Rise up, Bears fans! Use the power you have to show your displeasure with the McCaskeys!

You don’t get to pick your parents, and you don’t get to pick the people who own the professional teams you follow. But it is worth noting that you can disown your parents. Not enough sports fans emancipate themselves from owners.

That brings us to the McCaskeys because it always does when the subject of what’s wrong with the Bears comes up. The subject comes up a lot. That tends to happen when a description of the franchise’s long-ago Super Bowl title starts with, “The cost of a plow was $200, ‘Our American Cousin’ was playing at Ford’s Theatre and …’’

After five straight losses, the public outcry is for the McCaskeys to sell the team. The rationale behind the push is that ownership wouldn’t know a football from a foot massage. Although probably true, it’s not enough to get the family to sell the team. If it hasn’t been shamed by decades of mediocrity, a garden-variety losing streak isn’t going to do the trick. The only Super Bowl title under current ownership came in the 1985 season. Not only was that ages ago, it was built by people who came before the family’s assumption of the franchise.

Demanding that the McCaskeys sell the team is a very passive exercise and, in the end, not at all satisfying. There is no hint that the family wants out of the football business, which it refers to as “whatever that is.’’ Every time the TV networks show 97-year-old Virginia McCaskey sitting at a Bears game, it’s another reminder of how fixed the situation is. Every time they mention that she is the daughter of George Halas, one of the founders of the NFL, it’s another reminder that history, not on-field success, is in charge here.

So you can scream for ownership change until you’re navy blue and orange in the face, and it will get you nowhere. But you do have power. The active way for fans to show their displeasure is to give up their season tickets for next season and beyond. That might not get the McCaskeys to sell, but you’ll feel better for taking a stand.

This might seem like an odd time to talk about a boycott. COVID-19 has forced teams to either close their stadiums to fans or to severely limit attendance. It’s been a godsend for Bears coaches and players, who would have been booed out of Soldier Field the last month had fans been in seats. But the Bears and other teams have felt the financial pain that has come with those restrictions. The Bears surely don’t want another season of ticket-sale losses.

Assuming the McCaskeys aren’t going to dump the franchise, what would a boycott accomplish for you, the Bears fan? Well, it would give you back some of the dignity you’ve lost by paying to watch this franchise over the years. Don’t minimize that. It couldn’t have been easy to look at yourself in the mirror after the Bears’ humiliating loss in Green Bay on Sunday night. They were down by 31 points after three quarters.

Here’s what a fan boycott wouldn’t change: the franchise’s ineptitude. There’s a chance that general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy will be fired after the season, though if that’s your greatest wish in life, I wouldn’t hold your breath. But if the pair are canned, the same family that hired the people who hired Pace and Nagy will hire their replacements. If the Bears were to bring in a consultant to help them find the “right’’ GM and coach, it means that the people in charge, chairman George McCaskey and president Ted Phillips, would choose that consultant. This, friends, is one protracted kiss of death.

Longtime Bears fans are incredibly loyal to their team. I get that. I’ve seen them speed past me on the way to Soldier Field on game day, their excitement pressing on the gas pedal a bit too hard. But how loyal have the Bears been to their fans? If the test of loyalty is in playoff appearances and Super Bowl titles, not very. If it’s in the effort made to bring a winner back to town, again, they haven’t held up their part of the bargain. Loyalty is hiring the right people to make the right decisions. It’s not in retaining the people who make the same mistakes over and over. It’s not in a $100 million practice facility renovation. Loyalty ultimately is measured in victories.

A high school classmate emailed me recently, saying that, after a lifetime of being a Bears fan, he was switching allegiance to the Bills, an exciting team. He would come back when the McCaskeys sold the franchise. Casting one’s eyes toward Buffalo for football sustenance sounds extreme. But I get that, too. Bears fans have given and given, and what have they received in return? A Dick Butkus bobblehead?

There are 31 other NFL teams out there, Bears fans. Might want to kick the tires.