Standing for the National Anthem - Part 2

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump decided to weigh in on the topic of athletes kneeling for the national anthem.  His view was that either the teams need to make them stop kneeling, or the players need to be fired.  Why our current president is running his administration through social media, I’m not sure, but his extremely stupid statements were probably the best thing for the movement against racial injustice.  His statements served to completely unify the NFL.  Three teams refused to even take the field during the national anthem, and every other team had players kneeling, sitting, or linking arms.  In one tweet, in one single act of insensitive thoughtlessness, the president managed to unify a divided nation and garnish an outpouring of support…for the other side.  At this point, I tend to believe that he’s just stupid.  But what if he’s not?  What if this is all an elaborate ruse; to be the goat, so that everyone else will come together?  It would be a strange way to go about it.

But what is even more confusing is what happened during the Pittsburgh Steelers game.  While the entire Steelers team decided not to even come to the field, one player, Alejandro Villanueva, chose to come to the edge of the tunnel and respect the national anthem.  A former Army ranger, he said that he felt it would be disrespectful to his former platoon and all military personnel to not at least be present.  He respected his team by not actually stepping foot on the field.

After the game, his head coach and several of his teammates denounced and ridiculed his actions.  They claimed that they had made this decision as a team, and that he wasn’t being a team player.  So let me get this right, you’re telling me that you’re supposedly kneeling for equality for everyone.  You’re telling me that the protest against President Trump is that everyone should have the right to express themselves and enact their freedom of speech, as granted by the United States Constitution.  But if someone chooses not to express themselves your way, then you denounce them and publicly ridicule them?  What a double standard.  Aren’t you doing to him exactly what you claim everyone is doing to you?

And if that wasn’t bad enough, the team and media made him feel so bad about his individuality, that he felt compelled to hold a press conference and apologize for his actions.  Apologize?!  For being respectful to a nation and the people that risk their lives to defend it.  Now, I know that this protest has nothing to do with the men and women of the armed forces.  I have no idea why that concept is even brought up.  They are protesting an ideal and the people that are tasked with protecting its people even from themselves.  But if Mr. Villanueva wants to honor his fellow soldiers, and he feels the best way to do that is to be present for the national anthem, then who are they to judge his actions, much less make him feel bad about it?!  He was caught in the middle of a war, and he chose the best way he could think of to be respectful to both sides.  He was present, but not on the field.  Strike two against the supposed protesters of equality.

To continue my praise for people who are finding ways to speak out in respectful ways, I want to jump over to the MLB.  For the first time, a player in baseball decided to join in the passive protests of racial inequality.  Bruce Maxwell, a catcher for the Oakland Athletics knelt during the national anthem.  But…but…he did so while still managing to respect the flag, the anthem, and the country by covering his heart while it played.  I have no issue with this.  It is a protest against an ideal and a situation, while respecting a nation.

I will conclude by expressing my problem with all of this passive protesting.  I said it before, and I’ll say it again.  It is not making a difference.  Nobody is talking about the impetus behind the protest.  They are talking about the action of the protest and the response to the action.  We have lost the goal amidst the chaos, and I wonder if months or years from now if anyone will even remember what we’re fighting about.

When all of this started last year, I told my father that I thought it was stupid what Colin Kaepernick was doing.  Purely because I felt he was going about it all wrong.  Kneeling was not going to change hearts.  All it was going to do was enrage them.  And that is exactly what has happened.  He needed to be using his influence and money to educate, to inform, and to push for productive change.  All it takes is one man teaching his child to be racist to continue the cycle to another generation.  But if you can get to that child and change his mind…to teach him compassion and to look at the heart instead of at the skin of a man…you can break the cycle.  If you can change police tactics to be more humane to everyone, to raise awareness about what’s going on, then you can break the cycle.  And if we’re going to truly do away with racism, from both sides (yes, black people are racist too), then we need to break the cycle.  Imagine all of these athletes using their influence and money for something productive…what a force they’d be.