Colin Kaepernick made a good point about racial oppression — predictably, unthinking people piled onto him

© 2016 Peter Free

 

30 August 2016

 

 

Hard to argue with

 

After American football's Colin Kaepernick decided not to stand for our national anthem, he explained that his protest was focused against the racism that regularly kills black people in the United States:

 

 

"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."

 

© Steve Wyche, Colin Kaepernick explains why he sat during national anthem, NFL.com (28 August 2016)

 

 

Considering that the United States was founded upon the backs of slaves, whose descendants we still abuse, one cannot reasonably argue with Mr. Kaepernick's logic.

 

 

Nevertheless —  a Louts' Field Day resulted

 

America's domineering portion of self-righteous boneheads immediately criticized Mr. Kapernick's gesture. See here and here.

 

Many of these folks reasoned that disrespecting the flag equates to disrespecting our troops and their sacrifices.

 

Criticizing our mythologized American Way is, evidently, out of bounds. Because, you know, my country right or wrong.

 

 

Short-circuited analyses on their parts

 

The purpose to symbols is exactly their abbreviating function. Not standing for the Anthem allowed Colin Kaepernick to make an emotion-sharpened point about racism that could not have been so effectively conveyed any other way. But because symbols are so extremely condensed, it is easy to jump to blanket conclusions that the "speaker" did not mean. Which is what happened to Kaepernick.

 

On the one hand, he could have avoided misinterpretation by not choosing such a symbolic gesture. Yet, without choosing such an emotional avenue of expression, he could not have gained the widespread attention that the bigotry problem needs to fix itself.

 

 

Enter the irrepressibly unthinking Donald Trump

 

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, never content to interrupt his flow of drooling idiocies said of Kaepernick:

 

 

Maybe he should find a country that works better for him.

 

© 2016 Scott Bixby, Trump on Colin Kaepernick: 'He should find a country that works better for him', The Guardian (29 August 2016)

 

 

This comes from the same peckerhead, who has been deriding American circumstances and many of its residents at every turn.

 

 

The moral? — Negative reactions to Kaepernick prove his point

 

Accurately seeing ourselves is not an American strength.

 

Excessive flag-waving hypnotizes us into ignorance.