When San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided not to stand but to bend down on one knee during the national anthem, he may not have anticipated (or did he?) that he was choosing to end his stellar career in professional football. We now know, however, that is exactly what he did, and it is a price he was willing to pay.
Colin Kaepernick is a brave man, a man of principle and deep moral conviction who has risked more than his livelihood by standing (or kneeling) for the cause of racial justice and non-violence.
Colin Kaepernick is an American hero. Every American Christian should have rallied to his side.
In light of the stark disparity between the ways policemen often treat white suspects and people of color, Mr. Kaepernick explained,
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way.”
Kaepernick wasn’t acting in a vacuum. He spoke out – and kneeled down – after a spate of videos went public showing police encounters with black citizens. These videos, many of which I have watched, documented uncalled for deadly assaults against unarmed men, women and children whose only “crime” was being black.
Exercising both his rights and his conscience as a black (biracial) American, Mr. Kaepernick kneeled to demonstrate his solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. A movement arising in the aftermath of these shocking video revelations.
Such non-violent, racial justice movements as Black Lives Matter is something else that every Christian church in America should kneel down in prayer and repentance to support.
But Mr. Kaepernick’s acts of conscience, and the malicious character assassination he suffered afterwards, have not only shed much needed light on the ugly face of racist, police brutality. It has also helped to uncover a dark intersection between American racism, militarism and social engineering.
How many football fans recall that prior to 2009 the players didn’t come out onto the football field until after the national anthem had been sung? They simply stayed in the locker room.
What changed?
The NFL climbed into bed with the Defense Department. That’s what changed.
The American addiction to never-ending war, a lust for money by the owners of professional sports teams, and the military’s ceaseless appetite for more young bodies to toss into war’s meat grinder all conspired to manipulate an unwitting public. Combining this toxic brew with America’s ever-present, persistent racism turns Colin Kaepernick’s noble protest into a profound come-to-Jesus moment for the entire nation.
America’s numerous, ongoing wars are stretching our armed forces to the breaking point. So, trusting in the nation’s near-religious devotion to weekly football games, the Pentagon set its sights on the NFL as a new recruitment bonanza.
From 2011 to 2014 the US Defense Department funneled $5.4 million to the NFL and $6.7 million to the National Guard (from 2013 to 2015) after the league agreed “to stage on-field patriotic ceremonies”in an effort to increase military recruitment.
Eventually, Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake initiated a 150-page Joint Oversight Report entitled “Tackling Paid Patriotism” condemning the Defense Department’s cozy arrangement with the NFL as a misuse of American tax dollars.
The senators declared that such “paid patriotism” must end. Has anyone threaten to end their careers?
The Pentagon had become a massive silent partner to the NFL, and the NFL was offered a new way to become even more profitable at the expense of young, idealistic, testosterone-driven fans who could now link their favorite running back with running the bloody gauntlet of a foreign battlefield.
It is not surprising that American sports and warfare should become such comfortable bedfellows.
This convergence of professional sports and American empire followed a dog-eared script as old as the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome. It also provided a perfect platform for Colin Kaepernick to confront American racism (directly) and draw attention to the military’s cancerous infiltration of our society (indirectly).
I have no idea what Mr. Kaepernick’s religious convictions may be. But I do know that he is extraordinarily generous with his time and his money in numerous community service programs reaching out to America’s most vulnerable members.
Colin Kaepernick offers a far more faithful model of what Christian discipleship ought to look like than any of the perfunctory end-zone prayers touted as Christian witness on ESPN.
Forget the flag and the national anthem. All of America, beginning with the Christian church, ought to be standing with Colin Kaepernick.
