Turning Discomfort into Dialogue

America has a problem with race.

I‘d like to thank you if you’ve made it past that first sentence without closing this window and cursing my name. I understand that this is not necessarily the most appropriate platform for this discussion, nor am I anywhere near the right voice to try and explain this issue in the manner it deserves. I don’t put this on my site or it’s blog lightly, and am anticipating people no longer using it.

However this is the only platform I have, and after seeing peoples’ reactions on social media the past weekend, both within and beyond the fantasy football community, I feel obligated to say something. I ask you to please be patient and hear me out.

Let me start by saying the primary purpose of this post is not to try to tell you why the protests are a good thing for our country. I am hardly the right person to explain the motives of those who choose to kneel during the anthem or the historical context that led these actions. Let me also be clear — I firmly believe that race is a very real issue in 2017, and that we have an institutional crisis in the United States where police kill more people than anywhere else in the world.

But that’s not what I want to write about. What I want to do is try to help people engage in an appropriate discussion that should come from this form of protest that has so many people feeling upset, angry, and uncomfortable.

I think one of the first things to point out is, no matter how much you agree with the intentions or methods of these protests, you have to understand not only why people are upset, but that the very purpose of the protests is to elicit these feelings. I’ll admit my initial response to friends and strangers alike who were upset by Kaepernick kneeling was usually rolling my eyes and reacting with as much condescension as possible. To me, being upset by this was not only silly, but a refusal to acknowledge a very real problem in our society and institutions. It was immature and unproductive, which is probably the best way to describe a lot of people’s initial reactions.

But the more I’ve thought about it, outside of not being very useful for achieving progress, the idea of getting mad about people being upset felt…wrong. The purpose of kneeling during the anthem is very specifically to piss people off, to bring out those feelings of disgust and to use that to draw attention to injustices and force people to engage. The idea of “respectfully” protesting is so ridiculous exactly because the best way to get people to look, listen, and acknowledge is to press the issue and make them uncomfortable. If you accept that truth, then getting mad that people are reacting exactly as intended isn’t very productive. If you pull a cat’s tail to get it’s attention, don’t be surprised if the initial reaction of the cat is to swipe at you. Likewise if you engage in or support protest that is intended to upset people, you can’t dig into your own trench and be offended when people are…well, upset.

This is something I’ve come to terms with and ask anyone who supports this cause to think about as they engage with family, friends, and strangers in the coming days. Even if you feel like the other person’s hurt feelings about the anthem aren’t justified, or pale in comparison to the injustices still being experienced by African-Americans today, don’t belittle them or walk away. Acknowledge their feelings, let them have their say, and use it as an opportunity to talk about the issue.

On the flip side, a lot of peoples’ first reactions to the protests are to do things like call the players entitled thugs, disgusting, and to burn their uniforms in counter-protest. I’ve seen a lot of people claim the players are being disrespectful to veterans, police, and the United States in general.

If you find yourself in this group, what I’d like to ask you to do is please read the many well thought explanations for why players are choosing to protest. Players like Eric Reid, AJ Bouye, Malcolm Jenkins, and many more have explained more eloquently than I could ever hope exactly why they’re doing this. You’re not wrong to be upset, but you’re doing yourself a disservice if you just assume their intentions and shut down discussion. These players are not entitled millionaires who don’t understand what they’re doing or the weight of their actions— they’re using their platform to bring focus to something they and their family have experienced and continue to experience to this day, and that otherwise we might not even be talking about at all.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary describes empathy as:

the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner;

What we need now more than ever, on both sides, is empathy.

You may not feel like the players are being disrespectful by kneeling, but you should try to understand that this protest is supposed to upset people. Don’t tell others they are wrong for feeling the way they do, but talk about why the issue is so important that eliciting those feelings was necessary, if uncomfortable for everyone involved.

You may feel like the players are not justified in their actions, and that disrespecting the flag, anthem, or whatever you perceive as being slighted is not the best way to bring light to an issue. But try to understand why the issue was so important that players would do something so drastic and upsetting just to bring attention to it. The players don’t take this lightly, and they almost certainly understand just how upset people are by their actions. And yet, they kneel. You’re justified in being upset, but please try to take a second to put those feelings aside and understand why they’re doing it, even if you never will agree with what they’re doing.

This is a very divisive time in our country, and what we need now more than ever is to resist our initial feelings and force ourselves to be empathetic. I’m not asking this passively — if you find yourself in one of the two groups I described above, take a second to try and put yourself in the others’ shoes. We can’t act surprised or offended that this form of protest is upsetting people, and we can’t turn our heads and ignore the issues that have forced players to use their platforms to bring light to them. Let’s take this opportunity to try to understand each other and hopefully progress as a country. The alternative is yelling at each other on Twitter and being exactly as close-minded as the other side assumes you are.

-Nick