San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick has remained seated for the national anthem for at least three games. He says he will continue to sit out the anthem for as long as it takes. It’s a huge deal for some reason, I think because it’s a tricky and salty election year, and because every racist troll feels empowered on social media. Kaepernick has been getting hammered in sports media, mainstream media, and especially in conservative media. The conservative media has deflecting the issue back to “this is disrespectful to… the troops! To veterans! To the military!” Which is why this new hashtag is pretty extraordinary – currently, #VeteransForKaepernick has been trending on Twitter for the better part of a day. While some racists are trolling the hashtag, there’s a lot of great support out there. And some of the posts absolutely made me tear up. This is some great America-troop-woke-BLM-free speech right here.
Don't use my service–or that of any veteran–to justify the silencing of black Americans. Not on my watch. #VeteransForKaepernick
— Charles Clymer (@cmclymer) August 31, 2016
As a veteran, I have been saying for days, do NOT use OUR service as an excuse for YOUR racism and false patriotism. #VeteransForKaepernick
— K. Todd Ramer (@K_ToddRamer) August 31, 2016
#VeteransForKaepernick because I didn't volunteer to defend a country where police brutality is swept under the rug. pic.twitter.com/LtBkTvHHAn
— Baltic Avenue (@Baltic_Avenue) August 31, 2016
I was a Black man before my service and will still be a Black man when I'm done #VeteransForKaepernick pic.twitter.com/Sjm8Laq9fB
— Dominique Thorpe (@GenuinelySpoken) August 31, 2016
I serve for his right to protest.. I don't serve for Police Brutality.. #VeteransForKaepernick pic.twitter.com/Q6GUNTwHDO
— Airbnb Papi (@JoeOnDemand) August 31, 2016
I serve to protect your freedoms, not a song #VeteransForKaepernick pic.twitter.com/HcCkMsVMOh
— Marco (@BasedMarcoM) August 31, 2016
#VeteransForKaepernick Because we're actually not all self-centered racists. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/VHnW5Pbxav
— Ed Beck (@DEdwardBeck) August 31, 2016
The oath was defend the Consitution not the anthem. #Veteransforkaepernick pic.twitter.com/pJFaqag868
— Dave Bledsoe (@TheHell_Podcast) August 31, 2016
Anthem protest may be rude, but weakening NATO, lax nuke policy & sowing hatred is dangerous.#VeteransForKaepernick pic.twitter.com/YSRUC8uTuj
— Col. Morris Davis (@ColMorrisDavis) August 31, 2016
I served this country honorably for his right to protest the way he saw fit. #VeteransForKaepernick pic.twitter.com/b2LiyAXa2q
— Miss B. (@brittneeraebaby) August 31, 2016
May not agree with his method of protest but fought for and respect his right to do it #VeteransForKaepernick pic.twitter.com/XkLqhW0UsZ
— Johnny Painter (@damnredskinsfan) August 31, 2016
So sad but TRUE
You can love your country and still ask your country to do better ❤️🇺🇸❤️#VeteransForKaepernick pic.twitter.com/bBHniJ3PUw
— Sherry Jack (@SherryJack321) August 31, 2016
It’s good to see that some/many people get it, right? It’s extraordinary to see so many white veterans (specifically) standing up for Kaepernick, and several of those veterans are even tagging their posts #BlackLivesMatter. VETERAN WOKENESS. Seriously, if you need a pick-me-up today, just read the posts.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Yea – these kinds of tweets make me feel much better about our country.
These tweets made me feel better about humanity.
I agree with both of you. So pleased to see vets stand with him and his first amendment rights.
Real tears…love this so much.
Yes. These are amazing.
Crying here, too. So inspiring!
Chills. Just chills and so much emotion. These people are AMAZING.
That’s awesome. Like they said, you can criticize it at the same time. Doesn’t the Constitution say all men are created equal? So the people who don’t abide by that or do not act accordingly are not holding up the tenets of the Constitution. God bless everyone supporting him.
(…erm, the declaration of independence says all men are created equal. The constitution and amendments guarantee it by law to all citizens regardless of race, religion, and gender. Just clarifying for our non-American friends 🙂 )
@Larelyn – Actually, the US Constitution doesn’t guarantee equality to all regardless of gender. From http://www.equalrightsamendment.org:
“The proposed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) states that the rights guaranteed by the Constitution apply equally to all persons regardless of their sex. After the 19th Amendment affirming women’s right to vote was ratified in 1920, suffragist leader Alice Paul introduced the ERA in 1923 as the next step in bringing “equal justice under law” to all citizens.
