Why the Sports World Can't Handle Colin Kaepernick's Protest

The picture that launched 1000+ conversations. If used please credit @jenniferleechan Jennifer Lee Chan / SB Nation. pic.twitter.com/eIqagtTlSc
— Jennifer Lee Chan (@jenniferleechan) August 29, 2016

Sometimes it feels like patriotism has replaced organized religion as a means of controlling and influencing the public. The virtue of the various arms of American muscle—athletic, economic, diplomatic, military, etc.—is presented as something that is to be accepted completely and without scrutiny as the One Truth all Americans must believe in, or else they don't believe in the virtue of America at all. That an abstraction like a "country" can be infallibly virtuous—let alone a country born of treason—is arguably shaky as far as premises go,but we do believe in it. We believe in it so strongly that people lost their goddamned minds when a football player chose not to stand up during a rendition of the "Star Spangled Banner" before a preseason NFL game.

In explaining his silent protest, San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick said that he couldn't stand to "show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color." Kaepernick was referring to the long list—one that gets longer by the day—of black men, women, and children who have been killed by police officers, and the institutional racism that enables it to happen repeatedly and with little consequence. So, Kaepernick decided to sit down during the national anthem before the 49ers played the Green Bay Packers on Friday night. The reaction was swift and predictable. The most charitable criticisms—the ones that didn't simply resort to the knee-jerk racism and dog whistles of "thug" or worse—said that Kaepernick should do something meaningful, either with his money, time, or both, rather than taking the easy way out by simply staging a one-man protest. Take action, went the argument. Don't just make an empty gesture.

The irony of asserting this—given that professing support for America's service men and women has become so prevalent, to the point of compulsion by shame, as to become robotic—was surely lost on those critics. For a country that prides itself on the strength and righteousness of its institutions and the foundations of its freedoms, we sure have a hard time handling it when a movement criticizes the police, or a quarterback sits on the bench while someone sings a song.

How does this happen? There's racism. There's the specifically American Male Fascination With Authority. But there is another element at play. Sports leagues have seized on the convenience of aligning themselves with patriotism; giant, field-sized American flags started cropping up at football games long before the Department of Defense started paying NFL teams millions of dollars to put on advertisements in their stadiums. Army Rangers would parachute into Yankee Stadium. All kinds of aircraft were flying over stadiums across the country. College basketball games were played on aircraft carriers. Sports and the military became business partners, and fans ate it all up.

You wouldn't know it by observing the discourse on these topics, but it is possible to consider a complex subject and have a nuanced opinion on it. For instance: it is possible to support police departments and acknowledge the risks men and women take in serving their communities and respect those who take that risk while also disagreeing with the rampant militarization of those police departments, questioning the tactics used in serving those communities—like asking if the community is even served by those tactics—and recognizing that there is a serious, justifiable lack of trust between police and minority communities. Not only is that a credible opinion to hold, it is entirely more thoughtful than the you're either with us or against us mentality that responds to #BlackLivesMatter with #AllLivesMatter.

This nuance is not particularly difficult to wrap one's head around, but the deck has been stacked in such a way that to come out in favor of a lawful, benign protest such as Kaepernick's is to be labeled and attacked as unpatriotic. That's especially true in football, and a perfect example came just moments ago courtesy of Kaepernick's old coach with the Niners, Jim Harbaugh. Harbaugh, now at Michigan, was asked to comment on the protest and the usually quick-talking though carefully considered coach was reduced to a stammering mess.

Video of @CoachJim4UM saying he doesn't respect Kap's motivation which are racial equality & end of police brutality pic.twitter.com/5eTPkiajaD
— BlackSportsOnline (@BSO) August 29, 2016

I apologize for misspeaking my true sentiments. To clarify, I support Colin's motivation. It's his method of action that I take exception to
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) August 29, 2016

He "acknowledged his right to do that," but did not respect the motivation, or the action itself. He tried to be nuanced, he tried to "acknowledge" a fundamental American right, which was nice of him, but then … he couldn't. Colin Kaepernick has the right to protest police brutality by sitting during the national anthem, but he just can't go all willy-nilly and protest police brutality by sitting during the national anthem. That is what Jim Harbaugh said, even after having the opportunity to rethink his words. The notion of mindful, civil protest involving a long-manipulated patriotic symbol has become so fraught, so taboo that it makes intelligent men directly contradict themselves in one sentence.

This is a symptom of a larger problem: our society does not value thoughtfulness, and that is very much reflected in the sports world. Of course we couldn't manage a thoughtful response to Kaepernick's protest. Our version of thoughtfulness in the sports media landscape is to observe that Kornheiser and Wilbon are more thoughtful than Whitlock and Cowherd. Football Man Jim Harbaugh might "support Colin's motivation" but he does not want to be labeled unpatriotic, so he can't support what everyone considers Kaepernick's blatant disrespect. Far easier to align oneself with what is most palatable, and dismiss everything else out of pocket. You're either with us or against us. In such a climate, there is little room for those who point out the fatal flaws in an institution—or a country—and imagine its betterment. That's why seemingly everyone in the sports world has a problem with what Kaepernick did; It was doomed from the start because of this widespread inability or unwillingness to understand the opposing view.