On the Importance of Kaepernick and Kneeling

Last year, during an NFL preseason game, Colin Kaepernick practiced his constitutional right to silently protest by sitting during the national anthem. Through the course of the season, his actions garnered national attention, sparking rifted dialogue and much contestation. Kaepernick’s initial actions were meant to convey his dissatisfaction with race relations utilizing the platform he had in hopes of ameliorating the structural mistreatment of African American citizens.

This past Friday, Mr. Trump tempestuously called for NFL owners to terminate players who refuse to pledge their allegiance to the flag or kneel during the national anthem as a form of public resistance. Mr. Trump’s use of inflammatory expletives, labeling professional athletes who kneel as “sons of bitches,” was covertly racialized and euphemistic. His statements schematically deviated from the issues at hand which converge at the nexus of race, politics, and social inequity. Further, his rhetoric bifurcates our attention from the conversations that are necessary for social transformation regarding the inherent worth of African American citizens to patriotism and whether or not one should kneel during the national anthem. This dichotomizing is an over simplification of the subject matter and cloaks the ways in which white supremacy materializes in the various facets of the public sphere. Neither Mr. Trump nor NFL general managers can prohibit athletes from acting as moral agents amidst sporting competition. 

Thus, the notion that players should simply stick to sports is an erroneous equivocation. Athletes are not divorced from social realities and tend to be implicated as role models by virtue of their notoriety. In fact, history is replete with professional athletes who have protested ongoing socio-political usury to exemplify their disscontempt. This genealogy encompasses persons such as Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith. Colin Kaepernick merely exists within a historical continuum and functions as a catalyst for social change on this spectrum. His refusal to patronize the national anthem and American flag is scarcely unpatriotic, but is indicative of the racial dissemblance and perennial hegemony in our country.

It is necessary, then, to problematize the actions of several non-Black NFL players and executives that took place around the league this Sunday. In efforts to refute Mr. Trump’s commentary, managers, players, and coaches demonstrated their disapproval by locking arms, kneeling, or skipping out on the national anthem altogether in unifying fashion. While these significations are commendable, they do not address the epicenter of the quandary. Kaepernick’s protest has unequivocally revolved around the deplorable maltreatment of African Americans, mainly police brutality. If non-Black players and executives wish to embody such moral courage, perhaps it is incumbent upon them to divest from their capital and speak out against the moral and civic injunctions that intersectionally plague African American citizens as opposed to remaining complicit with their privilege.