In 1972, the ERA was finally passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. The original seven-year time limit was extended by Congress to June 30, 1982, but at that deadline, the ERA had been ratified by only 35 states, three states short of the 38 required to put it into the Constitution. The ERA has been introduced into every Congress since the deadline.”
The following states still have yet to ratify this proposed amendment:
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.
It boggles my mind to think that we’ve got a woman running for President of the United States, but under our Constitution, she has no rights to equality with men.
Reading this and the article on the FSU player who sat with the autistic boy for lunch. What a great way to start the morning.
Kareem Abdul Jabbar did an excellent piece in the Washington Post about this matter and there was a longer veteran piece all over FB yesterday but I can’t recall the man’s name.
This one?
http://heavyarethecrowns.tumblr.com/post/149723213254/the-movemnt-its-long-but-please-read-this
Yes that’s the one. Thanks!
Thank you so much for sharing that. That was so incredibly moving and poignant.
Argh….it’s to early in the morning to tear up like this..
That was a great read, thank you for sharing it!
The Heavy Are The Crowns Tumblr is a repost of a Jim Wright blog essay. I follow Jim Wright / Stonekettle Station on Facebook, find most of his essays very thoughtful. The style can be bombastic but I find his perspective very valuable.
This is beautiful. Made my day:)
Really, what’s more American than someone exercising their right to peaceful civil disobedience?
This is hotness. WERK.
I saw a great cartoon on FB this morning: the first panel had anti-BLM types saying “Black people should protest more quietly!”, and the second panel had Kaepernick sitting quietly during the anthem and the same people yelling “NO! NOT LIKE THAT!” *snicker*
Brilliant!
I love that!
That was awesome.
On a superficial note: That @Ed Beck is kind of cute. I might just have to stalk, I mean follow him on Twitter. 🙂
I am so happy the veterans did this. The argument about disrespecting veterans was so nonsensical to me. Like when people were protesting invading Iraq and somehow those people were against the vets – because they wanted to bring them home. The military gets co=opted for so much crap. Glad to see so many of them taking a stand.
I love the one that admits he finds the protest rude but notes the real dangers include spreading hatred. That’s perfect! Very honest. It is rude…that’s the point!
Somewhat off topic: One thing people both right and left are bad at is responding to protest in a way that doesn’t just perpetuate it. A handful of idiots on Twitter start an offensive hashtag…those against it are the ones who get it to trend in their eagerness to register their outrage. In this case? Instead of shrugging this off as “eh some football player is sitting around”, those against have only spread his message. There’s a sociology thesis in here somewhere.
This made me smile. I’m so glad so many veterans are supporting him. It’s not about not supporting veterans. What is more patriotic than freedom of expression? Its about feeling no matter how hard you work and successful you are, you feel like a second class citizen in your own country. It’s about we have to do better in addressing racism and xenophobia.
Waiting for those who came out in droves to condemn Kaepernick… Hope this thread has lots of comments likes yesterday’s
Nah, let’s NOT wait for them.
Let’s enjoy their pointed silence with a chilled lemonade and the sense of satisfaction because all the “He’s disrespecting the military, he’s disrespecting the rights”
NO!
YOU decided that the honor and representation of your country was so synonymous with a song that it was more important to force everyone to stand for it when the whole point was supposed to be “FREEDOM!!!”
But I think that one comment sums it up perfectly. You can complain about this country if you’re a white dude, even better if you’re actually wealthy, but complaining while a minority?
Gosh you could just feel the “Go back to YOUR own country” seething off some of the responses to him.
*coming through with the Popcorn for this crap*
The silence is very telling, isn’t it? 🤔
Eternal, that Lemonade sounds good right about now! QQ: I like my popcorn with extra butter! Hand it over
LOL YEAH Almondjoy, Love that this thread doesn’t have 2686 comments about telling this boy how deeply offensive he is and how to behave and the hurt feefees of the troops, I peeped game
I’m still waiting.
Where yall at?
Me too girl…..
It’s awfully quiet over here today
It seems that we’re going to be waiting for a while since they’re so quiet.
Not a peep, y’all 💀💀
It is always a good day when people GET IT.
These veterans GET IT.
They get the ludicrous demand of asking people to worship a flag as representation of a country while also then demanding we never criticize that country or show our disapproval of the fact the country seems to be fighting tooth and nail to continuously let POC know they are unwelcome and unwanted.
