Colin Kaepernick Sits Through National Anthem Last Night

Still Fighting the Good Fight

Colin Kaepernick will not allow his enemies to set the narrative of who he is and what he stands for and with his GQ "Citizen of the Year" cover story and award, he's well on his way to do so. Well worth the read.


Nessa


Nationally syndicated radio host/TV personality, American Muslim who works in communities for social justice, and Kaepernick's partner of nearly three years


Colin has always been helping people, he has always been involved, because he has empathy. Empathy was a reason why he was adopted: His parents—two of their children had passed away from heart defects. It's why he helped so many young children with heart defects get proper care—he's been doing that for years. I'm very fortunate that I have Colin next to me. It's everything. We love each other, we care for each other, and we have to remind each other that, hey, we're doing our part, we're trying to make a difference.

As long as you're educated and you have the facts, get into those discussions about race. Have those conversations. I don't care how intense they get. You need to let Uncle Whoever and Auntie Whoever, who might feel a certain way, who might be racist or prejudiced, know that it's not right and it's not okay. Their beliefs are never based on facts. It's always opinions or lies or misinformation, and that is where you can make a difference—by helping them get educated. Just know that it's probably going to be a fight at first, and be okay with that. You know, your Thanksgiving might not be that good this year. Your Christmas might not be the best because we just had an argument. But you know what? It's okay, it's all right—that's what families do, anyway. And why would you want a family member out there sounding ignorant? So it's fine, we're going to fight over the eggnog, and that's just what it is. We may not see eye to eye, but I did my part, sharing the truth, because that's all you can do. Be just in an unjust room.

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How many of the people who are objecting to the means of protest in this case are actually supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement? How many are actually opposed to what the protesters' and their supporters' position on police violence against Black Americans, but they don't want to come out and say so, so they're diverting attention away from the issue by insisting that taking a knee during the anthem is anti American? How many white football fans who are objecting to this believe deep down that Black people are incorrect in their assertion that they're singled out for more than their fair share of police brutality, and disagree with the assertion that police are quite literally getting away with murder in many cases?

I don't think there's any way to get the answer to this, but I've yet to have someone whom I know supports BLM say they think the players should find another way to protest.

I'd like to hear some suggestions for alternatives that are just as public and attention grabbing that don't offend the sensibilities of any white football fans.

Is a protest that offends or upsets no one going to be effective?

This Is What White People Think of Black Protest

Roxxsmom said:

How many of the people who are objecting to the means of protest in this case are actually supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement? How many are actually opposed to what the protesters' and their supporters' position on police violence against Black Americans, but they don't want to come out and say so, so they're diverting attention away from the issue by insisting that taking a knee during the anthem is anti American? How many white football fans who are objecting to this believe deep down that Black people are incorrect in their assertion that they're singled out for more than their fair share of police brutality, and disagree with the assertion that police are quite literally getting away with murder in many cases?

I don't think there's any way to get the answer to this, but I've yet to have someone whom I know supports BLM say they think the players should find another way to protest.

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Oh, there's a way to get the answer to this. Go ask Trump voters in coal country Pennsylvania. Lots of answers to be found up in them thar hills.



His supporters here, it turns out, are energized by his bombast and his animus more than any actual accomplishments. For them, it’s evidently not what he’s doing so much as it is the people he’s fighting. Trump is simply and unceasingly angry on their behalf, battling the people who vex them the worst—“obstructionist” Democrats, uncooperative establishment Republicans, the media, Black Lives Matter protesters and NFL players (boy oh boy do they hate kneeling NFL players) whom they see as ungrateful, disrespectful millionaires.

More than anything, what seemed to upset the people I spoke with was the National Football League players who have knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality.


“As far as I’m concerned,” Frear told me, “if I was the boss of these teams, I would tell ’em, ‘You get your asses out there and you play, or you’re not here anymore.’ They’re paying their salaries, for God’s sake.”


“Shame on them,” Del Signore said over his alfredo. “These clowns are out there, making millions of dollars a year, and they’re using some stupid excuse that they want equality—so I’ll kneel against the flag and the national anthem?”


“You’re not a fan of equality?” I asked.


“For people who deserve it and earn it,” he said. “All my ancestors, Italian, 100 percent Italian, the Irish, Germans, Polish, whatever—they all came over here, settled in places like this, they worked hard and they earned the respect. They earned the success that they got. Some people don’t want to do that. They just want it handed to them.”


“Like NFL players?” I said.


“Well,” Del Signore responded, “I hate to say what the majority of them are …” He stopped himself short of what I thought he was about to say.


