South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have joined the Colin Kaepernick vs. the National Anthem fray.
A newly released trailer for Season 20 (!) shows a chorus of South Park residents singing about how great the (backup) San Francisco 49er quarterback is. The characters quickly change their tune, however. Take a look:
Colin Kaepernick is great
Cops are pigs, cops are pigs
Wait, someone just took my stuff, I need to call the cops
Oh no, I just said cops are pigs
Who’s gonna help me get my stuff?
Why did I listen to Colin Kaepernick
He’s not even any good
Oh, I just got all my stuff back
Cops are pigs again, cops are pigs
Colin Kaepernick’s a good backup.
It should come as no surprise the South Park creators are opening the new South Park season with Kaepernick. Stone and Parker, arguably the two best satirists of their generation, have a history of destroying that which is absurd in American culture, and the Kaepernick kerfuffle would seem to qualify.
Kaepernick’s refusal to stand for the National Anthem—which was mimicked across the league Sunday by some other NFL players—is a perfect example of Alasdair MacIntyre’s explanation on the nature of modern protest.
[Protesting] is now almost entirely that negative phenomenon which characteristically occurs as a reaction to the alleged invasion of someone’s rights in the name of someone else’s utility. The self-assertive shrillness of protest arises because the facts of incommensurability ensure that protestors can never win an argument; the indignant self-righteousness arises because the facts of incommensurability ensure equally that the protestor can never lose an argument either.
There is no greater inherent right than living, a right Kaepernick claims people of color are being denied in the United States. It’s an idea that goes beyond statistics and facts. No solution is put forth because people can’t agree on the premise of the alleged problem.
In such cases comedy and satire are likely to be more effective tools than studies by Harvard economists showing no racial bias in police shootings.
Tune in to Comedy Central on Wednesday night at 10 p.m. EST to find out.
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Jon Miltimore is senior editor of Intellectual Takeout. Follow him on Facebook.
[Image Credit: Comedy Central-Youtube]
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