Why I Stand
A response to Trump and #TakeAKnee
Not anti-military
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After Nate Boyer, a U.S. Army veteran and former Seattle Seahawks long snapper, met with Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback at the center of a civil rights protest against racism and police brutality, Kaepernick modified his method from sitting during the pre-game American National Anthem to kneeling.
“The first thing out of his mouth was, ‘I want you to know, first and foremost, I really do respect the heck out of the military, and I really want to thank you for your service. I just want you to know that,’” Boyer reportedly told ESPN back in September 2016.
Boyer, a former Green Beret, had published an open letter to Kaepernick just several days prior expressing his support for the quarterback and his hope Kaepernick would one day feel proud to stand once again. When the two met, they discussed the suicide epidemic plaguing the U.S. military veteran community, and how to better integrate law enforcement into the discussion Kaepernick was generating.
“I mentioned that most cops are good cops — you’ve got to understand that — and I think he did, he agreed,” Boyer told ESPN. Kaepernick said he has family members in law enforcement that do it “the right way.”
Kaepernick had been criticized for wearing socks that mocked corrupt cops.
“Once again, I’m not anti-American,” he would tell The New York Times earlier that same week.
“I love America. I love people. That’s why I’m doing this,” said Kaepernick. “I want to help make America better. I think having these conversations helps everybody have a better understanding of where everybody is coming from.”
It would be a over year before I would read any of that.
Not Just a Piece of Cloth
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I stand during the National Anthem because I am proud to be an American. As an American, I believe I live in a great country that, although imperfect, has been one of the greatest forces on the side of human flourishing and equality in recorded history. And coming from a military family, my loved ones and my ancestors have fought as part of the nation’s vanguard. The flag is not just a piece of cloth to me. It represents what we, and countless other American families, have fought and bled for.
My alma mater, Hillsdale College, was founded by abolitionists and its students fought on the side of the Union during the American Civil War. According to a 2007 essay by the college historian Arlan Gilbert:
“[…] except for the military academies, no college or university sent a greater proportion of its young men to fight for the Union. Of the more than 400 Hillsdale men who served in the Civil War, half became officers, four won the Medal of Honor, three became generals and many more served as regimental commanders. Sixty died.”
I was raised to honor the sacrifices of the fallen by the life that I lead; these sacrifices have literally shaped me into who I am as a man. And so seeing people kneel during the anthem pains me, because not only do I belong to a family tradition that has pledged life, fortune, and honor in service of this nation and its ideals, it also reminds me that our work is far from finished.
I stand to honor my family, and while I do not speak for them, I do speak for myself because I have the right and the freedom to speak. I am reminded that not everyone sees the flag the way I do, and that even my own Hawaiian ancestors would have a hard time reconciling the U.S. flag and the National Anthem as symbols of freedom. And so I also stand for those who choose to kneel.
Even if I don’t personally approve of the timing of the protest, because I believe in their right to peacefully protest, I will defend their right to do so. Because I believe in the dream of equality for all, I believe in their right to kneel. I believe, even while having been on the receiving end of racism myself, that the dream of America is a redemptive one. And so like Boyer, I also hope for a day when they will feel proud to stand during the Anthem once again.
I stand because I have the freedom to stand.
Distortions
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In watching the debate develop around NFL players choosing to kneel during the anthem to protest police brutality, I’m amazed at the narrative distortion that persists. I shouldn’t be — I should be used to it by now. But the distortion has inertia, and the support of the United States president, who called for American citizens to be persecuted for expressing their political opinions.
This abuse of power should set off a blaring alarm to my colleagues in the conservative media who spent 8 years protesting the political abuses of the Obama administration. Instead, it largely goes unchecked by the right. Critics maintain the focus on whether the players are right to kneel when they do. But the sheer amount of people at sports stadiums buying beers during the anthem, or sitting down at home when it’s on the TV, makes me less than sympathetic to the outrage over athletes peacefully kneeling for two-and-a-half minutes.
There are far better reasons to protest against the NFL: its problems with domestic violence and traumatic brain injury; the fact that it is a sanctioned monopoly that engages in cronyistic lobbying, pillages taxpayers to build its stadiums and fund patriotic displays, and held tax exempt status until 2015; or, as The Federalist’s Ben Domenech pointed out in a Monday night Twitter thread — the league’s actual product problem of marginal teams and predictable play. I love football, and I will be a Vikings fan until the day that I die. But the aforementioned problems lingering in the back of my mind make it hard to enjoy a game these days.
For some on the right, though — as I was reminded in a recent Twitter debate with Dan Gilmore, a vice president at the right-leaning Media Research Center —Trump is allowed to engage in fascistic political persecution because he called out rich athletes. But the last time I checked, neither a person’s wealth nor their occupation disqualifies their God-given human right to speak freely. There is also a growing resentment among sports fans for increasely politicized coverage. And so we’re supposed to be okay with Trump’s authoritarian ramblings because it also triggers left-leaning sportswriters.