Schilling and her husband, however, did not restrain themselves.


“The thing that irritates me to no end is this NFL shit,” Schilling told me in her living room. “I’m about ready to go over the top with this shit. We do not watch no NFL now.” They’re Dallas Cowboys fans. “We banned ’em. We don’t watch it.”


Schilling looked at her husband, Dave McCabe, who’s 67 and a retired high school basketball coach. She nodded at me. “Tell him,” she said to McCabe, “what you said the NFL is …”


McCabe looked momentarily wary. He laughed a little. “I don’t remember saying that,” he said unconvincingly.


Schilling was having none of it. “You’re the one that told me, liar,” she said.


She looked at me.


The NFL?


“Niggers for life,” Schilling said.


“For life,” McCabe added.




And there you have it, Roxxsmom. Easy peasey greasy. To the good White folk salt of the earth types in economically depressed shitholes like Johnstown, PA it's not about Black Lives Matter and its not about the reasons why BLM protests and Colin Kaepernick took a knee.

It's about the niggers getting uppity.

They could know the reasons, but they would first have to care and they don't. Why let hard facts get in the way of hardcore racism and ignorance?

One of the amusing parts of this sorry saga is that Donald Trump would probably adore having people kneel in his presence.

caw

nighttimer said:

Oh, there's a way to get the answer to this. Go ask Trump voters in coal country Pennsylvania.
And there you have it, Roxxsmom. Easy peasey greasy. To the good White folk salt of the earth types in economically depressed shitholes like Johnstown, PA it's not about Black Lives Matter and its not about the reasons why BLM protests and Colin Kaepernick took a knee.

It's about the niggers getting uppity.

They could know the reasons, but they would first have to care and they don't. Why let hard facts get in the way of hardcore racism and ignorance?

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I have little doubt this is true. And one arguable benefit of the whole Trump fiasco is that it's made me (and many other sheltered optimists) aware that there is still a scary number of people in this country who are open, self admitted, and proud racists.

The people I know (I live in CA, a much more "liberal" place) who are angered by the football players, though, would never say what those people said. They wouldn't use the words those people used. They're so much more focused on the "patriotism" issue. Or they make oblique comments about how tired they are of all the "negativity" these days, and they wish we could go back to some golden era when no one ever complained.

And when there's yet another shooting of an unarmed black man, woman or child in the news, or another case of publicized police brutality, they feel compelled to post memes about wonderful cops who take poor children of color shopping and rescue kittens from trees, or they argue that cops are under siege and that all this scrutiny is bad for their morale. Or they concern troll about how the BLM reinforces negative stereotypes about Black people. Or they may skirt the issue by saying that these football players are rich, so obviously there's no discrimination "anymore."

Which I strongly suspect is being used as a smoke screen for how they really feel--that they wish we could go back to the good old days when marginalized people had no voice at all. Or to put it another way, they wish everyone who feels that they're still not being treated equally would just shut up and stop bugging them. But if I raise this possibility, they insist that I'm wrong and that I am putting words in their mouths.

blacbird said:

One of the amusing parts of this sorry saga is that Donald Trump would probably adore having people kneel in his presence.

caw

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Remember what he said to that woman on the Apprentice? Ick...

Celia Cyanide said:

Remember what he said to that woman on the Apprentice? Ick...

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I never watched that unwatchable show featuring that unwatchable man.

caw

blacbird said:

I never watched that unwatchable show featuring that unwatchable man.

caw

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Neither did I...but this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urReg9O6MwA

Roxxsmom said:

...Which I strongly suspect is being used as a smoke screen for how they really feel--that they wish we could go back to the good old days when marginalized people had no voice at all. Or to put it another way, they wish everyone who feels that they're still not being treated equally would just shut up and stop bugging them. But if I raise this possibility, they insist that I'm wrong and that I am putting words in their mouths.

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So they are bigots, but they don't like to think of themselves that way. They might even not be conscious of what they're doing.

eqb said:

So they are bigots, but they don't like to think of themselves that way. They might even not be conscious of what they're doing.

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And that my friends, is the definition of white privilege .

Fingers said:

And that my friends, is the definition of white privilege .

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Exactly.

regdog said:

Republican pundit and all around know nothing, Tomi Lehren, tweeted a photoshopped picture of Kaepernick kneeling in the foreground of the iconic D-Day Landing LST picture, with the caption "Food for thought". Apparently she is ignorant of the fact the military was still segregated during WW2.

Kind of reinforces the reason for the protests; racial equality.

Link


ETA: I should also have said, the men in that picture Aare at war with Nazis. DJT says Nazis are "very fine people", but an African American peacefully protesting for racial equality is a "son of a bitch, who should be fired."

