One of the many lessons I learned growing up as the daughter of a minister, is that God can use anyone to get his message across. Noah was what we would classify as an alcoholic, Moses had a speech impediment, the apostle Paul was a modern day antisemite, King David committed adultery, and the prophet Jeremiah was only a child when God decided to use him to speak a word to the Children of Israel.

The idea of seeing the message and not the messenger is something that I’ve tried to adapt into my daily life. There are a lot of things that are said by people I may not like, but when I step back and look at what they’re saying, I realize that their words are important.

Today, I challenge the many Americans who are upset and disgruntled with Colin Kaepernick, for whatever reason, to apply my simple Christian logic and look beyond the person leading the discussion.

Let me make this perfectly clear for those who think I’m supporting Colin Kaepernick:

I don’t care about him; he’s nobody to me. I didn’t know who he was before and I still don’t care.

I don’t care if he chose to stand or not stand; what I care more about are the things he’s taken a stand for because to me, those things are the biggest problem with America. Miami Dolphins running back Arian Foster said it best:

“Police brutality is part of the problem, but it’s also the prison system and education. All of these things make up systemic racism”.

I can see how this issue would make some feel uncomfortable, because how could anyone not like living in America? We’re one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Here, you are free to worship how you want, to say what you want; women have the right to do what they want with their bodies, and most recently, you have the right to love and marry whoever the hell you want.

What’s not great about a country that allows you such freedoms, right?

For some, the answer is easy. You should love everything about this great country and anyone who feels differently should ‘go live somewhere else’.

For the rest of us who don’t feel this way, the answer isn’t as Black and White as others believe it to be.

For me, I am in-between on my feelings about America for several reasons. Make no mistake about it; just because I write articles about why I hate America, I’m not stupid. I fully understand that this country is problematic, but is a great place to live. I have mixed feelings about America because I grew up as the ‘other’; I am part of the minority. In fact, I’m technically a double minority, seeing as I am Black and a woman.

Not only am I a Black woman, but I am the sister of a police officer. I am the sister and sister-in-law of 4 US Navy veterans. I am the granddaughter and god-granddaughter of Navy and Army veterans. I have several uncles and cousins who have also served and are serving this country. I live in Alabama; I love American college football, am a product of the public school system. I embody what it means to truly be ‘American’ and don’t you dare tell me any different. My issue isn’t with America itself, but with those who ‘discovered’ and eventually founded this country. My issues are with White supremacy, systemic racism, capitalism, patriarchy, colonization, and imperialism.

I could sit here and give you a historical timeline of events that show that this great system, in which many take pride in, was set up so that only some could win. I could also discuss the third stanza of the National Anthem and talk about the fact that Francis Scott Key was a slave owner. I could even go so far as to tell you about how when the Declaration of Independence was written, the phrase “all men are created equal” did not apply to Native Americans and African slaves. I won’t bother because these facts have been brought up and debated more than enough.

I’ll simply pose this question to you:

How about you put aside your feelings about Colin Kaepernick? Don’t think about whether or not Blacks and Latinos are lazy, don’t think about the fact that slavery and the civil rights movement was ‘so long ago’ (side note: it wasn’t that long ago; my mother was 8 in 1964 and my oldest brother was born 12 years after that), forget about the fact that we have a Black president and ask yourself this question:

Does everyone in America truly receive fair and equal treatment?

If the answer for you is no, then maybe you should take a knee during the national anthem until everyone is treated the same…