Evolution Of Taking A Knee
Colin Kaepernick’s Protest Five Years Ago Still Resonates
Colin Kaepernick’s protest against racism landed in Tokyo this past week. The landing was smooth and powerful.
It was not exactly the same as Kaepernick’s protesting but the target remains the same — racism. Kap’s protest was specifically directed at a particular manifestation of racism — police officers killing unarmed Black people, and the perpetrators not being held accountable.
The current protest, I interpret as, all of the above (racism) and especially racism at the Tokyo Olympics.
Initially, the International Olympic Committee banned any protest kneeling during the Tokyo Games. They cited a long-standing rule of the Games banning political protests in the rules.
That rule was put in place because of the most famous Olympic protest of all in 1968 when Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised black-gloved fists in the air as they received their medals and the National Anthem played in Mexico City. Theirs is the gold standard of athletic protesting.
Smith and Carlos were stripped of their medals and tossed out of the Olympics.
The IOC changed its mind on protests this year and is allowing kneeling protests.
Various women’s soccer teams from several countries took the loosening of the rules as an opportunity to speak to the entire world.
Sweden, Chile, United States, and Great Britain all took a knee before their matches began. The protests were, in fact, coordinated by the teams as all 11 players for each team took a knee before the match.
There is still huge division regarding the protests, especially in the U.S.
A photo has been recently circulating after the protest showing three of the U.S. women team members standing with their hands on their hearts. It is suggested in various social media posts that these players stood while their teammates did not.
The descriptions are false; the photo is a lie and the social media manipulation. All 11 members of the U.S. women’s team took a knee before the match began. They also all stood during the anthem.
Yet, the damage was done.
The women standing with their hearts on their chests allegedly during the national anthem are described by commenters on social media as “patriots” and “heroes.”
The U.S. women players who are said to have kneeled (again, all of them kneeled ) were called all sorts of names on the thread: “pc commies,” “Marxists” and “losers” mostly.
Many said they were hoping the team would lose even though several women’s teams have kneeled before matches to protest “racism” at the Tokyo Olympics.
One person posting asked, “why did Sweden players take a knee?”
A response, typical of many responses I read: “Because their teams have some morons on it too???”
All of this again demonstrated to me that the misinformation campaign has had some success but it hasn’t stopped the movement.
Kaepernick’s Moment
A few things should be made clear about the original protest that began in 2016:
- People and athletes are not kneeling to protest the flag.
- People and athletes are not kneeling to protest the military.
- People and athletes are not kneeling to trash the country.
- People and athletes are kneeling to protest racism and racist acts in their respective countries and the world.
The protests began when NFL Quarterback, Colin Kaepernick began sitting during the National Anthem on August 14, 2016. No one said anything at first. Kap did not inform his team of what he planned to do.
The media didn’t really pay attention either to his quiet act of civil disobedience during a football game.
Then, after the third game where he sat during the anthem, Kaepernick was asked by the media horde in the locker room why he sat:
“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. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
On September 1, 2016, his teammate, Eric Reid joined him in protesting by sitting.
Eventually, Kaepernick’s protest of sitting was refined to taking a knee. This happened after he met with Nate Boyer, an ex-NFL player, and an ex-Green Beret.
Boyer told HBO’s Real Sports that they came to a “middle ground where he would take a knee alongside his teammates,” Boyer told HBO’s “Real Sports.” The logic according to Boyer was “soldiers take a knee in front of a fallen brother’s grave, you know, to show respect.”
Kaepernick continued his protest throughout the season and was booed everywhere. The protest became divisive throughout the country and was bad for the NFL.
The NFL forced Kaepernick out of the league (no team signed him once he became a free agent though he was/is a very good quarterback) after his protest and the end of his contract. Multiple lesser quarterbacks were signed by many teams.
It should be also noted that Kaepernick’s protest was not started in some meaningless moment either. Unarmed Black men and boys killed by police officers and not being held accountable is part of American history, past and present. This is the crux of his protest in the U.S.
Equal justice. Police officers should be held accountable for their acts of violence. Stop using crude constructions of legal statutes and court cases to give them a free pass to kill. Hold them accountable just like Monday night muggers.
Unarmed Black men are three times as likely as white men to be killed by police officers. Those are facts. Police officers are rarely if ever prosecuted for killing people. Another fact.
Yet, in 2016, two shootings in particular likely triggered Kaepernick and others. Police officers shot and killed Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge that summer and Philando Castille in Minneapolis. Both shootings were brutal, unnecessary, and very public (videotaped).
These shootings of unarmed Black men came after Michael Brown in 2014 and the killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015.
No police officer had to answer for any of those killings.
When George Floyd was choked to death in 2020 after Breonna Taylor was shot to death in her bed by police officers, the protest levee burst. Kaepernick’s solo flight into social disobedience history was joined by millions.
People filled the streets in protest everywhere. Finally, the masses got it, at least for a short while. This is wrong. We must say something today.
That summer and fall, 2020, of Covid-19 globally, professional sports teams kneeled. NBA players kneeled in the bubble. Baseball players even did it. Naomi Osaka, the world’s best women’s professional tennis player, wore masks to her matches with the names of Black people killed by police.
Police officers kneeled to try to say to some of us they understood what was being said. Other nations, in mass, hit the streets in protest.
Support for the protests has ebbed and flowed but it has always remained a divisive moment. It is again in our faces as our athletes have again pushed it rightfully back to the forefront.
Euro Cup 2021
And it is not just the Olympics either that brought the protests back.
During the Euro Cup, England’s soccer team kneeled before their matches. Soccer, as is well known, is a favored setting for expressions of racism from fans. Black players catch racist vitriol regularly.
Coach of the British team, Gareth Southgate announced prior to the tournament that the team would take a knee before their matches. He specifically felt people did not get the meaning of the protests.
In Southgate’s view, they are a team. They support one another. Just because a player is kneeling does not mean they are kneeling just to protest. They are kneeling in support of those on the team who are subject to racism and bigotry and want to protest. And yes, perhaps they are also kneeling for their own beliefs as well.
The British team stuck to its guns despite trepidation from the country’s leadership who did not really support the announced protest.
The team kneeled. They were booed and received strong applause. This wasn’t their goal anyway. They were going to kneel; the question was, what was the public going to do when they took a knee? Isn’t that always the question?
Eventually, as England kept winning, the fans who booed were drowned by applause. Their cause is just. They are not hurting anyone. They are trying to have a dialogue with the world in silence. Just like the athletes in Tokyo did early this week.
When the English team lost in the Euro Final to Italy in a penalty shootout, three of their players of color were subjected to vile racial epithets via social media and death threats. Neo-nazi groups weighed into it and the racial temperature had an uptick.
This all happened before the women’s soccer teams did their thing at the Tokyo Olympics. It proves their protest to be necessary. Southgate’s decision was also the right one.
