A MEMBER of the US Soccer Federation (USSF) athletes council was stripped of his role on Sunday after a vile speech in which he downplayed slavery in the United States and spoke out against the removal of an anti-kneeling policy introduced in 2017.

Seth Jahn was left reeling after 71 per cent of the USSF board voted to repeal Policy 604-1, requiring all national team members to “stand respectfully” during the Star Spangled Banner, which was introduced when US star Megan Rapinoe knelt in solidarity with former NFL QB Colin Kaepernick.

Her kneeling during the US national anthem was a direct response to the  inequality faced by black people in the United States — which ultimately saw Kaepernick blacklisted from the NFL.

Prior to the vote, Jahn hit out at the “quote unquote, progressive culture where everything offends everybody” and used stats to claim that “95 per cent of deaths in black communities come at the hands of another black man,” as a counter to the argument that black people are being killed by police officers without justification.

“I’m sure I’m going to ruffle some feathers with what I’m about to say, especially given the athletes council that I’m on, but given the evolution of our quote unquote, progressive culture where everything offends everybody, those willing to take a knee our for anthem don’t care about defending half of our country and when they do so, then I don’t have too much concern in also exercising my first-amendment right,” Jahn said. “We’re here to get a different perspective. I also feel compelled to articulate that I’m of mixed race and representative of undoubtedly the most persecuted people in our country’s history, Native-Americans.”

Turning his attention to slavery, Jahn added that every race at one point in time has been enslaved and that while living in Africa, he could buy people.

“I keep hearing how our country was founded on the backs of slaves, even though approximately only 8 per cent of the entire population even owned slaves,” he said. “Every race in the history of mankind has been enslaved by another demographic at some point time. Blacks have been enslaved. Hispanics have been enslaved. Asians most recently in our country in the freaking 20th century, have been enslaved. Natives have been enslaved. Whites have been enslaved. Shoot, I lived in Africa for two-and-a-half years where I could purchase people, slaves, between the price of $300 and $800 per person, per head depending on their age, health and physicality.

“Where were the social justice warriors and the news journalists there to bring their ruminations to these these real atrocities? And yet in all of history, only one country has fought to abolish slavery, the United States of America, where nearly 400,000 men died to fight for the abolishment of slavery underneath the same stars and bars that our athletes take a knee for. Their sacrifice is tainted with every with every knee that touches the ground.”

He suggested that athletes would wish to take a knee do so on their own individual platforms, but not while representing their country on a football field.

USSF president Cindy Parlow Cone spoke after Jahn and urged repeal of the anti-kneeling policy.

“This is not about disrespecting the flag or about disrespecting the military,” she said. “This is about the athletes and our staff’s right to peacefully protest racial inequalities and police brutality.”

The athlete’s council said in a statement on Sunday that Jahn had “violated the prohibited conduct’s policy section on harassment, which prohibits racial or other harassment based upon a person’s protected status (race), including any verbal act in which race is used or implied in a manner which would make a reasonable person uncomfortable. The athlete’s council does not tolerate this type of language and finds it incompatible with membership on the council. While the council understands that each person has a right to his or her own opinion, there are certain opinions that go beyond the realm of what is appropriate or acceptable.”

The council added that it “wants to be unequivocable in its condemnation of the statements that Mr Jahn made yesterday.”