Drawing the Boundaries of American Patriotism in the Aftermath of Kaepernick’s Protest
By now, just about every sentient being in America has a take on the controversy surrounding the human right’s protests that Colin Kaepernick started by kneeling during the national anthem at the beginning of National Football League games. One of the more recent episodes in this almost two-year-running saga came just last week as NFL owners passed a new policy which enables the league to punish with a fine teams with players visibly demonstrating during the anthem. As expected, this move triggered yet another deluge of opinion articles and reactions on social media. That torrent spilled over into this week as the White House disinvited this year’s winners of the Super Bowl, the Philadephia Eagles, in part because it(falsely) accused them of kneeling during the national anthem. While I’m sure this drama will feature more installments in the days to come, in this article I’d like to step outside of the back and forth of the anthem melee and examine an important big-picture question in this debate. It’s a question of how we as Americans ought to go about defining the boundaries of what constitutes mainstream acceptable expressions of patriotism.
For starters, it’s worth mentioning that while I’ve been generally sympathetic to the cause of the players protesting, the new anthem policy hasn’t actually troubled me as much as other developments. Standing for the anthem or the pledge of allegiance has been an unwritten rule in America for a long time. So it shouldn’t be surprising that a private entertainment business built upon mass appeal would take steps to ensure they are projecting an image of exceptional adherence to existing standards of social etiquette. In fact, the National Basketball Association has already had a similar policy for pregame national anthem ceremonies in place for decades and it remains generally in good standing with its socially conscious star players.
In any case (like it or not), with the establishment of the new policy it appears that the NFL is moving past their biggest headache with regard to the anthem controversy. Yet as it does so, it fails to answer a big question hanging over our society in the aftermath. Was it fair in the first place to expect that the outward tokens of patriotism from protesting players with an African American heritage look the same as it does for Americans at large?
Polls have consistently shown that roughly the same percentage of Black Americans are supportive of demonstrations during the anthem (63% support) as White Americans who oppose them (58% oppose). So it’s clear that generally, these two demographics are on opposite sides of this issue. That fact is kind of a big deal in this discussion. So what do we make of it? Should only traditional uniform expressions of patriotism during the anthem be acceptable? or are there times when diverse expressions should be tolerated? I may not have the ultimate answers, but as with so many contentious issues a little empathy can carry us a long way on these questions.
The Case for Uniformity
As I understand it, the reasons why many Americans believe everyone in our country should uniformly express respect for the flag and the anthem are compelling indeed. The idea is that residents of our country (even some of the most disgruntled ones) enjoy freedoms, rights, and standards of living that are scarce in many other parts of the globe. Furthermore, these priveledges are not ensured to us without a cost. Many brave men and women have laid down their lives to protect the American way of life. The flag, representing that way of life and their fellow countrymen who live it, is ever kept before military service people as the ultimate symbol of their devotion when they train, when the fight, and when they die. Given these realities, it’s more than reasonable that our society has in general treated the playing of the anthem, the raising of the flag, and the demonstration of military imagery as a sacred moment. The uniform expression of patriotism during these times delivers a powerful symbol about those higher principles that unite us as Americans and about our universal respect for those who have sacrificed so much with us in mind.
The Case for Diversity
By the same token, the case that at times even in these sacred moments, expressions that deviate from the norm should be tolerated is equally forceful. For the majority of this nation’s history, Black people experienced the inverse of the notion that America is an exceptional place to live. During these dark years, America was, in fact, one of the worst nations on the planet for Blacks and other minorities to live. Therefore, over time, marginalized people and their allies have been tasked with reversing this legacy and actually making American patriotic symbols begin to mean something exceptional for everyone. To do so while lacking a grasp on the traditional reigns of power, these reformers have had to rely on resistance, disruption, and rule-breaking; methods that in every era where they’ve appeared have been deemed unsavory by the general populace.
In theory, it is understandable that White Americans would at least initially have a viscerally negative reaction to the anthem demonstrations because the reality of an exceptional nation for many of them did not require this process and was largely built upon the sacrifice of U.S. troops and advancement through mainstream political processes. Black Americans on the other hand, being a minority while having their political agency blunted by the legacy of voter disenfranchisement, partisan gerrymandering, voter suppression, and modern-day felon disenfranchisement have had to resort to means outside of the mainstream to effect change. Blacks do have an outsized presence in sports, art, and entertainment, so its reasonable that they have been more likely than others to broadcast their political grievances there using unorthodox methods than in more traditional spheres where their voices are less salient.
Thus, when the anthem is played before an NFL game and African Americans see uniformed troops arrayed on the field and kneeling football players on the sideline, unlike many White Americans, they see two sides of the same coin. Whereby the troops represent the means of defending a nation with ideals of “liberty and justice for all”, the kneeling football players represent the disruptive means whereby those ideals have become a reality for African American citizens and other groups. Both are equally essential to their conception of American patriotism. Where White Americans may instinctively sense dissonance, Black Americans will immediately see congruence.
Moving Forward
So how are we to move forward in light of this complex reality? The good news is that we don’t have to search far since part of the solution has been standing (or kneeling) right in front of us all along. The NFL players have already figured it out. Most players (including virtually all but one of the White players) have consistently stood during the anthem for all the good reasons reviewed above. At the same time, however, some of these players have placed a kind hand of solidarity on the shoulders of those players who elected to demonstrate (by kneeling or raising a fist) to draw attention to the plight of marginalized and oppressed citizens.
While we’ll likely see less of such sympathetic imagery in the NFL moving forward given the new policy, the rationale behind it will be useful for our country as we continue navigate other areas of contention surrounding national symbols. We also must come to know that when we see the President, Vice President and others in power unequivocally condemn and disparage protesting players, that we are witnessing in our time (be it unintentional or otherwise) the cruel operation of America’s centuries-old racial hegemony. These players are expressing their patriotic heritage, one they inherited by no choice of their own; one that is essential to the American story. A seat must be made at the patriotic table for them.
Lastly, and most importantly, we must never lose sight of what exactly these players are protesting. That is people of color suffering under an unfair and oppressive criminal justice system. While there has been broad bi-partisan acknowledgment of the fact that our justice system is unfairly targeting, incarcerating, and brutalizing black and brown citizens, the American public has not cared enough about the issue to goad its lawmakers to do something about it. Even worse, we’ve elected to the executive branch an administration that has taken steps to reverse the little progress that was made on these issue by the previous administration. The bi-partisan bill, the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act, that was first introduced in 2015 and is designed to enact modest but necessary reforms to the justice system, is currently languishing in Congress in part because the Executive Branch opposes it almost entirely. Ultimately, it is this pathetic status-quo that is the source of this controversy. If every American with an opinion on this issue would instead direct their attention and energies to the work of addressing the injustices at the root of America’s protests, we would move much quicker than otherwise toward solving such controversies once and for all.
