Star Spangled Backlash

There are 32 teams in the National Football League. Their recurring problem is there are not enough quarterbacks to fill every starting job. What’s important about this stems from six years ago when I wrote a Facebook post beginning with, “I fully support Colin Kaepernick.” At the time, it was his sixth year in the league and he was a starter in five of those seasons. My post was written two days after Kaepernick, for the second preseason game in a row, sat quietly on the sideline during the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. I have long known silence is complicity and couldn’t risk my silence as agreement with any form of the ridiculous apple to oranges rhetoric immediately plastering all social media platforms. I went on to say, “You see, Colin Kaepernick did not refuse to stand, he chose to sit, chose to sit in a rather subtle and out of limelight fashion. He sat to protest racial inequality and police mistreatment of minorities. Rosa Parks, too, chose to sit, simply because she was tired of the country's state of being.” Shouldn't we all collectively be tired of the state of this country? Kaepernick is. Here is a young man who is both “free” and “brave.” He simply was unable to “see” any bright hope shining with each new “dawn’s early light.” Seems like taking the freedom to act while being brave enough to state how and why, proved all too true in the ensuing six years. Colin Kaepernick thrust himself in the hot seat as a harbinger of unrest and disgrace filling the evening news.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book, “Between The World and Me,” is written as a letter to his 15-year-old son as an eloquent version of ’the talk.’ In it, Coates notes that “Not even Jackie Robison was always Jackie Robinson.” The reason came to light in Robinson’s biography where he details his levels of discomfort during the singing of the anthem before each and every baseball game he played. We all should share a similar discomfort by our equal outrage at the networks who gladly sold the two minutes it takes to sing this anthem for millions of dollars of commercial time. In 2009, the collective armed forces paid the NFL millions of dollars to make a spectacle of the anthem with the intent of recruiting military-aged fans. You see this blown out of proportion controversy is no controversy at all. It is a continuation of the frustration we all should share. Kaepernick risked his career pointing to the truth. Our frustration might boil over at just how far we have fallen short of the mid 1800’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil Rights Act some 60 years ago. In the past six years, our country has witnessed the collision between racial inequality and police mistreatment. For the past six years, Colin Kaepernick has not been a starter in the NFL. 

Coates writes in his recently published book, “The Color of Law,” the pointed truth: “This officer, given maximum power, bore minimum responsibility.”  Please take note, “this'' officer, not ALL officers. Try to understand hyperbole does not serve well here, justice, however does, and that has recently been proven.The obvious problem is that there are far too many of “this officer” across this country right now, creating a huge black eye on the throngs of the great men and women on our police forces. Paulo Freire’s book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” was pointed at the oppressed souls in South America. He reveals in the book that “Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed.” Never has this been more evident than in our cities’ streets today. Simply too many unnecessary deaths occurring seemingly on an hourly basis. Of course, this, in turn, places too much stress on each police officer, thus forging the violence to come full circle. 

Coates goes on to say “The struggle, in and of itself, has meaning.” Colin Kaepernick is not pointing fingers. No, he is trying to place a face to this meaning. His face. He is far from coming across as some rich, spoiled kid insulting America. On the contrary, he is celebrating the roots of this great country in its ability to stand in the face of oppression. His philanthropic “Know Your Rights Camp” is a clear example. It was born in 2015 following the police lynching of Mario Woods in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood. No officers were charged with the shooting. The camp’s purpose is to ensure a direct response to police terrorism against Black and brown communities. The organization provides young people with the legal, cultural, and neighborhood resources to fight back against systemic oppression. Considering Paulo Freire’s worthy endeavor, Kaepernick’s attempts are equal in resolve. Perhaps, some day, we all will celebrate by peacefully sitting at our next athletic contest, listening to a beautiful rendition of “America the Beautiful.” Just maybe we will also replace our blindness with crystal clear hearing. In the end, Colin Kaepernick has wanted nothing more than to give this struggle a true meaning by joining the fight to bring to an end these senseless acts of violence. 

I wrote this as a Facebook post six years ago. I did not get a single response of any kind. I figured the hot topic it became was the reason. Seeing as Kaepernick’s concerns and courage became the harbinger of the truth to come, we should join in the fray and end these horrific videos on display during the evening news. It certainly wouldn’t either hurt for us to assist in any fashion possible to get him another shot as a starting quarterback in the NFL. Of the current 32 teams, too many right now are in dire need of a QB, including the team Colin Kaepernick took to the Super Bowl.