Taking a knee

So, I don’t follow sports. I couldn’t care less about what sports season it is. And to be quite frank, I have always viewed football as an especially violent waste of time. I know that many people love their football and other sports, and that is absolutely their right—I just don’t really care. 

But there is something sports related that I do care about right now, because it has absolutely nothing to do with sports.

I know that everyone is talking about “taking a knee” from one side or the other. And yeah, I’m a fan of this peaceful protest. I understand the flag and the anthem are important symbols. At the same time, it is equally important to understand that those symbols don’t mean the same thing to everyone, and they don’t equally represent all of us.

And in the instance of black Americans, our anthem is especially problematic. We don’t typically sing all of the verses of the anthem. Quite frankly, until Colin Kaepernick started “taking a knee,” I didn’t know there were any other verses.

This is the third verse of our national anthem:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The British military recruited black slaves to fight alongside them during the War of 1812 in exchange for their freedom. At the end of the war, the American government asked for their “property” to be returned. That “property” being 6,000 human beings. Those human beings being valued like livestock—animals.

Standing for, and participating in nationalistic rituals that are counter to your personal beliefs, or that you do not understand should never be a requirement of a patriot, or a citizen. I have my own beliefs and personal reasons for not standing or pledging. And if the anthem glorified killing my people because they were fighting against their own enslavement, that reason would go to the top of my list.

As a child in elementary school, I remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” each morning at the beginning of the day. Did it hurt me? No. Did I understand anything about what those words meant? No. And nobody explained that not participating was an option.

It was just something we did. Quite frankly, it meant absolutely nothing. And for all of the people outraged by the thought that an athlete—or any other American—would choose not to stand for the national Anthem, place their hand over their heart for the flag, or any other so-called patriotic ritual, I would argue that many don’t fully understand what those symbols represent either. 

I say that, because if you understand anything about the freedoms that are actually rights in our country, you understand that peaceful protest and dissent is not a privilege—it’s a right. And it is a right that men and women have been fighting and dying for since our nation’s inception. I would go further, and say that in times of treachery, our founding fathers would have expected nothing less! 

I understand that those who have served and fought for our country can feel a very strong sense of duty and commitment to symbols they identify as patriotic. But it’s important to also remember that athletes are not going into battle. They are not soldiers. Despite it being a tradition, there is absolutely no reason to open sporting events played on our own soil with the anthem. 

Plenty of people are bringing up the point that professional athletes are being paid ridiculous amounts of money for playing a game, and they should just stand, and keep there mouths shut when the anthem is played, or the flag flown. 

This recent peaceful protest—taking a knee—started with Colin Kaepernick. After watching young black men profiled, beaten, and gunned down by the very people who swear to serve and protect, he quietly said “enough is enough.” Instead of taking to the streets to raise a fist, he quietly took a knee. 

After many well-publicized incidents of police shooting first, and skipping the part where you ask questions, the black community took to the streets in droves. Many whites described their actions as violent, criminal and they focused on those who acted inappropriately, rather than focusing on the reason for the sense of outrage. 

Unless you worry on a daily basis that your child might not come home to you alive because of their skin color, you will not ever understand what these people are going through. No mother should have to train their child to fear law enforcement just to stay alive, but quite honestly, that’s what is happening in black families. 

People argue that it’s about respect, and that if the people who have lost their lives in these incidents had just been respectful, or if they weren’t thugs and criminals things might have gone differently. That might make sense if there weren’t incidents caught on video that clearly demonstrate victims responding respectfully. And we all need to remember another important fact—within our legal system, you are innocent until proven guilty. And just like with rape culture, what you are wearing or what you “look like” shouldn’t be a factor in whether you are raped, or whether you live or die.

I know police officers have a difficult, stressful, and often dangerous job. They have to make life or death decisions quickly. At the same time, some of these decisions aren’t being made based on the information at hand, or clarity of thought. And far too often, whether you can look at the situation honestly or not, they are being made with racial bias or outright racism. 

We all know that our constitution was amended to end slavery. So, if you aren’t black, and you don’t  worry for your child’s safety because of skin color, you probably believe that it is long past time to let bygones be bygones. The black community needs to get over it, and buck up. If they simply quit bitching, blaming others and get a job, they will be as prosperous as us whites.

And that might be fair if we had stopped treating blacks like dumb animals at the end of slavery. We didn’t. And the demand that black athletes shut up and play ball is one of the most public displays of this mentality that I can think of besides all of the historic photos of lynchings, all of the covered bodies on the evening news, the disproportionate incarceration of blacks, and the cell phone videos showing the last moments of lives that have been unceremoniously dispatched. 

We don’t care if a black athlete beats his wife, tortures and kills animals, or commits other violent crimes, as long as he helps our team make it to the playoffs or Super Bowl. We are fine with blacks, as long as they are mindful of their place. We are fine with them, as long as, like dumb animals, they are crashing into each other for our gross, sadistic pleasure, entertainment and satisfaction. 

As a society that still treats people of color as inferior, we refused, and continue refusing to hear the words coming from the mothers, family members, neighbors and community leaders about black lives being discarded. Their voices have gotten louder again, because the environment for hatred has been nurtured and cultivated by those who benefit from working class whites believing that all young black men are dangerous thugs. 

But nobody heard these “voices” until their Sunday afternoon entertainment became “uncomfortable.” It’s amazing to me that the quietest of “whispers” has sparked such tremendous outrage.

Taking a knee didn’t start with the hateful, racist remarks of Donald Trump. It didn’t start with Colin Kaepernick. It won’t be the last peaceful protest on the seemingly endless road to treating all human beings as—human beings. There will be loud protests. There will be more violence. There will be more loss. 

All of this will happen because we continue to believe in people who benefit from racist, classist division.

There is no such thing as being a little bit racist. There is no such thing as being “old school” about race. We need to take a good long, hard look at ourselves, and understand who we are. We need to understand the part we play in this situation.

Educator and activist Jane Elliott addressed the treatment of blacks in America better than anyone could. She offered up the following scenario to a group of students:

I want every white person in this room, who would be happy to be treated as this society in general treats our citizens, our black citizens. If you as a white person would be happy to receive the same treatment that our black citizens do in this society - please stand! - You didn't understand the directions. If you white folks want to be treated the way blacks are in this society - stand! - Nobody is standing here. That says very plainly that you know what's happening. You know you don't want it for you. I want to know why you are so willing to accept it or to allow it to happen for others.

The quiet act of kneeling only harms you if you don’t want to be so loudly confronted by the darkest part of who you are. 

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