Another day, another person missing the fundamental purpose of protest.
This isn't new not after Black Lives Matter protests have been met with widespread criticism for "inconveniencing" those nearby. But doesn't anybody know that protests aren't supposed to be convenient. Why all the confusion?
The question came to the forefront again recently with San Francisco 49er's player Colin Kaepernick sitting during the national anthem, a decision that’s since drawn ire (most of it extremely ignorant at best, painfully racist at worst) for what some saw as a slap in the face to the military. Most recently on the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11, Kate Upton (famous and Twitter verified for...something) added her voice to dissenters when Dolphins players followed Kaepernick's lead and took the knee.
This is unacceptable. You should be proud to be an American. Especially on 9/11 when we should support each other. https://t.co/qFozwaH9Bu
— Kate Upton (@KateUpton) September">https://twitter.com/KateUpton/status/7750925377070... 11, 2016
Protest&speak ur mind whenever u want but during the 120secs you should support the people who protect our freedom. https://t.co/qFozwaH9Bu
— Kate Upton (@KateUpton) September"> https://twitter.com/KateUpton/status/7750934416760... 11, 2016
Kate, Kate, Kate, whoever you are, stop.
Telling people they "should be proud" is the height of privilege. It's the pinnacle, the peak. Oxygen is clearly hard to come by up there if you're so secure in your existence that you can tell people protesting America's past and present tendency to mistreat, oppress, and brutalize large portions of its population, that they "should be proud". And to follow that up by basically saying "Yeah you should protest but only when I tell you to" is just...if there was ever a time for a cat to delicately place their paw on your tweeting hand, it was when you were doing this.
Now Kate Upton is not the first nor will she be the last to display her willful ignorance via Twitter, attempting to defend America while veering from the ideals she seeks to defend (both in these tweets, later in an Instagram post no one asked for, and then again when criticized by the superior Soledad O'Brien, and again and...again). Contrary to what Kate Upton seems to believe, the right to protest is one of those great freedoms we've been granted as Americans, and it's one that doesn't really come and go depending on time and place. But that hasn't stopped people like Upton from breaking their necks to condemn Kaepernick and those that echo his stance.
Some even take steps to stop them. Soccer player Megan Rapinoe knelt in solidarity but was kept from doing so again when the anthem was played while athletes were still in the locker room. High school football player Mike Oppong was suspended for one game for kneeling during the anthem, and when high school athletes did the same in Alabama an announcer declared that all who knelt during the anthem should be shot.
Land of the free, amirite?
If you're wondering how stupid some of you look while proving protestors' point about America's "greatness", it's that stupid.
Besides the omnipresent opinion that there's really nothing to protest anyway (ugh), the one that the protesting is being done incorrectly is just as damaging.
I'll tell you this about protest: it's not supposed to be make you comfortable. It's not supposed to go unseen or unheard. It's supposed to force awareness, acknowledgement, and most of all change. That won't be accomplished, as some seem to believe, by sitting in your house quietly stewing over America's issues and swaddling the Kate Uptons and apparently trigger happy football announcers so they don't have to feel uncomfortable or consider why. Not that I would expect either of these types of people to look outside of themselves enough to do so.
Kaepernick sat through the anthem for two games before it was noticed by the media, and once it was, he was joined by Megan Rapinoe, high school and college athletes and professionals in his league, including the Dolphins players who so upset Kate Upton. Veterans, not to be confused with the non-veterans who continue to speak for them, started the #VeteransForKaepernick hashtag to voice their support, having sacrificed just as much as Upton says for our right to hold our country accountable through protest.
While Upton went on her in tweets to say that "the justice system is corrupt", she's still said far more about NFL players protesting injustice than the injustice itself. Basically it just isn't he right time for a protest. Not on 9/11 and not during the national anthem.
9/11, as horrific and awful as it was doesn't absolve America of its responsibility to its citizens. And it doesn't make America immune to dissent and protest from those citizens when it continues to fail them. This includes veterans who America hasn't been half as appreciative of as we claim to be (and that's just one link).
The act of protesting shouldn't be more offensive to you than what is being protested. The only "right time" to protest is when an injustice has occurred. When protesting, both permission and approval are irrelevant.
If Kate Upton and those like her cared as much as they said, they'd be protesting, too. But since they're not, make sure to limit your protests to when Kate Upton says so.
