say with certainty a huge chunk of the Black Hole and the rest of the Coliseum did not look like me. Not even on Halloween. Oakland tailgates were legendary, a blast, and made up largely of not-white people, and guess who among us are least likely to be COVID-19 vaccinated? Black and Hispanic people.

Thanks to the new policy in Vegas, more than half the Black and Hispanic people in Nevada can't attend a Raiders game. That's not cool.

That's disgusting.

Maybe those vax numbers inch up a smidge if enough people want to attend a Raiders game that bad, but come on. These policies are wildly sketchy and far more discriminatory than inclusive, and here I was thinking inclusivity is still #important. Shoot, guess I'm late and the inclusive voucher was only good in 2020. Hard to keep up with all the self-righteous coupons these days.

Surprised? Don't be. Like almost everything to do with the COVID-19 response the people in charge are hurting minorities, poor people and folks who don't work off Zoom calls and live in Highlands Ranch. School closures hurt minorities the most. The wealth gap between the rich and the poor widened by another mile. Cities that took a blowtorch to police budgets — Denver is near the top — saw the largest increases in violent crime, overwhelmingly in neighborhoods that already were on the brink. Here's a fun idea: how about the bullies in office and the news media who parrot their nice words stop making life harder for the good people just trying to make it?

If you're wondering what it will look like inside Mile High if the Broncos allow only vaccinated fans, picture Folsom Field during the Bolder Boulder — but whiter. Here, showing your vaccination papers would ban roughly half the city's Black and Hispanic communities from attending a Broncos game. That's the city and the Broncos crowd you want? Not me, no way.

Meantime, the progressives in charge of these disgusting and disingenuous ideas drone on about "equity" while creating the opposite. Makes you wonder if there are actual principles at work or just more political talking points.

The true aim of showing your vaccination papers has little to do with public health. Spend 10 minutes talking to someone who supports a two-class system, you learn the whole thing is meant to be punitive. Papers are being pushed almost entirely by Democrats who view the un-vaxxed as conservatives who deserve to be cut off from society. That's fine, whatever, politics is a dirty game and getting dirtier by the day. But let's be honest about who they're going to hurt.

They're not hurting the Zoom class. Most of white Colorado is vaccinated. The majority of white Colorado could still go to the Broncos game. If you had not considered this angle of the vaccine passport fad, don't feel bad. It's been purposely hidden behind Cole Beasley's flowing locks and Kirk Cousins' public stance. News media made Beasley and Cousins the pale face of the NFL's anti-vax crowd ... even while two former league MVPs, presumed to be unvaccinated, mostly were spared of ridicule. Did you know quarterbacks Cam Newton and Lamar Jackson declined to say if they're vaxxed? Probably not as well as you knew about Beasley and Cousins. But dragging a pair of Black quarterbacks wouldn't fit the latest shady narrative that's not actually what it says it is.

Defunding police, keeping schools "safe," stay home if it saves one life! — the narratives all devolve into something much darker under the slightest bit of scrutiny or critical thought. They too often devolve into picking on people with fewer means, and that trend is getting old fast.

But hey, if you've got your vax papers, $500 and a desire to attend Chargers-Raiders, hit me up. I know a guy.