Kaep is Citizen One, Blake Shelton is the Sexy One, but will Donald Trump be Time magazine’s No. 1 or will it be fake news?

So, GQ has decided that none of the United States’ 323.1 million citizens has better cred than Colin Kaepernick, thus he’s the magazine’s Citizen of the Year.

Well, okay. Let’s all take a knee. Or not.

I mean, GQ’s anointing an out-of-work football player as America’s preeminent person has earned nods of approval yet, at the same time, the salute has tweaked some beaks, including that of a lass named Britt McHenry, an out-of-work Sideline Barbie who harbors the misguided notion that we should care what she thinks.

“A joke,” was the former ESPN gab girl’s rebuke of Kaepernick as Citizen One.

That barb, in turn, inspired author and New York Daily News columnist Linda Stasi to describe McHenry as the “whitest woman on the planet” and, upon further review, the ruling on the field is confirmed—Britt McHenry is Caucasian.

All of which tells me that we have officially arrived at the silly season, during which various publications laud notables and bestow upon them high hosannas, earned or otherwise.

GQ declared Kaepernick to be Citizen One due to the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback’s kneeling stance against social/racial injustice and police brutality in the U.S., writing, “His determined stand puts him in rare company in sports history: Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson—athletes who risked everything to make a difference.”

Yes, I agree, comparing Kaepernick to Ali and Robinson rates extremely high on the silliness scale.

Ah, but silliness knows no limits and, for confirmation, we need only peek at the cover of People magazine where, staring back at us with a goofy grin, is Gwen Stefani’s main squeeze and buffoon-in-residence on The Voice, Blake Shelton.

The cowboy crooner, whose record sales far outstrip his talent, is People’s choice as the Sexiest Man Alive (we can assume that Miranda Lambert didn’t get a vote). Imagine that, approximately 3.8 billion men on earth and not one of them has a higher sexy quotient than a hillbilly who walks and talks like he got lost on his way to the set of Hee Haw. If Shelton was a character from the old Andy Griffith Show, he’d be Goober or Gomer, the witless gas jockeys. Or he’d be part of the banjo-pluckin’, jug-blowin’ Darling clan from back in the hills. Every time I hear him speak, I want to order a jug of moonshine. But, hey, apparently that’s sexy. Who knew?

Blake Shelton would fit in nicely with this bunch—the Darlings.

“When people think of Blake, they don’t focus in on abs or a pretty face or what not, like a typical sexy man, but what really wins you over with him is about how down to earth and funny and how sweet he is,” says People staff scribe Melody Chiu. “He’s really exactly what you see on TV. He’s so relatable and he’s so friendly. He just really wants people to love him.”

Aw shucks and gosh darn. If our Blake ain’t just the sweetest boy you ever did see. Doesn’t he just want to make you reach out and pinch his dimples and have his babies, girls?

So what does Shelton think of his coronation as Sexiest Man Alive?

“I can’t wait to shove it up Adam’s ass,” he says.

Oh, my. And, to think, sexy Blake kisses Gwen Stefani with that mouth.

At any rate, we now await the Time magazine Person of the Year declaration and, depending on which bookie you go to for your betting odds, the latest lines list Donald Trump, Kaepernick and French President Emmanuel Macron as the favorites. Should U.S. President Trump get the nod, he’ll be the first repeat winner since former White House crook-in-residence Richard Nixon in 1971 and ’72.

If either Kaepernick of President Macron win, it’s fake news.

Would Donald Trump call Jackie Robinson a “son of a bitch?”

Let us, for a moment, look beyond the cringe-worthy optic of the Pittsburgh Penguins seemingly walking in lockstep with some of the good, ol’ boys in NASCAR Cup racing, where the Confederate flag is as commonplace as country music, RVs and left turns.

Instead, it seems apropos to first point out that Jackie Robinson took a knee.

Jackie Robinson and Richard Nixon

Not physically, understand. After all, the first black man to participate in a 20th-century Major League Baseball game had an agreement with team owner Branch Rickey to play the part of the obedient, turn-the-other-cheek worker during the formative years of his 10-season tour of duty with the storied Boys of Summer, the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Robinson was, as New York Times columnist Arthur Daley opined, the right type of black man for the pioneering venture of breaking baseball’s color barrier.

“The muscular negro minds his own business and shrewdly makes no effort to push himself. He speaks intelligently when spoken to and already has made a strong impression,” Daley wrote of Robinson’s debut with the Dodgers in mid-April 1947.

