Why is the president calling those who peacefully and respectfully silently signify their belief in equality and protest against racial injustice “SOBs”?
Here’s a link to understanding Colin Kaepernick’s action: www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/sports/colin-kaepernick-nfl-protests.html?mwrsm
Eric Reid joined him after the backlash against Kaepernick started. Reid, a religious person, got his inspiration to act from James 2:17 “In the same way, Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” After much discussion between them and with Nate Boyer, a retired Green Beret and former NFL player, they chose kneeling as a respectful gesture. The action is strictly about color inequality in the United States and the disparity of how justice is handled here. Here’s a link to Reid’s articulate description of the action.
www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/colin-kaepernick-football-protests.html?mwrsm
At the same time as calling athletes who choose to protest racial inequality in the United States by kneeling during the national anthem, SOBs, this same man has told us there are “good people” in the clearly stated white supremacists that demonstrated in Charlottesville. Here is what an organizer of that event, Matthew Heimbach, said: “We must secure the existence of our people and the future for white children— as our primary motivating factor.” This is what the IndyStar, an Indiana news source (Heimbach lives in Paoli, Indiana) wrote about him: “He sees America’s diversity as a threat and believes that the country should be carved into ‘ethnostates,’ with each race receiving its own autonomous region. He and his group are also anti-Semitic and believe a ‘Jewish power structure’ controls the world. They deny the Holocaust, admire Adolf Hitler and Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and admire strongmen such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.”
Back to kneeling.
First Kaepernick sat, then after consideration felt kneeling was more respectful. “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 on paid leave getting away with murder.”
No one who kneels has any idea why it is construed as unsupportive of the military or veterans. To say the act of kneeling is disrespectful of veterans or those serving in active duty is not true, i.e., it is a lie. Nor is it unpatriotic; it is not an act of disrespect, but an act of peaceful protest to show support and belief in one of the essential principles on which this country was founded: equality and justice for all. Peaceful opposition to a wrong is the patriotic thing to do.
So who’s the SOB?
