Last week, a photo surfaced of 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick sitting during the National Anthem and he’s been getting hate & dislike from fans, certain players, political figures and now NFL team executives.
Advertisement
Another said that if an owner asked him to sign Kaepernick, he would consider resigning, rather than do it.
One widely circulated image on Facebook shows Marine veteran Zachary Stinson, who lost his legs to an IED in Afghanistan.
Joe McCastle, who is now serving in the U.S. Army, said he stands behind Kaepernick’s message as well as his right to freely express himself.
Social media users also cried foul over the public response to Kaepernick’s protest in comparison to the reaction toward white Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte earlier this month, when he trashed a Brazilian bathroom in a drunken stupor and then told police he had been robbed at gunpoint.
Those that fought for this country and those that continue to fight for this country, fight so that we can sit, sing or stand during the National Anthem if it so pleases us.
“To me, this is something that has to change”, he said after the 49ers game against the Green Bay Packers last Friday.
But that statement overlooks the history of sitting to protest racial injustice, such as Rosa Parks on a Montgomery, Ala., bus and sit-ins at segregated Woolworth’s lunch counters.
Sarah Palin even managed to defend her remarks by calling on every military veteran she knows when she told Colin Kaepernick to “get the hell out”.
Sunny Anderson, Food Network personality and a veteran tweeted: “I took an oath & served, so players on a team I don’t even like could have freedom of speech”.
Is that where we are in the United States now? The head of the International Olympic Committee ordered them suspended from the USA team and banned from the Olympic Village. One said that “Kap” was the most disliked National Football League player since Rae Carruth, the Carolina Panthers wide receiver who went to jail, and remains in jail for plotting the murder of his pregnant girlfriend.
Kaepernick’s actions weren’t only disrespectful of the flag.
Challenging ideas makes democracy healthy. I don’t know how much we were able to accomplish on a practical level, but seeing black athletes in support of Ali inspired others to speak out. His protest was because of what’s going on in this country right now and the way black people – and others of color – are being treated.
Advertisement
I sit with Kap. And this is for people that are being oppressed and need to have equal opportunities to be successful. “I respect people who stand up for what they believe in”.