That writing reeks of know-your-place-boy racism. It’s almost as if Daley believed Robinson was in Brooklyn to shine shoes and carry luggage rather than play baseball. But it’s just a small sampling of the rampant ridicule and discrimination that challenged the Dodgers infielder, who, as a lieutenant in the United States Army in 1944, was arrested, shackled and faced a court martial for declining a driver’s racist directive to “get to the back” of a military bus where the colored folk belonged. Robinson sometimes was required to eat at different restaurants and sleep in different hotels than his teammates, he received death threats and threats to his bride, Rachel, and their son, Jackie Jr. Long after he had become an established star in MLB, he and Rachel encountered numerous hindrances in seeking a home to purchase, road blocks based solely on the color of their skin.

Little wonder he wrote this in his 1972 autobiography I Never Had It Made:

“There I was, the black grandson of a slave, the son of a black sharecropper, part of a historic occasion, a symbolic hero to my people. The air was sparkling. The sunlight was warm. The band struck up the national anthem. The flag billowed in the wind. It should have been a glorious moment for me as the stirring words of the national anthem poured from the stands. Perhaps, it was, but then again, perhaps, the anthem could be called the theme song for a drama called The Noble Experiment. Today, as I look back on that opening game of my first world series, I must tell you that it was Mr. Rickey’s drama and that I was only a principal actor. As I write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.”

The great Jackie Robinson, a man who served in the U.S. Military, could not stand for and sing the Star-Spangled Banner. Couldn’t salute the flag. He took a knee.

I wonder, would U.S. President Donald J. Trump call Robinson a “son of a bitch?”

That, after all, is the Apprentice President’s chosen insult for the numerous National Football League performers who, during the playing of the American national anthem, are taking a knee in protest of racial injustice. At least one player in MLB has done the same. Others have raised fists in protest, evoking the image of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico. Still others, such as the members of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Sparks of the Women’s National Basketball Association, have remained in their changing rooms.

Trump would like to see all the “sons of bitches” fired.

But not the Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins. They’re a “great team” don’t you know. Bless their bent noses and gummy grins, because they’ve accepted Trump’s invitation to grovel and genuflect at the White House. And those dudes in NASCAR? They’ll fire any driver, pit crew worker or team employee who drops to one knee during the anthem. Hell ya, they will! It’ll earn you “a ride on a Greyhound bus” out of town growls team owner Richard Childress.

“Anybody that don’t stand for that ought to be out of the country. Period,” legendary driver Richard Petty scoffs in concert.

The commander-in-chief is “so proud” of ’em, bless their bent fenders and southern drawls. And, hey, it’s just a coincidence that NASCAR is the whitest sport in the world. They’re his kind of people because bossman Brian France endorsed his bid for the White House in 2016.

“If the people that like and watch NASCAR vote for Donald Trump, they can cancel the election right now,” he bleated. “Nobody else can win. Nobody.”

I’m not sure what Jackie Robinson would make of all this noise, but I know he was heavily involved in civil rights post-career. He campaigned openly for Richard Nixon during the 1960 presidential election and became pen pals with President John F. Kennedy, imploring JFK to get “angry” over racial injustice. So I’m guessing he’d align himself with NFL players and take a knee.

And if Donald Trump called him a “son of a bitch?” Little doubt Robinson would call the president a “son of a bitch” right the hell back.

Colin Kaepernick is no Ali, but he’s got people listening and talking

patti dawn swansson

Let’s not get silly and compare what Colin Kaepernick is doing to Muhammad Ali’s refusal to heed Uncle Sam’s call to arms.

Yes, Kaepernick has taken a stand by sitting/kneeling during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner at National Football League games, but when the San Francisco 49ers commence their 2016 crusade he’ll be the backup quarterback. His protest against police brutality and the oppression of black people/people of color hasn’t cost him his livelihood. His bank account is no less ample. He’s in no danger of being arrested, cuffed, hauled into court and sentenced to five years in prison.

Ali was dealt every bit of that hand. And more. Including death threats. Yet he was all-in. He had “no quarrel with them Viet Cong” so he wasn’t going to drop bombs on, or shoot bullets at, innocent brown people come hell or hoosegow.

By way of comparison, Kaepernick’s posture has, at worst, earned him enemies who see him not as a caped crusader for colored people but, rather, as an anti-anthem, anti-military and an anti-America ingrate who ought to just play football and zip his lips unless he plans to pledge allegiance to a country that he believes has come undone.

But when did doing and saying nothing become acceptable?

Maybe Rosa Parks should have given her seat to that white man and moved to the back of the bus where the black folk belonged to save herself from finger printing and time in jail.

Maybe Martin Luther King Jr. should have stayed home to mow the lawn instead of marching through the southern United States and spending time behind bars.

Maybe Gandhi should have just bought government salt rather than walk more than 200 miles to collect his own and spare himself yet another stretch in jail.

Maybe Tommie Smith and John Carlos should have played nice by putting on their shoes, unclenching their hands and smiling for the cameras.

Maybe Jesse Owens should have skipped out on the 1936 Olympics and let Hitler have his way.