It’s like the individuals who say, “Well blacks fought for the south in the civil war too!” Yep. With their masters behind them and their guns pointed at their backs they sure did ‘willingly’ fight for the South, they even posed for the photos too. We are getting to a point where the disatisfaction is too high and the results are too paltry. Expect more voices to be heard.
I was having such a terrible day and this made me feel better. Thank you.
I really feel hope at seeing so many white men defend him and call out racists. Like maybe we can work things out in this country after all? Fingers crossed.
Proud of our men and women in the military; how they are standing up for our rights to express our opinions. A million thanks for all you do for us every day.
I think this is great! I liked the point about still loving your country, but asking it to do better. I feel like that’s what it boils down to- it’s not about hate or disrespect, it’s about saying we can do better, and there’s still a lot of work to be done, and that we need to start making serious changes.
^ This +10000
I also agree with your statement. Yes you can love your country while thinking it needs to do better without blind devotion, there is a middle ground here.
did anyone even realize he sat before his post game press conference? I’m going to envoke my first amendment right and call bull on his motivation. Kap was missing the lime light.
There you are.
Hey guys I found one.
Stroll to comment 13 if you are wondering what I am talking about.
I certainly respect that this fellow should be allowed to peacefully protest as he sees fit, but is his entire protest around the issue of police brutality?
Please forgive my ignorance here, as I am not American.
I really don’t understand why the US seems to be so anti-police lately. Of course I know about numerous police shootings, but am I wrong in understanding that some (certainly not all) of the shootings were deemed to be justified (ie: the Michael Brown shooting seems to be the catalyst in starting the BLM, but wasn’t there more than 1 investigation that revealed that he was indeed trying to get the officer’s gun? how his DNA was inside the patrol car, on the service weapon, etc; and this all happened after he robbed a store? )
What about the officers that were murdered in New York, Dallas and Baton Rouge? I would think that the peaceful protest should be about ending Gun Violence, not just about police brutality.
KellySunshine
First – you have been misinformed about the Michael Brown case.
Secondly, the US is not anti-police. The US does have a problem with police violence against minorities. There is also a problem with police violence against minorities not being prosecuted. And you have been misinformed about these shootings being justified. The Tamir Rice shooting was ‘deemed justified’. All you need to do is google it to see that it wasn’t. He was a little boy with a toy gun. The police shot him within 2 seconds (not minutes, seconds) of getting out of their cars. Neither of them was held responsible.
If you need an example compare it to the the Still-Unnamed-White-Man that actually shot at the police with a gun and they responded by waiting several hours and then shooting him with bean bags to subdue him before they took him into custody.
http://www.complex.com/life/2016/08/white-man-california-shoots-at-cops-gets-shot-beanbags-arrested
So obviously all of these ‘investigations’ are not at all unbiased. The police manage to arrest white people, even when they are armed. without killing them.
That is why this debate about Kaepernick has focused on the anthem and not what he is actually protesting. Black people are being killed in the streets by our own law enforcement, and nobody is being punished. It’s insane. It’s horrific. I’m a lawyer, and live in an upper middle class neighborhood and I am the mother of a black son and I’m terrified for him everyday.
“but wasn’t there more than 1 investigation that revealed that he was indeed trying to get the officer’s gun? how his DNA was inside the patrol car, on the service weapon, etc; and this all happened after he robbed a store? )”
Well you can believe what you want but the store owner even said that it wasn’t Brown who robbed the store. And BTW it was more of shoplifting or petty theft. No weapons were used. That doesn’t make it right but when you say robbed you make it seems as if he had a weapon.
And even if those investigations were accurate and I don’t believe they are (the forensic person on the case even said some of her words were taking out of context) does this excuse an officer from firing his weapon into a person 6 times. The final blow was the bullet to Brown’s head all because a White cop claims he was afraid of the big bad 6’4 Black man.
And it is awful what happened to those cops but were you saying what about all the Black men, that the cops have shot and killed. If you notice the murdering of those cops didn’t take place until after Brown and numerous Black men had been wrongfully killed by cops. Where is your sympathy for them? Where is your sympathy for Akai Gurley who was shot and killed by a cop in Brooklyn simply because he chose to take the stairs because the elevator was taking too long.
And I must add:
And what about Eric Garner of Long Island who was choked to death by police for selling cigarettes. Even while down on the ground he said he couldn’t breath but that racist cop wouldn’t take his arm from around his neck. What about him. Huh?
