Forgotten in Time

You know, this story with the NFL vs Trump is really bothering me.

As you all probably know, United States President Donald Trump in recent weeks released a statement condemning NFL players who opted to protest against police brutality against African-American citizens, saying that these acts of protest display the utmost disrespect towards the American flag and the National anthem. Trump went as far as to call these players sons of b*tch*s who should be fired and say that the NFL should implement a rule that forces their players to stand for the National Anthem when it is performed.

The following Sunday nearly every team who performed that day took action in a response to President Trump’s words by either altogether kneeling for the anthem, locking arms as the athem was performed, or simply opting not to exit the locker room until after the anthem was sang.

I have a problem with that, but not for the reasons you are probably thinking. I feel that we have officially lost sight of what Colin Kaepernick was trying to shine a light on a year ago. I was afraid this would happen. Kaepernick knelt during the performance of national anthem every week of the 2016-17 season in protest against police brutality and the mistreatment of African Americans in the United States. After the national media coverage of several chronically seperate cases of black individuals being unreasonably, inexplicably, or nonsensicaly murdered across the country over the course of the years prior and during the year of 2016, the 49er quarterback had decided to take a stand.

I was proud of Colin for doing what he did. He took a stand to raise awareness towards an issue that he felt needed to be further discussed and resolved for the betterment of the country and all its citizens, primarily the African American citizens. He did something that most men of his stature and in that position would not have had the conviction nor the willingness of risk to do. Unfortunately, with the attention Kaep was getting the story was more about his act of protesting rather than what he was protesting for. The story was rewriten to change the argument, and its happening again.

What took place last week on just about every NFL field last week has very little to do with Kaepernick or anything he stood for. Last week was a stance against Trump and his statement, which yes, was highly offensive, and should have been condemned by NFL players. However, I dont think it should have been done in a way comparable to that of what Kaepernick did. In the eyes of many, including the President himself I would assume, last week was seen a grander continuation of what Colin Kaepernick was doing last year which isn’t the case.

That stand last week was not about police brutality. It wasn’t about the mistreatment of African Americans in the United States. That was about clapping back at the President. Don’t get me wrong, any display of unity by an NFL team on the field is definitely a sight to behold, and again, President Trump made very harsh and harmful comments, but let's not try to change the narrative as it pertains to Colin Kaepernick with what we saw last week. That's all im saying. With what I have seen in the past week it doesn’t seem like people are really understanding that what happened last Sunday and all of last year's NFL season are not the same. One protest was about the mistreatment of an entire race of people in America, the other was a protest against the President.

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