“I think he could have picked a better platform and a better way to do it but every day they say athletes are so robotic and do everything by the book, then when somebody takes a stand like that, he gets his head chopped off”.
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“If he really wants to make change, maybe what he needs to do is – maybe, you know – write a check out of that $11 million salary he’s making, and maybe donate it toward a cause or something like that to people who are fighting for injustices against people of color”, Harrison suggested.
Kaepernick is biracial, with a black biological father and a white biological mother (he was raised by adoptive parents), and he’s taken a lot of racist and racially-tinged abuse over the years (and some terrible stuff on Twitter in particular over the last few days), so it seems ridiculous for Harrison to declare that Kaepernick is “not black” and “can not understand what I face”.
This has been pointed out by many amid the ongoing national anthem controversy, but Harrison’s stance definitely will generate more buzz, even if the former NFL safety/current NBC analyst did preface his opinion by saying he thought Kaepernick’s “heart is in the right place”. “That’s how you make change. And I’m not just saying writing a check, but just sitting against the national anthem, you’re offending a lot of people that sacrificed and died, man, basically for the freedoms that we have right now”.
Many people, both black and white, have had enough of Americans caring more about Colin Kaepernick sitting during a song than they care about the plight of black Americans.
Smith was troubled by how a person’s tone still is a topic of discussion, rather than their actual background. “None of those people come out and say anything when people are being brutalized”.
Like you said, Muhammad Ali not going to fight the war. I’m sure he was viewed very similarly during that time. And Colin Kaepernick-he’s not Black. It becomes a distraction. “Obviously, (Kaepernick) is an American and he thinks America is as great a nation as anybody else or else he wouldn’t be living here, I’m guessing”.
Colin Kaepernick #7 of the San Francisco 49ers throws a pass against the St. Louis Rams in the second quarter at the Edward Jones Dome on November 1, 2015 in St. Louis, Missouri. “The fact that we buy into this one-drop nonsense, it means that we have a long way to go”.
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“It can alienate your teammates, but it can also bring dissension in that locker room”.