Hi Kelly! So I’m assuming that these murders have not dominated your news as you are not in the US, as you say. I am an American (and also white, so this is coming from that perspective). At this point, the names of the victims that are being brought to the forefront of the Black Lives Matter movement are, as far as I know, accused of (at most) fairly petty crimes. Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, John Crawford, Sandra Bland, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray, the list goes on. The sources that are telling you Michael Brown left DNA at different locations are, at best, spurious (I am an expert in forensics professionally, also coming from that perspective!). I get that you probably have a more limited access to information regarding these cases, so I think your questions are fair.
Furthermore, Black Lives Matter is a peaceful movement that more violent people use as a lightning rod to commit violence towards police officers. Violence towards officers is not the answer, and is not the goal of BLM. It can be difficult to pick through the truth of what is actually happening through all of the op-eds and false reporting.
Amazing men in the military fighting for our freedom. Hoping now that Colin thanks them on his twitter and says what an amazing country he lives in. He can still continue to sit down – his right. But hope that he acknowledges within that that people also have the right to disagree with him. That is what a free country is all about. Unfortunately although this has been a great lesson in freedoms in America and he has received a lot of attention it did not do what he wanted it to do. No one is discussing his concerns on any blog or report I have read. Chicago has the worst murder rate in 20 years – one article on the fact that the gangs no longer are concerned when the police show up and feel they are in control of the city. Unfortunately all the deaths in Chicago are POC not from the police. How and when will this end? Hoping he will continue with his activism beyond what he has already done. He has put his name out there so people will be watching him.
This is giving me hope.
yes. It’s nice to feel it again, it seems in such short supply of late.
I haven’t posted here for a long time, but I came to add to the support of this thread. I read the twitter feed for #VeteransforKaepenick and I felt a mix of relief, joy, pride and validation. So many of the tweets were ON POINT. It’s telling that it took the main stream media a while to report on it and yet they were so quick to report on the negativity.
Great thread. Nice to see open minded post.
Nope. Hes a jerk. Its offensive. It would be offensive if a russian did it during the russian anthem. Its just offensive.
Just bc he can protest does not mean he should.
And besides if anything he should know better. Today you cannot offend anyone.
I agree with these tweets………..the man has a right to lodge a protest and if this is his method, then so be it, I too defend his right to it,
But as is said on this board repeatedly : You have a right to your opinion, but if others find it offensive, you will get called out. Your free speech doesn’t protect you from the consequences.
Plenty of folks disagree with his method and are saying so. I disagree with his method, I defend his right, I just disagree with it and yes I think it is going to cost him. There were NFL execs quoted in an article today saying no other team will pick him up if the 49ers cut him–which is a possibility due to this drama and his injury proneness and lackluster performance,
So yeah……..carry on as you choose and bear the possible consequences of it
“I disagree with his method, I defend his right, I just disagree with it and yes I think it is going to cost him. There were NFL execs quoted in an article today saying no other team will pick him up if the 49ers cut him–which is a possibility due to this drama and his injury proneness and lackluster performance,
So yeah……..carry on as you choose and bear the possible consequences of it”
_____________________
You say that as though it’s a bad thing 🙂
Standing up for civil rights>>>>>>money, fame, football. If he were my family member I would be proud to say he sacrificed his career to bring attention to police brutality against Black people. Which is so similar to the intense brutality shown to slaves as though Black skin is immune to pain or not human.
He is on the right side of history and will be remembered by even non-sports fans.
I clearly said I supported his right to sit down during the national anthem but I don’t like it worth a flip. Despite its many flaws and its many opportunities for improvement, — which we should acknowledge and work to fix — I am a patriot at heart and find it hurtful when others aren’t. But as the saying goes — I don’t like what you say (do), but I will defend your right to say (do) it.
So yeah — bear the consequences. Whether the consequences of his action are a good thing or a bad thing for him isn’t directly in my purview to determine. I’ll let karma sort that out. For all,his reasons involving others that are sound….there are reasons involving others that say maybe he should rethink this, I guarantee his employer and most of his teammates don’t want this type of attention on game day, nor him using game day platform for other purposes that don’t involve the franchise. They want his head, his heart and his attention 1000% …….and to use his off the field time for his personal conviction activities and messaging, And given what they pay him, they have the right to expect that.
So yeah — there may be consequences to his choice, And I’m ok with that.
My father was killed in Vietnam. I WILL say it, he was killed for politics. Good God it still hurts.
People don’t want to hear that America is cruel like that. And America isn’t. But the United States sure is. There’s a lot of policies and politics and nastiness that the United States enforces that are wholeheartedly un-American.
Sit down, Mr. Kaepernick. Sit down until it is right. I applaud you.