Recently, former star NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to take a stand, or seat to display his discontent with the state of things in the United States. Anyone with a TV or a smartphone can tell you that many people have been killed by police officers in the last few years, and plenty will tell you that they were unjust. Not to mention, people are still being attacked on social media outlets, being called the n-word to this day. Top to bottom, things seem a bit off.
My question to you is, why does it make you so angry? Perhaps it's because you perceive it to be an act of disrespect towards the armed forces and even those who lost their lives on September 11th. You may even be the type of person who believes those who can't stand behind the troops should stand in front of them instead. That's all well and good, but your passion will be misspent here with this subject matter. It should be noted that a friend of mine who's currently a member of the United States Air Force told me that, as much as she disagreed with any anti-American sentiments, she was fighting for the freedom to express those sentiments, nothing more, nothing less.
This is about people with the power to make an impact, exercising it for what they see to be the right thing. People like Kaepernick are the reason you tune in every Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and many Saturdays. Whether you like it or not, you're the one giving this human the platform they have to try to show you something you might not have seen entirely. The anti-troops rhetoric needs to go out the window. These statements that players around the league and fans like myself are going to try to make my sitting or kneeling during the anthem are a cry for help, or at least to have someone hear us out. Today's generation and those to come face a completely different set of problems than much of the most recent generation, so these sorts of issues are basically unprecedented, and should be treated as such. You shouldn't get so angry at the messenger, but rather the cause that sent them. The fact that such sad conversations about such terrible issues are always being had is bad enough.
You might think there's a better time to show your support for a cause like that, but whose to say that you won't just turn around and disagree with the protest anyways? The world is changing around us, and we need to change with it. It isn't a time for forcing division over disagreements, it's a time to hear each other out and to understand that the only way to move forward safely, is with each other.