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Add Lehren to a growing list of dipshits.



https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dipshit

BoF said:

Add Lehren to a growing list of dipshits.

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Add? She's always been in the Top 5, even before her beg for money for a health crisis after spending months bashing O-care.

regdog said:

Republican pundit and all around know nothing, Tomi Lehren, tweeted a photoshopped picture of Kaepernick kneeling in the foreground of the iconic D-Day Landing LST picture, with the caption "Food for thought". Apparently she is ignorant of the fact the military was still segregated during WW2.

Kind of reinforces the reason for the protests; racial equality.

Link


ETA: I should also have said, the men in that picture are at war with Nazis. DJT says Nazis are "very fine people", but an African American peacefully protesting for racial equality is a "son of a bitch, who should be fired."

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BoF said:

Add Lehren to a growing list of dipshits.



https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dipshit

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ElaineA said:

Add? She's always been in the Top 5, even before her beg for money for a health crisis after spending months bashing O-care.

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Toni Lathren is a troll and trolls like her can go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

The target of her ire spent Thanksgiving Day participating in an Unthanksgiving Day observance and joined Native American activists in protest.

Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, took part Thursday in the annual Unthanksgiving Day on Alcatraz Island.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Kaepernick made a surprise appearance at the event, which commemorates the 19-month occupation of the prison by Native American activists from 1969-1971.

“Our fight is the same fight,” Kaepernick told the crowd, in a message he posted on Twitter. “We’re all fighting for our justice, for our freedom. And realizing that we are all in this fight together makes us all the more powerful.”

The 89 activists who occupied the prison almost five decades ago demanded that it be turned into an American Indian cultural center and school.

During the commemorative event, called the Indigenous People’s Sunrise Gathering, the crowd gathers on the island to watch the sunrise on San Francisco Bay.

“It’s about reflecting, remembering and celebrating that we are still here and our culture still survives,” Michael Horse, a Native American actor, told Newsweek.

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Whether its Lathen with her bad PhotoShop or Trump with his grumpy old man race-baiting tweets about Black NFL players, the point Kaepernick has been made and there's a new consciousness stirring in American athletes that won't dissipate under the attacks of right-wing racists.

It's gone too far to stop it now.

eqb said:

So they are bigots, but they don't like to think of themselves that way. They might even not be conscious of what they're doing.

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In a nutshell, yes.

To be honest, I don't know which is worse: conscious, deliberate bigotry or the more subtle kind that people don't acknowledge or deal with. The first kind of bigot is more likely to indulge in hate crimes. In terms of long term, societal effects, however, the latter may be worse. Many white people still refuse to acknowledge that institutionalized racism is even a thing.

[h=1]The NFL’s $100 Million Ploy to Stop Player Protests[/h]

[h=1]ACLU Honors Colin Kaepernick For Bravery in “Risking and Losing His Job” for the Cause of Social Justice[/h]

Truly Fine Citizen

How Colin Kaepernick Turned My Life Around:

Mario Lloyde is one of the many people who can say Colin Kaepernick had a direct impact on his life.

Kaepernick has donated nearly $1 million to various charities since the former 49ers quarterback first sat down and then kneeled during the national anthem last season to protest police brutality and racial inequality issues. While his protest became a movement and then a hijacked flashpoint, Kaepernick became an ex-NFL player and has mostly stayed out of the public eye.

Sports Illustrated detailed the real-life impact of Kaepernick’s donations in a feature that was published one day after he was honored with SI’s Muhammad Ali Legacy Award. After struggling to hold various odd jobs, Lloyde was the recipient of a men’s suit through 100 Suits for 100 Men, one of the more than 30 charities Kaepernick has helped.

Lloyde dreamed of getting into real estate, but the 26-year-old from Baltimore hadn’t landed anything more than temporary jobs recently.

“I was trying to get into real estate,” he told Sports Illustrated, “but I had to dress the part.”

Lloyde wore the suit to an interview with Vision Realty Management. He got the job, and is working for the company as a clerk while training to become a licensed real estate broker. He has nine additional suits now, but still has the one from 100 Suits for 100 Men.

“When I put on [the suit],” he says, “I feel like I’m representing on behalf of Colin Kaepernick.”

The suit Lloyde owns is one of dozens that Kaepernick donated to the organization. It is, in fact, the suit that Kaepernick held up for a quick photo the day he donated them. The photo landed on the company’s Instagram page, and quickly went viral.

