Saturday, September 10, 2016

Entry 346: On Colin Kaepernick and Our Nation Anthem

My opinion about Colin Kaepernick and his national anthem protest have change significantly over the past week and a half.  At first my feelings on it were neither here nor there – perhaps I tepidly supported it.  I agreed with his general position on the over-policing of black and brown people (I still do), but I didn’t understand where he was going with his protest, and I was put-off by comments he made about Hillary Clinton essentially being a criminal.  Also, I had a somewhat negative view of Colin Kaepernick as a person due to this story (perhaps unfairly, since, like Hillary Clinton, he was never charged with anything).  And of course, being a Seahawks fan, I have been conditioned to always root against Kaepernick.  Now, this doesn’t really matter.  I don’t base my opinions about people off-the-field based on whom they play for or how good they are (e.g., Steve Largent the football player = my boyhood hero; Steve Largent the politician = awful anti-gay bigot).  But if I’m conflicted on somebody, I might use it as a tie-breaker.  I’m only human, after all.



However, as this story grew, and I learned more about it, and I watched it reach beyond just Kaepernick, I’ve come around to a position of full-fledged support.  Not only does it bring attention to legitimate social issues, but it also sheds some light on the annoying sanctimony of the ritual that is the playing of our national anthem before sporting events.

Let me start with the latter.  I very much dislike the Star Spangled Banner ceremony before games that we’re all pressured into joining.  This does not mean that I dislike what our flag stands for, or that I don’t love my country, or that I don’t support the military.  Because I do on all accounts.  I have a very deep and personal love of my country, despite its imperfections.  I’m a proud American through and through, and it’s important to me that my children are proud Americans as well (which, on a side note, is a big reason why, despite my wife’s penchant for new experiences abroad, I don’t ever want to settle permanently outside of the U.S.).  I just don’t understand why I should feel compelled to participate in a ritual I never signed up for and doesn't really seem to accomplish anything tangible.

To be clear, I do stand for our anthem when I’m at a sporting event.  But I mainly do it so that I won’t get hassled.  (You have to pick your battles, and it’s simply not worth it to me to have the self-appointed "anthem officers" present in every crowd haranguing me while I’m trying to enjoy a leisure activity.)  This particular ritual doesn’t mean anything to me.  I understand that it does for a lot of people – particularly people in the military – and I completely respect that, but why does this respect mean that I have to participate?  Why is it so important to honor the military in this particular -- and to me, contrived -- way?  I don’t get it.  You give people far too much power if they are able to offend you by literally doing nothing.

And it shows how out of whack our priorities are.  Today I drove by two different people on different street corners holding "homeless veteran" signs, begging for money.  We can't even get people to pay a little more in taxes to take care of the kids we send off to fight when they return home all messed up (because fighting wars has a tendency to mess you up).  It's disgraceful -- and yet people are up in arms because somebody knelt during a song.  We have a presidential candidate who insults war heroes and denigrates our military on a regular basis (I heard him call it "a mess" today on the radio), and yet I suspect he's getting the lion's share of the vote among the people who most staunchly object to Kaepnick's protests.  Does this make sense to any rational person?



The main problem I have with the ceremony of our nation anthem is that it makes people feel like they are doing something, when in fact they are not doing anything, and it gives people a reason to feel (falsely) superior toward other people, and to get indignant toward anybody who doesn’t behave exactly like them.  You’re doing patriotism wrong!  But of course, as many others have pointed out, the very essence of being American -- the very thing our flag stands for -- is the freedom to live how you want to live and be how you want to be.  Viewed through this lens, kneeling for the national anthem to try to affect change, to make your country better is, in fact, a profoundly patriotic act.

Also, it’s worth pointing out that the national anthem was originally played before baseball games as a marketing gimmick, so it hardly has noble patriotic roots.  And the NFL – Colin Kaepernick’s employer – has very little room to talk about respecting the military.  (To be fair, the NFL has not, to my knowledge, issued any statement against Kaepernick.)  Again it illustrates a major distortion of our priorities.  Kap’s perceived disrespect for the military is a huge story, while the “pay for patriotism” scandal mostly flew under the radar undetected.  To me a multibillion dollar corporation taking payments from our military and presenting it to the public as a partnership is much, much worse than a second-string quarterback not standing during the Star Spangled Banner.  The former actually costs the military money – a tangible resource that could be used to help soldiers.  The latter… doesn't.

As for Colin Kaepernick, specifically, I’ve really learned a lot recently, and it has changed my opinion of him.  I heard Shaun King speak about him on a podcast called Politically Reactive (highly recommended, by the way -- both the episode and the show in general), and it made me come around on him.  For one thing, I think Kap deeply cares about the issues like police brutality about which he speaks.  It’s not a publicity stunt; it’s not an irrational, half-cocked gesture.  He put in the time and research to truly learn what is going on, and how he could use his celebrity status to make a positive difference – or at least keep this issue in the forefront of everybody’s mind.  He’s also consulted respected people who are knowledge in this area like former green beret and NFL training camp invitee Nate Boyer, and former NBA superstar and activist Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.  It’s very admirable, in my opinion – even more so considering his football career is on much thinner ice than it was a few seasons ago.  He doesn’t have the job security that somebody like Russell Wilson has (not that Wilson would ever do anything this controversial, and not that’s not a bad thing – let Russ be Russ and Kap be Kap).  Also, he’s getting other athletes to follow his lead.  He’s legitimately starting a movement.  It's cool.



And now for my final point on this topic: race.  It can’t be ignored.  A substantial part of the backlash against Kaepernick, I believe, is because he’s a black man speaking up on mostly black issues.  It's completely fine to disrespect our country and our military, as long as you are a white person inveighing against the black man in charge.  There is the aforementioned Republican presidential candidate, of course, but as another example, I give you this.  Remember this?  About a year and a half ago the Texas governor ordered the Texas State Guard to monitor U.S. military training exercises in Texas.  He did this because... the U.S. was going to invade and take over Texas, a state that is already part of the union?  What is more disrespectful to our military than posturing to actively take up arms against it?  Yet, this story was merely a blip on the radar, but Colin Kaepernick has taken over social media for the past month.

Okay, okay, this probably has more to do with the power of celebrity than anything else.  If the Texas State Guard story involved a well-known athlete (instead of just an old, nutty actor) it probably would have gained legs as well.  But my larger point stands: For a lot of people, it’s perfectly acceptable to denigrate our country for bullshit, predominantly white reasons – illegal immigrants are stealing all our jobs (they’re not); our once safe neighborhoods are now besieged by “thugs” and gangsters (they’re not); we’re losing the war against ISIS (we’re not); the real racism is "reverse racism" against white people (puh-leeze) – but if you speak out on a real issue that predominately affects black people, say, police brutality, you’re anti-American and should move to a new country.  This, my friends, is what we call white privilege.

And since my time at this laptop is quickly running out, I will have to table my lengthy spiel on white privilege and end here.  It’s coming though – maybe next week.

Until then…

2 comments:

  1. I'm with you 100%. Sporting events playing the national anthem has desensitized the vast majority of people to it's meaning. Kneeling, or raising a gust is a more respectful gesture than watching people clowning around, laughing, joking and just totally indifferent to it. If people want it to be treated with respect when it's playing, then only play it in meaningful moments, and not the start of EVERY televised sporting event.

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    1. Yep, same thing with the pledge of allegiance.

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