So unless you’ve been living under a rock you have probably heard of Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers and his recent showing of outrage towards race relations in America, and how he plans on protesting this by doing the most heinous thing an American could ever do and sit during the national anthem. Now in your typical American fashion you should be getting your torches and pitchforks ready and joining the anti-Kaepernick fight but before that you should hear me out, because you trying to prevent him from doing this is more un-American than him doing that. In fact, Kaepernick doing that isn’t really that un-American at all. In fact, his actions are the kind of actions that built American. Also, can we not also just come to the conclusion that he is kind of right in his complaints against race relations in America just based off of the responses he got for his actions?

So there is really no way to go around this fact: Colin Kaepernick has the right to sit during the national anthem, I would really hate to break it to you all, but everyone has that right. Literally everyone everywhere has that right. Remember that kid in grade school who never stood during the pledge of allegiance in the morning? That kid is most definitely allowed to do that, and no one is allowed to force them, because that would be infringing on their constitutional rights. Weird how that works, right? When you force people to do things that they do not want to do then you are the villain (see NORTH KOREA or USSR for example). So using that basis, Kaepernick sitting during the national anthem isn’t Un-American, forcing him to stand as if he has no free will is the actual Un-American thing to do.

But okay I’ll bite, let’s say Kaepernick is the most Un-American person in this country for sitting (despite the fact that actual anarchists live in America right now in this moment, but I digress). Doesn’t his Un-American action mimic the actions that shaped America to be what it is right now? I mean the United States became a thing because the founding fathers looked around and did not like what they saw; is that not what Kaepernick is doing? When colored people and white people were separated by law, people like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King looked around and saw things were bad, and took a stand to change it, just like Kaepernick is doing. The people around those respected people during their time probably thought of them as “un-American” or a “traitor” but without them, who would be around to shape America? I’m not saying Colin Kaepernick is going to shift the axis of society by popping a squat during The Star Spangled Banner, but I am saying looking around and not liking the injustice is not new and should not be condemned by the public.

When this happened and Colin Kaepernick started speaking out against race issues, people responded in as bad a way as you’d expect. People lost every racist censor they had and called him disgusting slurs and starting throwing the most heinous, racist comments people could muster together. Does that not prove that he was right in sitting during the pledge? If you don’t like the fact that he is sitting because of racism, isn’t it ironic that the first response is a racist one? He just proved his point and now has even more of a justifiable reason. There’s not much more to say because it’s that simple. So people might still call him the n word, and he will continue to sit and nothing will get solved, or maybe, just maybe, he will do what he intended to do and cause some change and race relations will start the mending process.