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When Kaepernick showed up to accept the SI Muhammad Ali Legacy Award, it was presented to him by a surprise celebrity, Beyonce. Change the game. Change the world.

And shake them haters off. Especially the clueless-ass Beckys.

JFC

RedRajah said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/sports/nfl-owners-kaepernick.html

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Wow. Those owners are terrified of Trump's tweetstorms. What a bunch of cowardly wimps. I get that revenues are down as a consequence, but is the NFL really so close to insolvency that this kind of thing could put them under?

The one question I've had about the protests, however, is how the players envision them influencing behavior by police and polices enacted by police departments across the US. I support the movement and the protests wholeheartedly, but will the people who need to change be galvanized to do so as a consequence of declining NFL revenues? We have a POTUS who has encouraged the police to be more brutal, while most of the cops in attendance at his speech cheered. The protests certainly haven't changed his mind or the minds of his supporters. Nor have they appeared to engender much soul searching by police officers (most of whom voted for Trump) or their superiors.

The cheering cops sickened me, and it proves that far too many of the people sworn to "protect and serve" are in the wrong profession and are unworthy of their badges. It's not just a "few bad apples" among police who are doing these deeds. It's a manifestation of a brutal and corrupt policing culture. But how can we, the people who support the BLM movement, force departments to fire the cops who are openly (or secretly) cheering at the prospect of more police brutality and murders. How can we force our own local departments to clean house and change the way they do business?

Clearly, people who oppose Trump and his allies (and who support the BLM) need to flood to the polls in 2018 and 2020 (and forever after) to turn this tide of hate. But what laws need to be passed when (and if) we vote the current band of assholes out? What kinds of policy will stop the killings and brutalization of unarmed black people?

What will success look like?

Colin Kaepernick will never play another down in the NFL and I think he's fine with that. However, I'm also certain he's angry his former 49ers teammate, Eric Reid, has likely joined Kaepernick on the NFL's Shit List of Uppity Negroes.

Need further proof Eric Reid is paying for his support of Colin Kaepernick and decision to protest injustice by kneeling during the national anthem?

The former Pro Bowl safety had a visit with the Bengals on Monday. During the trip, he sat down with Mike Brown, when he was told the Cincinnati owner planned to prohibit players from kneeling, according to Pro Football Talk. Reid, who has said he is not planning to kneel during the national anthem anymore, was caught off-guard and wouldn’t make a commitment to his plans regarding kneeling.

After taking a physical, meeting with coaches and reviewing film, Bengals coach Marvin Lewis asked Reid if he wanted to clarify anything he said to ownership about kneeling, according to the report. He did not. And Reid, the first player to kneel with Kaepernick, has not been offered a contract.

According to Pro Football Talk, Reid believed the coaches, specifically defensive coordinator Teryl Austin, were excited at the possibility of having him.

But the Bengals seem to be taking a stand.

“We are about playing football,” Lewis told reporters at last month’s owners’ meetings. “[Players who] have other agendas, this is not the place to be. On Sunday for us and throughout the week in the building, it’s about football. That’s how I’ve approached it. Whatever happens from the league standpoint we will go along with, but that is what our guys know. And they handle that for me. I don’t have to have a voice. They understand what I am about, anything beyond that gets in the way of us doing what we want to do and that’s winning football games.”

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Fun Fact: Marvin Lewis has been head coach of the Bengals for 14 years and his playoff record is 0-7. The Bengals haven't made the playoffs in the last two seasons or he'd be 0-9.

For his part, Reid knows what time it really is.

Reid has known for some time that kneeling could jeopardize his employment. This was his first visit with a team in free agency.

“The notion that I can be a great signing for your team for cheap, not because of my skill set but because I’ve protested systemic oppression, is ludicrous. If you think it is, then your mindset is part of the problem too,” he tweeted on March 15. “GMs aren’t the hold up broski. It’s ownership. People who know football know who can play. People who know me, know my character.”

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After reading the Times story about the players and owners meeting to discuss the protests and how the two sides clearly came to the table with differing priorities, I'm finding it harder and harder to rationalize my continued support for a league that treats their employees like high-paid slaves.

nighttimer said:

After reading the Times story about the players and owners meeting to discuss the protests and how the two sides clearly came to the table with differing priorities, I'm finding it harder and harder to rationalize my continued support for a league that treats their employees like high-paid slaves.

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This.

I've been sickened by their hypocrisy (and the hypocrisy of so many of their fans) for some time. Evidently players who abuse their spouses, or who commit other crimes can be forgiven, because we need to separate the character of the players from their talent. But players who take a knee for a cause they believe in? They're a bunch of offensive thugs who are ruining the sport.