Beyonce’s Superbowl Halftime show turned the football field into an unlikely arena for political discourse. Beyonce raised her fist into the air at the end of her performance, then half of America cried in outrage believing she used her position to advocate Black Power. Fortunately for football fans, the controversy was temporary. Things took a turn for the worse three years later. In 2016, NFL player Colin Kaepernick bent down on one knee during the national anthem to protest the unjust and seemingly out-of-control killings of black Americans at the hands of white police officers.
He kneeled in memory of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and countless other black Americans denied a due trial by law. Nobody expected Kaepernick’s actions to become a nationwide controversy and turn longtime football fans away from the sport.
Kaepernick continued kneeling during the national anthem before he finally caught the eyes of sports and news media. Soon after, a handful of NFL players began to kneel with Kaepernick, as his call for justice resonated with them. Media fury soon followed through the airwaves and cyberspace. Through the power of the internet, meme culture turned Colin Kaepernick into a double standard with Tim Tebow. Memes painted Kaepernick as an ungrateful citizen who had no respect for American soldiers, who kneel to snipe enemy combatants and thereby protect American freedoms. Pundits on all sides of the political spectrum rushed to the fore and spun Kaepernick’s actions to fit their agendas. Politics is surely tiresome especially when it creeps out of legislatures, but Kaepernick used his status to bring attention to something greater than himself. Unfortunately, the media firestorm blew the entire issue out of proportion.
Not only does blow the issue out of proportion, it also discourages every other American citizen from speaking out against any other injustices. The most heinous part of this fiasco is that the sitting president conflated Kaepernick’s call for justice with ungrateful, unpatriotic, anti-military and anti-US sentiment. The president then urged NFL team owners to fire any player that fails to stand during the national anthem and called on ordinary citizens to boycott NFL. Through his actions, Donald Trump successfully silenced a dissenter’s voice, swept an epidemic issue under the rug of the American flag and thereby perpetuated disenfranchisement of black Americans.
Kaepernick’s voice is now lost, and I cannot feel sorrier for him.
