“I’m just that patriotic, and everyone should stand up when the flag goes up and when it’s raised”, she says. Four players from the Miami Dolphins also took a knee, while soccer player Megan Rapinoe took the national anthem protest to women’s soccer. Brown’s bosses with the school district expressed support for the flag as well as the right for Brown and his players to kneel, calling it “a personal issue”.
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Another interesting note in the Kaepernick saga is that the people who haven’t served in the military and are likely sitting on their couches when the national anthem is being played are the ones that are calling the quarterback unpatriotic. Abdul-Rauf suspension was lifted after one day when he agreed to stand during the anthem but pray silently in his hands.
I am not saying people should not stand up for what they believe. “I can not stand and sing the anthem”, a baseball player once wrote.
Kaepernick said that his approach to fighting police brutality had largely been formed by reading about a series of high-profile cases involving the death of black people following clashes with police, such as Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott and Eric Garner. “There’s oppression, there’s social injustice, and these kids live it”.
There is clearly a divide between NFL players and football fans across the nation on Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the National Anthem, as many support his stance but not his choice of method. “That’s how proud I was of them”, says Isham.
“It offends me. I know it doesn’t offend a lot of people, [but] it offends me because it’s a personal thing”.
We live in a country that allows this expression. This is not about whether Kaepernick will stand up for America. “If you want to sit down, I don’t like it”.
Kaepernick began his protest back on August 26 before the start of the third preseason game.
Obama said that the football player was “exercising his constitutional right”, noting that there has been a long history of sports figures making political statements.
“I’m behind anyone who stands up for what they believe in”, Durant told The Mercury News.
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“We are not public institutions and free speech in all of its demonstrations, including protests, is not a guaranteed right”, wrote Mary Boyle, superintendent of the Catholic Schools Diocese of Camden, New Jersey.
