NFL Players and the Flag: Two Years On

If there was ever any question that the wheels of justice turn slowly, the continuing controversy over NFL players, the national anthem, and racial injustice has provided the answer. It’s at once hard and not so hard to believe that we are still having this conversation almost two years after Colin Kaepernick first decided to take a knee during the national anthem before a 2016 pre-season game in response to the disproportionate numbers of black people being killed by police.

People of color are still being shot just for the crime of being black. And they’re being arrested for the crime of sitting in a Starbucks while black, and they are having the police called on them for the offenses of napping in their dormitory lounge while black, and moving into their apartment while black.

And still we continue to object to the very idea of players exercising their right to protest racial injustice.

NFL: Here’s Your Chance to Do the Right Thing (for a change)

I’m not a sports fan. Which teams win and which teams lose each week matters not a whit to me. Who scored points, touched down, gained yards, free-thowed, RBI’d or whatever, I could not care less.

But that’s not to say that I don’t follow sports. The intersection between sports and society is too big to ignore. Nor should it be ignored.

The Flag Stands For Our Right Not to Stand

A year ago, when I wrote this short post about Colin Kaepernick’s silent protest, I never would’ve guessed that we would still be talking about this issue a year later, or that the President of the United States would be using it as yet another wedge to divide America. But here we are.