By Christopher Townsend
Controversy surrounding kneeling protests in the NFL has been highly divisive, but it is important to examine just how political sports arenas have always been. Many Olympic athletes in 1936, for example, boycotted the Games held in Germany as a protest to the Nazi government. In 1996, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf prayed during the Anthem instead of standing at attention, and in 2010, the Phoenix Suns wore “Los Suns” as acknowledgement of Arizona’s large Latino community after Senate Bill 1070, an anti-illegal immigration measure, passed the Arizona legislature. Again, in 2012 Lebron James, Dwyane Wade and many other Miami Heat players wore hoodies to draw attention to the fact that a black man wearing a hoodie ought not have his existence criminalized, as was the case with Trayvon Martin.
Arguably, the most prominent example of political protest in sports history, however, occurred in 1968 when Summer Olympic medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists in protest during the United States National Anthem. They protested the injustices of the Vietnam War, standing in solidarity with mistreated black Americans and Muhammad Ali, who was stripped of his heavyweight championship title due to his refusal to serve in Vietnam. Their intentions were to draw attention to grievances, not to disrespect the American flag, troops, or country. In the same way, Colin Kaepernick, and now many other players, have chosen to use their influence to address the existence of racism in our country. Their protests are peaceful – simply a method of drawing attention to racial injustice in the United States. Kaepernick originally sat during the anthem until he met and spoke with Nate Boyer, a Green Beret veteran who suggested that Kaepernick to change his protest from sitting. He decided to kneel, instead of sit, to respect the military personnel while still highlighting that citizens of color are often excluded from America’s promise of life, liberty, and justice. Black American citizens have been killed in broad daylight in situations where excessive force was clearly used which resulted in death while the officers involved have been acquitted or avoided any major criminal charges. Freddie Grey, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, and the list continues; their lives and the lives of others who have met similar deaths is why the protests continue. American citizens are being killed in plain sight and the justice system offers no justice or protection, in these situations, for people of color. Despite this, many Americans find peaceful protests drawing attention to the unjust treatment of American citizens by the justice system to be distasteful, completely ignoring the reasons for the protests in the first place.
Dissent is never easy. The hate received when standing for justice, despite opposition, can be unnerving, discouraging, and, in some cases, violent. My great grandfather was a civil rights leader in Alabama who engaged in peacefully protesting the law and Jim Crow practices. He relied on his typewriter to correspond with John and Robert Kennedy, Joseph Langan, the mayor of Mobile, Alabama. He actively organized civil disobedience campaigns, including the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, and worked diligently to register blacks to vote. Standing for his beliefs won him many enemies and few friends in Alabama. Many sought to silence him — the Klan, police, and a great number of angry Alabamians. In June 1967, when Klansmen bombed his house, they tried to kill he and his family for protesting against racial inequality.
Protesting is never easy, and it will always anger those who feel that nothing is wrong. In previous times, peaceful protesters were told that they were disrespectful, disruptive, out of line, asking for too much, and even had a sitting United States president, Lyndon Johnson, tell them to scale back their efforts. Protesting is never popular thing to do because protestors make enemies, endanger themselves and their loved ones. NFL Protestors have had the President of the United States attack them and demand forcefully that they stand for the National Anthem. As long as the protest is rooted in justice and the matter is an actual social problem, however, we must continue protesting and stay focused on our goal of equality and freedom, which “is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”