Activist Imani Barbarin draws line between Damar Hamlin collapse and treatment of the disabled in America

It was a typical Monday Night Football game, with the Buffalo Bills playing the Cincinnati Bengals in the crisp air of a January Ohio evening. 24 year-old Bills safety Damar Hamlin took one in the chest from Bengal Tee Higgins. He collapsed. Within ten seconds, paramedics were on the field, and for the next nine minutes attempted to resuscitate him as his teammates took a knee, circling him, crying.

It’s a sight that no NFL fan will forget any time soon, and it’s certainly something the young players on both sides will live with. The head coaches sent their players to the locker rooms, and an hour later officials from the NFL announced that the game would be called. Even the most casual fan, or those who are not fans at all, must agree that it’s a powerful moment that calls for somber reflection.

“I’m shocked you’re shocked. I find your shock insulting. NFL players are, at their core, workers. You all pushed to ‘go back to normal’ because of the economy —only for corporations and billionaires to push us into a recession regardless.”

Disability activist Imani Barbarin sees in it something more, and she took to her TikTok to discuss her feelings about the way in which the NFL’s response — or a perceived lack of one — ties in to the way disabled people were treated during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Barbarin has gone viral before, comparing Chadwick Boseman’s desire for privacy around his ongoing cancer treatment with what she describes as disabled peoples’ fear around the able-bodied.

This time, Barbarin wants people to know that in Hamlin’s story, one can take a lesson about the NFL’s general disregard for its players’ safety. In her video, she cited the rate at which professional U.S. football players  suffer chronic traumatic encephalopathy (or CTE), a degenerative brain disease found in those who suffer serious head trauma. According to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, CTE has been found in 99% of NFL players.

Barbarin also claims in her video that the NFL wanted the players to get back out on the field after Hamlin’s body was taken off the field. However, a report from CNN which breaks down the NFL’s response to the incident almost to the minute found that the league decisively came down in favor of cancelling the game.

In any case, Barbarin’s video addresses an important issue that effects of millions of disabled Americans, including many former professional, college, and high school players.

According to Jordon Rooney, who is Hamlin’s marketing rep, the player’s vitals are “back to normal” and he was sedated last night in order to accommodate with a tube down his throat to assist his breathing.