A Chiefs player is having to defend himself for what he did during yesterday’s national anthem at Arrowhead Stadium.
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President Obama, in contrast, said last week that Kaepernick is “exercising his constitutional right to make a statement” like various sports figures before him.
In later games, the New England Patriots’ Martellus Bennett and Devin McCourty raised their fists following the anthem, as did Jurrell Casey, Wesley Woodyard and Jason McCourty of the Tennessee Titans.
The first Sunday of the National Football League season happened to be the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11, which meant flag waving and un-ironic appeals to American exceptionalism were up 15,000 percent.
“I chose to get involved to see if I could create change, raise awareness”.
Miami Dolphins running back Arian Foster, linebacker Jelani Jenkins, receiver Kenny Stills and safety Michael Thomas all knelt before their season opener against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.
While talking about Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the national anthem, Woodson pointed out that many black people see reverence for “The Star-Spangled Banner” as hypocritical because its author, Francis Scott Key, was a slave owner.
“Well, I think it’s a lack of respect for our country”, Trump said. Thats why I took a stand.. I think everybody here, our team and our whole organization, respects the flag and what it stands for, the soldiers and everything.
Second year cornerback Marcus Peters raised a clinched fist in the air. As he did, many of his teammates locked arms in an apparent show of solidarity. But any time anybody of color speaks up in the United States, for some odd reason, they always get the raw end of the deal.
“We also recognize that it’s an individual’s right to reflect during the anthem in different ways”.
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“We have to choose respectful ways of doing that so that we can achieve the outcomes we ultimately want and do it with the values and ideals that make our country great”, said Goodell, whose late father, Charles, was a USA senator. “If I was in the military and I looked over there and I saw this man protesting, in peace, I would actually feel proud that, as a military man (or woman), that the freedom that I go across these waters and fight for, that’s it excercised with this young man sitting down”.
