Last NFL season, a San Francisco 49ers quarterback named Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the American national anthem before a game. This simple yet very unexpected act caused a lot of controversy that still has an impact to this day.
Colin Kaepernick, a black, American male, felt hurt by all the injustice that has been happening to other black men and women in America. Because American football is one of the most popular televised sports, Colin decided to protest this injustice by taking a knee during the national anthem. After doing this, he explained that the reason he kneeled was to bring to the public eye how police brutality is taking over America and how racism is still present especially in the justice system. This happened right after a lot of incidents regarding black people being killed by policemen occurred like Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Philando Castille, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, and more. If you haven’t noticed, these are a lot of innocent people dying at the hands of stereotypes and prejudice coming from these policemen. These stories are only the ones being reported on by the media. This year alone, 730 innocent people have been killed by policemen.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/yes-its-strange-that-colin-kaeperni…
Many don’t understand why Kaepernick has started doing this, asking “Why must you bring politics into sports? This is just for entertainment” Well, when you have a platform this grand, not standing up against this kind of injustice, especially when it involves your people, would be considered immoral.
People have also twisted this protest completely around by saying it’s “disrespectful” to the flag and to people who serve this country. Even the President had something to say about this protest, and not in a positive way. What people don’t understand is that the motive behind this protest is not to attack this country, but rather to make it better.
http://www.chron.com/sports/article/Sports-Illustrated-cover-Roger-Goodell-Kaepernick-12229108.php
After some time, people started to lose the purpose of kneeling and just started doing it to go against other beliefs. For example, kneeling came back to the spotlight after President Trump said something along the lines that kneeling during the anthem is unacceptable and even called them “SOBs”. After this occurred, many players and even NFL team owners started kneeling, alluding to the fact that they are just doing it despite the president instead of against the original purpose of going against police brutality and racism.
Many have supported these kneeling players, including great singers, actors, politicians, and more. Others have not only supported but also defended them by saying that the constant statement of “kneeling is disrespectful towards the flag, the anthem, our troops and America” is a lie since that is nowhere stated in the constitution. A lot of people have also called out the people going against this by calling them “hypocrites” due to the fact that they also disrespect the flag and “America” when they wear this flag as a bandana, a shirt, a hat, on their pants or to promote things like beer among other products.
At the end of the day, the most important outcome of this protest should not be controversy nor conflict, it should be people coming together to fight this ongoing injustice. Rather than skipping around the actual subject and criticizing their way of protesting, they should understand why they are doing this and try to see it from their perspective.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings-2017/