the Kaepernick controversy

I don’t have an issue with it. If he felt this was the best way to make a stand, I can’t fault him.

zn wrote:

All I can really say is, what he did, just doesn’t help things. It was miscalculated.

It will be divisive in the worst way possible and will not contribute well to much needed discussion.

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I totally disagree. I think it does help things, and will contribute to the much-needed
discussion in a positive way.

w
v

I don’t care if he plays Frisbee during the national anthem. It’s a free country. That’s what the flag means to me at least. So do what you want. The strength of the symbol is supposed to be as a sign for liberty. So do whatever you please. It isn’t an ISIS flag.

I think that having a robotic obedience to a symbol is dangerous anyway.

A country changes. Sometimes for good things and sometimes not.

I don’t look at it as being disrespectful. I look at it as living in a country that gives you the right to make that protest.

Do I think this gesture accomplishes anything? No. Not even a little bit. He said he wanted to bring awareness. Did I dream the attention given to this issue by the media over the past year with the shooting of blacks and of officers and of the BLM movement and of the racism in Trump’s campaign? The issue as been out there and covered over and over again. What “awareness” could he possibly bring to it? If anything it’s distracting–brings attention to himself more than the issue because all I see is Kaepernik. I don’t see much talk about the issue in regard to his stance.

He hasn’t helped anything.

Personally, I don’t know why it ever had to become a big thing with him not standing. Americans have a need to prove they are more “American” than the next guy. They want to claim ownership of the flag, the country and what it means and stands for and so they post Facebook videos of them burning a Kaepernik jersey.

“America!”

But that is not what it means to me. And at the very least we should be able to agree to disagree or that my view of America doesn’t make me less American than the next guy.

But CK didn’t really accomplish anything. He brought attention to CK. And part of me wonders if that wasn’t the whole point of it. That’s not really fair–I don’t know him at all. I’m working off of his image. So who knows?

Look, you can stand for the flag, sing the anthem and STILL be for fair and equal treatment of all. Standing for it does not mean you accept the bad things. You can be standing for the things you love about the country–and yes–for all the bad–there is also some good.

I feel fortunate to be born here instead of say, Bangladesh.

We have problems to solve and we should solve them. But not every solution has a national cure either. What can a President do to erase the prejudice of a cop in Florida? This will take changes on many many levels. And it won’t happen overnight. That’s just the reality.

Next week he will sit during the national anthem and after the game people may be talking about CK again and his lack of respect. It won’t change anything.

But if it makes him FEEL as if he’s doing something–that’s his choice.

That’s America.

Back in the 80s, I sat through the national anthem all the time. I was pissed off about foreign policy. So I sympathize with his symbolic gesture that the USA distributes its freedoms unequally. Injustice and inequality are a Way of Life for black Americans. He’s right.

Will his gesture make any difference? Well, nothing measurable. It got a lot of people talking, but probably no opinions shifted about the issue, only about Kaepernick himself. But the gesture mattered to him, and to some other people. He has a brief, brief moment in the spotlight, and he can live his life knowing that he used a moment of that time to make a statement about injustice on behalf of millions of Americans, for whatever that’s worth.

I don’t know what else he can do. Or anyone else. There is no quick solution to the problem he is highlighting. Maybe there is no solution at all. But I sympathize with his need to make a statement about it, to say publicly that it matters. What else can he do? What are the alternatives?

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

I totally disagree. I think it does help things, and will contribute to the much-needed
discussion in a positive way.

w
v

Hate to be skeptical. But, if there is a lot of evidence of that, I would be happy to see it.

Lefties putting out blog stuff about the anthem’s lyrics won’t cover that, in my mind. That’s just the same pre-ordained percentage talking to itself again.

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Well I dont think it will help much at all. But i think every little iota of leaning-toward-the-light helps. You didn’t just write it wouldnt help, but you wrote it would hurt. “divisive” etc.

Yeah, it’ll cause divisiveness, but it’ll cause other things too. All in all, I think its a ‘positive’ thing, despite the divisiveness.

Do you think the Carlos/Smith act was meaningless or divisive?

I like the fact it was aimed at Grid-iron fans. Gridiron fans get HEAVY dose after dose after dose of the usual pro-authority, pro-system crap. I am in favor of them seeing another point of view on that.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

wv wrote:

Well I dont think it will help much at all. But i think every little iota of leaning-toward-the-light helps. You didn’t just write it wouldnt help, but you wrote it would hurt. “divisive” etc.

Yeah, it’ll cause divisiveness, but it’ll cause other things too. All in all, I think its a ‘positive’ thing, despite the divisiveness.

Do you think the Carlos/Smith act was meaningless or divisive?

I like the fact it was aimed at Grid-iron fans. Gridiron fans get HEAVY dose after dose after dose of the usual pro-authority, pro-system crap. I am in favor of them seeing another point of view on that.

w
v

Yeah, me too.

Sometimes shaking things up a little is all you can do.

Well, I can see your point and I agree with Kaepernick’s sentiment but I think if it does anything it will turn more people against BLM. What would have been an appropriate action by Kaepernick? I’m not sure but I don’t think this was it.

He has good intentions but that isn’t enough. The way you stage your protest matters and can ultimately hurt your cause – like when Greenpeace destroyed the ancient Nazca Lines in Peru during a publicity stunt a coupla years ago.

NewMexicoRam wrote:

________________________________________

Good words there, zn.

While I believe in free speech, I also believe one must be wise in what they say publicly. Words reflect back and, in this case, can hurt the team and efforts to both unify the team and reach out to the fan base.

If I spoke out on every issue I thought strongly about, probably half of my patients would be upset or feel alienated somehow. That’s not fair to them.

\

This, imo, is the only valid argument against what he did.

That it will divide the team, and distract them from their jobs. There is some merit to that argument, I believe.

However, I will point out that there are all kinds of behaviors – holdouts, drugs, anger issues, violence, laziness, primadonnas, on and on – that can do the same thing. A football player has to focus. A professional has to focus. In theatre – which is the world I know – actors convince the audience they are batshit crazy in love with one another even when they actually hate each other in real life. That’s focus. That’s professionalism. That’s on Coach Kelly.

CK knew this would cost him money, and he’d get killed on social media. And that it wouldn’t make any difference in the end.

And he did it anyway.

Because it mattered to him. Enough to go through all this.

I respect that.