Last month, the NFL’s regular season officially began. In its first few weeks, numerous players have been taking a knee during the National Anthem to protest issues that they believe the minority community is facing, such as systemic oppression and police brutality. Unsurprisingly, participating in a protest at such a time has left a massive amount of people outraged. Included was Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who recently spoke out against the kneeling and warned that if anyone on his team does anything to disrespect the American flag or National Anthem, then they won’t play.

Following Jones’ threat, Reverend Jesse Jackson, a well-known liberal civil rights activist, went on Fox Sports’ “Undisputed,” which is hosted by Joy Taylor and stars two commentators, Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe. He defended the protests, going so far as to compare former San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who basically started the movement of NFL players protesting during the National Anthem, to Heavyweight Champion Boxer Muhammad Ali, who actively protested against the Vietnam War. He then inexplicably attacked the NFL and NBA, likening both to the institution of slavery by claiming that black professional athletes are still oppressed because they merely went from “picking up cotton balls to picking up footballs and basketballs.”

Specifically, while talking about Kaepernick appearing to have lost his job for kneeling during the National Anthem, Rev. Jackson suggested that his situation was similar to the way Ali was treated for speaking out against the Vietnam War, stating, “when [Ali] changed his name [and] took a religious position against the war, they took his title.”

Jackson then went on to suggest that Kaepernick’s lack of employment was proof that professional athletes don’t have any freedom. “In many ways it is oppressive. To go from picking cotton balls to picking up footballs and basketballs without freedom is not very much progress,” he reasoned, noting, “it’s just a lateral move.”

By saying this, Jackson is basically claiming that professional athletes have it just as bad as people who were literally treated as property under the law. Not only is this utterly ridiculous, to imply that they’re in any way similar is also unfathomably offensive to everyone who actually suffered under slavery.

Later in the interview, Jackson suggested that punishing an athlete for kneeling during the National Anthem is equivalent to workplace harassment. “Unlike basketball or baseball, there are no guaranteed contracts,” he explained, adding, “so you stand but don’t play tomorrow. That’s workplace harassment. That’s illegal.”

Clearly, this suggestion is completely absurd. Telling a player to act a certain way is not the same as “workplace harassment.” This is because, while on the field, they are technically employees who are on the clock, and as employees, they’re expected to not bring their employers unwanted controversy, which is what the kneeling has clearly done. Just like with every other job, it’s not harassment for NFL owners to punish or fire their employees for costing them money or attracting negative publicity.

Before the interview ended, Jackson also pushed back against Trump’s call to fire those “sons of bitches” who kneel during the anthem. “The reason I have to stand up when the president says ‘fire them’ and calls them ‘sons of bitches,’ [is that] they are sons of mothers who produce champions. They’re not sons of bitches, they’re sons of mothers who produce champions,” he argued.

"It never was about the flag… The issue was about racial disparities."@RevJJackson joins us to talk about the impact of of anthem protests pic.twitter.com/HRzoUKMwRM — UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) October 23, 2017

Sadly, Jackson is not the only person to bring up slavery while talking about the National Anthem protests. A few weeks prior, for instance, ESPN’s Michael Wilbon, who co-hosts “Pardon the Interruption” with Tony Kornheiser, went on his show shortly after hearing that Jones would punish players for protesting and compared him to a slave owner as well.

Specifically, while speaking with Kornheiser about Jones’ right to bench players as an employer, which Kornheiser defended, Wilbon stated, “he said he wanted to honor the anthem, and it seemed like that was where he was going. But now it just seems like it was as phony as a three-dollar bill. And the word that comes to mind, and I don’t care who doesn’t like me using it, is ‘plantation.’”

To clarify why the word “plantation” comes to mind, Wilbon claimed that by threatening to punish players for protesting, he believed Jones was essentially saying, “the players are here to serve me, and they will do what I want no matter how much I pay them. They are not equal to me.”

In addition to Wilbon, Reverend Al Sharpton, who made his support for the protests clear when he spoke out against the recent suspension of ESPN’s Jemele Hill, also compared Jones to a slave owner.

“You have an all-white league of owners making the decisions. Now, you put that with the fact that Jerry Jones takes a knee one day in the name of unity, but [then] says, ‘I’m going to bench you if you take a knee.’ That’s a plantation kind of mentality,” stated Sharpton during an interview on MSNBC’s “Deadline.”

To clarify, he that explained that by kneeling before ultimately threatening to punish players for protesting, he believed Jones was essentially saying, “you can bend on your knee with me, and if I’m writing the script on which you get on your knee for, but don’t you dare bend your knee by yourselves, boys, and think for yourself,” which sounds like something a slave owner would say.

Unfairly comparing organizations like the NFL to the institution of slavery and people like Jones to slave owners is absolutely reprehensible behavior that must not be tolerated. To stop this from happening, conservatives need to work together and actively speak out against anyone making such absurd claims.