by now you’ve no doubt heard about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s decision not to stand during the nation anthem prior to his team’s preseason game against the Green Bay Packers last week.
After the game, Kaepernick explained his decision.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Network’s Steve Wyche after the game against Green Bay. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
In response to Kaepernick’s decision not to stand during the national anthem, racists and bigots across the country crawled out of the woodwork to prove his point about the oppression of people of color in this country.
https://twitter.com/JamesERustle/status/769550527524966400
https://twitter.com/JoshNicholson16/status/769579200177139713
https://twitter.com/YeahHeSaidIt420/status/769549009602109440
While I wasn’t one bit surprised at the onslaught of racist reactions to Kaepernick’s decision, I was surprised that the Obama Administration characterized Kaepernick’s decision as “objectionable” and stated they don’t share Kaepernick’s views that people of color are oppressed in this country.
The White House said Monday that it disagrees with Colin Kaepernick’s “objectionable” decision to stay seated during the national anthem in protest but defended the San Francisco 49ers quarterback’s right to freedom of speech.
President Obama, a devoted sports fan, is “aware of this issue,” press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters at his daily briefing.
“In general, what I can say is that I certainly don’t share the views that Mr. Kaepernick expressed after the game in explaining his reasoning for his actions,” Earnest said. “But we surely all acknowledge and even defend his right to express those views in the settings that he chooses. Even as objectionable as we find his perspective, he certainly is entitled to express them.”
Writing for the New York Daily News, Chuck Modiano has an excellent piece about Kaepernick’s decision. Here’s just one small snippet of the larger piece.
So instead, they change the subject once more to imaginary military slights he never stated.
Last night, Kaepernick clarified that too: “I have great respect for the men and women that have fought for this country. I have family, I have friends that have gone and fought for this country.”
And then, Kaepernick explained the tragic hypocrisy:
“This country isn’t holding up their end of the bargain… men and women that have been in the military have come back and been treated unjustly, and have been murdered by the country they fought for, on our land. That’s not right.”
No. That’s not right. It’s criminal.
Walter Scott, killed by officer Matthew Slager on video, was a US Veteran. So was India Kager, Kenneth Chamberlain and others. Scott was not only shot while running away, but the original police report was falsified so Slager could “get away with murder.”
Slager, who is still awaiting trial, wasn’t just a “bad apple,” he was part of a police cover-up. Slager never honored Scott’s past military service. He murdered him.
A flag does not inherently represent soldiers. That is a lifetime of political brainwashing talking.
Claiming Kaepernick’s act as an insult to soldiers is as logically twisted as claiming standing up for the flag honors Micah Johnson and Gavin Long — the two military veterans who killed police in Dallas and Baton Rouge.
Neither statement makes any damn sense.
And yet some people are actually more offended with Kaepernick protesting police getting away with murder than those “getting away with murder” itself?
Now THAT is offensive.
Why? Because what they’re really saying is “White Feelings >Black Lives”
And just remember that for all the outrage over Colin Kaepernick’s decision not to stand for the national anthem, the sentiments he’s expressed are nothing new. In his autobiography, Brooklyn Dodgers Hall of Fame baseball player Jackie Robinson expressed many of the same sentiments.
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.
Stand up for the idea, Collin, and with futher effort, help make it a reality.
Sitting seems to be his natural position on the team, so it really shouldn’t disturb his schedule too much.
I am with Colin. It is my country, and I love it right or wrong, but it is wrong and racism needs to be corrected. The next game I attend, I will kneel down, put my hand on my heart and bow my head. At least it won’t be disruptive to the national anthem, as was all the booing heard on TV.