The NFL season is back, and with it comes the controversies that continue from previous seasons. In 2016, Colin Kaepernick decided to sit during the national anthem of the first 49ers preseason football game. He was doing this to protest the violence against minorities in America. His decision will forever change the NFL and America as we know it.
It took Kaepernick all four preseason games of sitting and then kneeling for people to start joining him. He had began to kneel instead of sitting out of respect for veterans. Soon after there were hundreds of athletes around America supporting the movement. Other NFL players kneeled or linked arms in support. This didn’t just stay within the NFL. High school football players and coaches began to kneel. College cheerleaders, soccer players, basketball players, band members and people in the stands all joined in support.
Some people may think that kneeling during the anthem is disrespectful to the military and that he used his platform for negativity; however, that was never his intention. This country was founded on freedom of speech, freedom to believe and right to protest. I believe he used his platform for good and to bring awareness to the many issues we have in our society today. Kaepernick was kneeling for Terence Crutcher, Keith Lamont Scott, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Dillon Taylor, Botham Jean, Zachary Hammond and hundreds of others. White, black, unarmed, young, old, it doesn’t matter.
I can’t stand in support of a flag and a country that allows things like police brutality to be pushed under the rug. I can’t stand in support of a flag and a country that assigns jail sentences based on color. To illustrate, an analysis of demographic prison data from 2012 to 2016 found that black men serve sentences that are on average 19.1 percent longer than those for white men for similar crimes. We kneel because black lives matter. We kneel because there are huge problems in our justice system.
Over the last 2 years, the kneeling and protesting has continued. The NFL hasn’t come up with a rule but announced that “no new rules relating to the anthem will be issued or enforced” until the league and players’ association find an agreement regarding protests during the national anthem.
This year more people have been talking about this issue because Nike chose to join the movement. Nike made Kaepernick the face of their 2018 Just Do It campaign, which got people talking about this controversy again. Before, many people were just choosing to boycott NFL game days, but now all around America people are cutting up, returning and burning their Nike gear. The storyline has stalled until the NFL decides how they’re going to approach the issue.