Maybe Harvey Milk should have stayed in the closet.

Maybe students at Kent State should have gone to class instead of carrying signs, marching and shouting.

Maybe all those young people shouldn’t have taken sledge hammers to the Berlin Wall.

Maybe Marlon Brando should have accepted his Oscar as best actor for his role as Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather rather than send an Apache woman, Sacheen Littlefeather, to deliver a speech about the misrepresentation of Native Americans in film and on TV, at the same time drawing attention to Wounded Knee.

Maybe John and Yoko shouldn’t have acted like a couple of layabouts and gotten out of bed.

Maybe Johnny Cash should have worn more colorful clothing.

Maybe Nellie McClung should have stayed home to cook and clean for her hubby and their five children rather than make so much noise about women voting and being “persons.”

Maybe the drag queens, transgender individuals, cross-dressers, butch lesbians and gay men at the Stonewall Inn should have simply tucked their feathered boas between their legs and peacefully piled into paddy wagons rather than kick up a fuss.

Maybe all those draft dodgers who sought refuge in Canada should have been turned back at the border.

Maybe punter Chris Kluwe should have kept silent and not exposed homophobia among the Minnesota Vikings coaching staff.

Maybe Branch Rickey should have hired Jack Roosevelt Robinson to shine his shoes rather than sign him to a Brooklyn Dodgers contract that made him the first black man to play Major League Baseball.

Maybe what Colin Kaepernick is doing won’t amount to anything. He’s no Ali. He’s no Jackie Robinson (who, by the way, would not salute the flag or stand for the anthem toward the end of his life). He’s no Rosa Parks. He’s no Gandhi. He’s just a backup quarterback clinging to a high-paying job that grants him a lifestyle of privilege.

But, he’s got people talking. And thinking. He sees something that he believes isn’t right. He’s trying to fix it, as are other athletes who have begun to parrot him. How can that be wrong?

The gay athlete: It’s an alpha male issue more than a societal issue

Major male professional team sports in North America has arrived at the final frontier. It has had its lunar landing. There are gay footprints on the surface.

Now what?

Who will follow Jason Collins and come out to play?

How many will follow Jason Collins?

How many years are to pass before it’s no longer a man-bites-dog story when an openly gay man plays for a team in the National Basketball Association, the National Football League, Major League Baseball or the National Hockey League? Ten years? Twenty years?

Surely, Jason Collins will not be the first and last of his kind. Just as Jack Roosevelt Robinson was not the beginning and the end of black players in MLB.

Much, of course, depends on the roadblocks and pot holes Collins will encounter.

Many have presented the frail argument that a gay man will not be accepted in the locker room, which are actually alpha male, frat boy man caves. Well, having an openly gay man among them in the changing room was so disruptive to the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday night that they only managed to wallop the Los Angeles Lakers by half a dozen points. Collins’s contribution to the winning cause was zero points, one steal, two rebounds and five personal fouls in slightly more than 10 minutes of work.

The boxscore does not tell us if Collins leered at, or groped, any of his teammates in the shower, but if he had I’m certain we would have heard about it by now.

So we know that the Nets have accepted their gay teammate, who is working on a 10-day contract in the hope it will score him a full-time gig. Others in the NBA have embraced Collins, and he received a warm, if not enthusiastic, welcome from the audience at the Staples Center on Sunday.

Still, we also know there will be resistance. Not all in a land of 7-footers will be so eager to accept a gay man as a teammate. Ditto the fans. For now, they appear to be a silent minority, but it only takes one or two to bring the rabble to rise with pitch forks and torches in hand. Be certain that there are many male lumps sitting on many bar stools across North America who will look at Collins on their TV screens and call him an “effing faggot.” They will wish for his failure. They just want the story to go away.

In truth, gay men playing in one of the four major professional team sports on this continent is not a societal issue. It is a heterosexual male issue.

There are two things the alpha male is loathe to discuss. One is tampons. The other is gay men (unless, of course, it is to mock, belittle and assail them).

The last thing the heterosexual male wants to hear is that Aaron Rodgers is gay. Or Sidney Crosby is gay. Or LeBron James is gay. Or Big Papi is gay. Tell a straight man that his sporting hero is a “Nancy boy” and he’ll plug his ears and chant “can’t hear you, can’t hear you, can’t hear you.”

It’s okay for a male figure skater to be gay. It’s a wuss sport, right? Only “fags” watch figure skating. And, hey, straight men are okay with lesbian athletes, too. It gives them an opportunity to tell crass jokes about snap-on tools and carpet munching.

But if a guy in the NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB is gay…that’s a sign of weakness.

What the alpha male doesn’t understand is this: Being openly gay is a strength, not a weakness.

