Football and the Theology of Empire:

Why Colin Kaepernick Gets It Right

Why does one man, sitting down during a song, mean so much to so many people? At the heart of it, that’s all Colin Kaepernick did: he just didn’t stand up while some music played, right before he was getting ready to play a game. So how can it have such a major impact? What is it about what he did that caused such a major national reaction?

It makes more sense when football is understood not strictly as a game, but as a ritual. Football, like a religious service, creates a special time and space where stories can be created, with a variety of special rules and processes that create meaning. For the participants, those stories then take on broader meanings that become part of how they interpret the world. It is a myth-making activity which takes on particular significance within a society where many of the other rituals — such as religion — have either taken on less importance, or are not shared among everyone. In a more secular and pluralistic society, not everyone is at church on Sunday — but millions of people are still watching the NFL.

Part of the narrative that football communicates is the theology of empire. The game is structured around teams alternating between attempts to invade opposing territory, and attempts to protect their own. Within the rules of football, controlled, purposeful violence is not only acceptable; it is praised, because it is necessary for the protection of your own land on defense, and for conquest of the enemy’s land on offense. It’s not hard to see the parallels between that and our American understanding of empire; so much of the American story is built on the idea that with controlled, purposeful violence, we can not only protect our own freedoms, but expand them to other places. Football players enact that belief system within the context of the gridiron; when people leave the stadium, they have been formed by that story, in the same way that people are formed by the experiences they have in their congregations.

So it’s also not hard to see why the sport has become so closely tied to patriotism. There’s nothing more American than having our very own version of “football” (which means something different in other countries). While every sport plays the national anthem, and waves the flag, and has other displays of Americana, football has always had a special relationship with the military. Jet flyovers and special recognition for soldiers are just as much a part of the game as touchdowns and interceptions.

It’s this connection between American football and American empire which makes Colin Kaepernick’s protest particularly effective. There’s nothing more American than the national anthem, and there’s nothing more American than football — so not honoring the flag immediately disturbs the entire ritual. Ask any new clergyperson what it’s like when they try to make adjustments to the liturgy in their congregation; now imagine what that would be like in front of millions of people. By doing so, he’s not simply sitting down during a song; Kaepernick is questioning the validity of American empire, at what is supposed to be the height of its visibility and power. The empire demands acquiescence; Kaepernick refuses. He will play the game — but he will not accept the story that America wants to tell about itself.

What is that story? That’s the heart of the debate. On one side, people have criticized Kaepernick because he’s disrespecting veterans and those who have served in the military. The United States of America is a free country, where everyone has their rights protected, and there are many who fought and died in order to ensure those freedoms. When we stand for the national anthem, we respect the sacrifices that they made — and when we refuse to do so, we are disrespecting those veterans, both living and dead.

But what if, as Kaepernick has suggested, that story is not true? What if not everyone is able to enjoy the freedoms that have some of us have access to? What if, for some people, not even the most basic right — the right to live — is guaranteed? If we as a country are not living up to the ideals and the values that we claim to hold, is it not more respectful of our veterans to continue their fight to protect those freedoms, to take action that calls us as Americans to live those values more faithfully?

The reality is, we have to question that American myth. The United States has a long history of not extending those freedoms to certain groups of people, whether the enslavement of African-Americans, the forced removal of Native Americans, the internment camps for Japanese-Americans, or many other examples. The point, however, is not just that we have not lived up to those values historically; right here, right now, we continue to deny those rights to certain groups of people, and particularly, to African-Americans. The Supreme Court weakened voting right protections gained by the Civil Rights Movement, and already North Carolina, among many other states, is trying to take away that fundamental guarantee of our democracy — which so many of our veterans fought to protect. Constitutional rights, like the 4th Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, have been ignored by police departments across the country. These agencies have been tasked with funneling as many people of color as possible into the criminal justice system — so that, afterwards, they can lose their protections against discrimination in housing, employment, voting, and other freedoms many of us take for granted. And the basic right to live has been violated, over and over again, when murders by police of people of color are allowed to go unprosecuted and unpunished. Here in Baltimore, that includes Tyrone West and Freddie Gray. Across the country, the list is long, but a good place to start is the Washington Post’s reporting.

But the US has another history, too. A history of people who stood up — and sat down — to call out those injustices, and to push us closer to a country that actually guarantees the freedom of all people. They had to fight, too. The women and men of the Civil Rights Movement and other transformative social movements trained themselves, to be prepared for the battles that would be started when they marched in the streets, refused to move on the bus, or sat-in at local diners. Some people physically fought back. Other people tried to ‘tactic-police’ them, pretending to agree in principle, but demanding that they communicate their message in a way that was more acceptable to white people. In other words, in a way that it would never be heard, and people wouldn’t have to deal with it. But they didn’t, and because they didn’t, they succeeded. (If you want some personal accounts from extraordinary women who were doing this work, check out Hands on the Freedom Plow.)

Colin Kaepernick wants to be a part of that story — the story of American freedom fighters who didn’t take up weapons, but who certainly did make sacrifices to ensure liberty and justice, for all. His choice to do so at one of the most important displays of our cultural values — the national anthem, before a professional football game — was not disrespectful, but rather, the perfect place to raise the questions he’s asking. Who really gets freedom in this country? Who is allowed to express themselves? Who is allowed to walk down their streets without the fear of being shot by the police? My only hope is that, by raising those questions in such a visible way, he’s becoming a part of the solution, and we can all work together to change the answers to those questions.