Given the over-saturation of politics in the current social media environment, it is understandable that many Americans want their football to be apolitical entertainment and a reprieve from every day life. And yes, many professional athletes are paid handsomely for what they do. But isn’t capitalism supposed to enable and celebrate people freely selling their labor to those who will pay them their worth? In the process of holding athletes up as community icons, we’ve dehumanized them, willingly forgetting that it is their lives that are our entertainment. Their rights as Americans and as humans are not forfeited just because we prefer they spend their days violently colliding into one another.
The myth of apolitical sports leagues also persists within this narrative, despite the history, business, and practice of sports being anything but apolitical. Sports are historically how populations have trained for war during peacetimes, and that linkage persists to this day.
“From it’s beginnings in the late 19th century, American football has been recognized as paradigm for the American way of war,” wrote Joel Cassman and David Lai in a 2003 article for the Armed Forces Journal:
”As various commentators have noted, football is so deeply embedded in the American psyche of competition that it’s with us forever — the good and the bad. It has collisions, speed, power, grace, and results on every play. All the classical American concepts are played out before us: discipline, teamwork, and courage under fire.”
The modern Olympics, for all its faults, are also an exercise in diplomacy through sports. And every American child that has ever taken a physical fitness test in public school or played a sport has done so as part of preparing the nation’s national security for the next generation whether they know it or not. To be an athlete is a political act. Or, to paraphrase Aristotle, to be political is to be human.
Protest
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While Pittsburgh Steeler’s coach Mike Tomlin and the Steeler’s elected to keep the team in the locker room during the anthem before Sunday’s game so as to keep team members from having to choose a side in the political controversy over whether to stand or kneel, Alejandro Villanueva decided to participate in the anthem and stood alone with his hand over his heart. The Seattle Seahawks and the Tennessee Titans also did not participate in the anthem before their games.
Villaneuva, a West Point grad and a former U.S. Army Ranger who served three tours of duty in Afghanistan, was quickly embraced as a hero for NFL fans on the right. Villaneuva’s jersey, for example, became the top selling merchandise on the NFL’s online store.
Fox News’ Todd Starnes called Villaneuva “a man among boys, a hero among cowards.” Townhall columnist called him “courageous.” And their opinions are more representative of the population than anomalous.
Per CBS Sports, a 2016 Reuters poll found that 72 percent of Americans viewed Kaepernick’s actions as “unpatriotic,” while 64 percent agreed he has the Constitutional right to protest. On the other hand, an online poll posted on Sept. 23 by WKRN found that out of 14,369 votes, 63.7 percent of respondents agreed with Trump that NFL players not standing for the anthem should be fired. A poll published by J.D. Power in July of this year found that the protests were the number one reason NFL fans stopped watching in 2016.
And a recent Rasmussen poll found that 34 percent of American adults said they were less likely to watch the NFL due to the protests. 12 percent said they were more likely to watch, and 50 percent said the protests had no impact on their viewing habits. In 2016, those numbers were 32 percent, 13 percent, and 52 percent, respectively.
After Trump referred to Kaepernick, as well as other athletes who chose to kneel during the anthem, as a “son of a bitch” at a campaign event in Alabama this past Friday, about 200 players defiantly kneeled in solidarity on Sunday. According to the Associated Press, only 6 players kneeled the week before.
Villanueva apologized on Monday and blamed himself out of the belief that he had embarrassed his team, also noting that those who were kneeling were not protesting the flag, the anthem, nor the military.
Villanueva has nothing to apologize for, though, nor should he be ashamed of his actions. It is Trump, not Kaepernick, not Villanueva, not the NFL, not the media, who stoked the fires of division this weekend by acting like a loser and a child.
After betraying his base on health care and immigration, the massively unpopular amateur golfer attempted to regain traction at a campaign event by sowing national discord. He then proceeded to publicly rage tweet against professional athletes and his fellow countrymen for the duration of the weekend, including disgracefully using the memory of the late Pat Tillman, a fallen Army Ranger and former NFL star.
Trump, a coward and a draft dodger, is not a king, nor does he get to dictate how Americans display their love of country. Nobody does. America is a free country and her citizens are a free people.
And so, for America, I stand.
Josh Peterson is a 2016 Robert Novak Journalism Program Fellow and a writer living in Denver, CO. Follow Josh on Steemit and Twitter. Keybase for secure chat. PGP Fingerprint: 4507 3000 1A40 2691 DAB8 ED65 A3EA 3629 73FD B7FF. If you appreciated this post and would like to tip with Bitcoin: 1C7ZAsTRKLtt9XYVxuWoyvmR1REbGWSrBd