Playing basketball in a closet must be extremely difficult, especially if you’re 7-feet tall and 255 pounds. That’s what Jason Collins did for the first 713 games of his mostly unspectacular NBA career, now in its 13th season. He was a closeted gay player. When he walked on to the court at the Staples Center in L.A. to participate in game No. 714 on Sunday, it was as an openly gay player.

Being openly gay won’t necessarily make Jason Collins a better basketball career because, at 35, he’s arrived at the North 40 of his career. But those of us in the gay collective can tell you that it took balls (pun intended) to take that first step. Size XXXL balls.

The same could be said for the Brooklyn Nets for signing, and playing, this gay man.

It seems to be that historically significant moments in the sports arena is a Brooklyn kind of thing.

First it was the Brooklyn Dodgers, who pencilled Jack Roosevelt Robinson into their lineup in April of 1947. His teammates and friends called him Jackie. Others called him “n_____.” That’s the way it was in April of 1947, when the Dodgers became the first team in MLB to field a black player. Robinson endured because he had incredible inner strength.

Now we have the Brooklyn Nets, who sent Jason Collins into the fray in their assignment with the Lakers. His teammates and friends call him Jason. Others will call him “fag.” Gospel sharks will call him “sinner.” That’s the way it will be for the first openly gay player in any of the four major pro sports enterprises in North America. He will endure because he has incredible inner strength.

One of these years, this will no longer be a story. But not until the alpha males get over their testosterone-induced insecurities.

National Football League: Is it afraid of Michael Sam breaking the gay barrier?

Until yesterday, I had never heard of Michael Sam. Didn’t know if he was young or old, black or white, short or tall, fat or skinny, God-fearing or atheist, a butcher, baker or candlestick maker, gay or straight.

Now I know. He plays football.

Actually, I should say Sam used to play football. His days as a defensive lineman with the University of Missouri Tigers have ended and now, at age 24, his name goes into the hat for this year’s National Football League draft. Two days ago, he figured to be plucked anywhere from the third to seventh round. Today? Not so much.

It’s now anyone’s guess when Sam’s name will be called on May 8. If it’s called at all.

Oh, yes, it’s quite possible that the SEC defensive player-of-the-year will be ignored by the deep (shallow?) thinkers of all 32 NFL teams, not for something he did or didn’t do on the football field. Sam’s rating appears to be in free fall because the entire sports universe now knows he prefers to date/bed men.

You’re right. That shouldn’t matter. It certainly didn’t matter at Mizzou. Sam’s playmates knew he was a Tiger of a different stripe, but they didn’t let his sexual orientation disturb a 12-2 (7-1 in conference) season that was punctuated with a 41-31 victory over Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl Classic.

It matters in the NFL, though.

It matters because the NFL is the ultimate alpha male, frat boy pub crawl and the 32 changing rooms are alpha male, frat boy man caves where the word “fag” gets tossed around like Peyton Manning touchdown passes.

It matters because the NFL is afraid. It is afraid of the unknown. Afraid of joining the rest of us in the 21st century. Afraid of its own Jackie Robinson.

The NFL has issued a statement in support of Sam, and there is a clause in its bargaining agreement with the players association that protects against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Those, however, are words on a piece of paper. They are not action. They are not reality.

My guess is that the majority of NFL players would embrace Sam, a 6-foot-2, 265-pound Texan. The minority, however, wouldn’t be silent. They’d be rude. Offensive. Vulgar. Confrontational. Some would demand a trade. And the deep (shallow?) thinkers in the league’s ivory towers would be fearful that the circus would roll into town.

Here’s what one former NFL general manager told Sports Illustrated:

“That will break a tie against that player. Every time. Unless he’s Superman. Why? Not that they’re against gay people. It’s more that some players are going to look at you upside down. Every Tom, Dick and Harry in the media is going to show up, from Good Housekeeping to the Today Show. A general manager is going to ask, ‘Why are we going to do that to ourselves?’ ”

And this from a player personnel assistant:

“I don’t think football is ready for (an openly gay player) just yet. In the coming decade or two, it’s going to be acceptable, but at this point in time it’s still a man’s-man game. To call somebody a (gay slur) is still so commonplace. It’d chemically imbalance an NFL locker room and meeting room.”

The NFL’s fear of what might happen if an openly gay player were among its ranks is greater than any fear Sam battled before coming out of the closet. And, as someone who has been there,/done that (albeit on a much smaller scale), I can tell you that Sam’s sexual identity, stay in/come out conflict was an epic, painful struggle.

He is to be admired, not admonished. Saluted, not sullied.

In a business where wins and losses define who you are and what you are, Michael Sam has realized the ultimate victory. He has himself. His true self. Whether he is drafted or not, whether he is granted a legitimate opportunity to earn a spot on an NFL roster or not, he has already won in the most important game of all—life.