San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick garnered came under fire last Saturday when he refused to stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Friday’s 49ers-Packers game. In doing so, Kaepernick sparked a national conversation regarding his motives and his intentions. On one hand, the quarterback is being praised for his courage to speak out on race relations in this country. On the other, he’s being skewered for disrespecting the flag, the military and the nation.
“I’m not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” the sixth-year quarterback said in a statement the day after.
It’s no secret that football (official name American football)--is inextricably tied to this country’s consciousness. Look to the NFL’s Salute to Service campaign, which is entering its sixth year, as a prime example. The message driven home is simple: if you’re a living, breathing American--regardless of who you are, what you look like or what you believe in--you must show an unwavering and gushing respect for this country. Anything short of that, and there’s the door. Never mind that veterans have fought for your right to speak your mind exactly as you wish.
Perhaps there lies part of the problem America has with Kaepernick: America’s inability to look at its past, instead opting to invoke how much one insulted Uncle Sam. You’re either with us or against us.
The half white, half black (and yes he is black) quarterback’s actions have been equated to sacrilege in the eyes of many football fans. But let’s face it: The people who disagree with him aren’t concerned with Kaepernick the person, or his message. Go to any sporting event in this country, at any level, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a majority of fans putting their hands over their hearts (because that’s a thing too) or to find every single athlete on a team following the exact protocol prescribed by law in honoring our flag. Where are their angry tweets?
The issue is this: If anyone dares bring up this nation’s past--the forced removal, enslavement, unjustified imprisonment disenfranchisement, segregation and mass incarceration of people of color--America throws a fit, or worse, acts like it doesn’t exist. To veil the argument in a lack of patriotism serves as the easiest counterpoint to make.
People of color live much harder lives than white people in America. The inequality in our classrooms, the workplace, politics, the media and walking down the street serve as just a few examples of how difficult it may be. White privilege exists, even if you refuse to see it, don’t experience it yourself or flat out believe it disappeared within the past eight years. And it exists even when you’re guaranteed to make over $11 million this year. Because no person of color, no matter how rich, is every perfectly immune to oppression.
To believe the American flag hasn’t oppressed anyone is not only naive, but dangerously ignorant.
Kaepernick’s actions, if they truly are genuine, aren’t about disrespecting the flag. It wasn’t about disrespecting the flag when Muhammad Ali refused to fight in Vietnam or when Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their gloved fists in the air. Because all of them now have monuments dedicated to them, despite the backlash they endured when they decided to speak up. It’s about wanting to spark a conversation. To incite change. Change that all too often has been silenced.
Yes, Kaepernick’s actions may have been brash. But what choice did Kaepernick have? To stand and say nothing?
To ignore Kaepernick’s message under the guise of patriotism serves as a copout for confronting America's issues with race. To agree with Kaepernick’s motives but disagree with its execution is an argument equally unstable. Under scrutiny, as Kaepernick showed, none of them stand.
So Kaepernick took it upon himself to sit instead.
